Elvis and Me

NATIONAL SERVICE, ELVIS & ME! is a serious but light-hearted look at the 13 years of peacetime National Service which led to the call-up of around 2.3 million men in their late teenage years. Most men served for 2 years between 1949 and 1961 with the last intakes being demobbed in 1963.

Every alternate Thursday for 13 years 6,000 men were called-up and allocated to either the Army, the RAF or the Royal Navy, with the majority joining the Army. Elvis Presley was on manoeuvres in Germany with the US Forces when he entered the story, and Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE, Harry Corbett, Brian Clough OBE, Kenny Lynch, Bill Wyman and other personalities also feature.

As in David Fowler’s previous book God Bless the Prince of Wales, memories are used abundantly, in this case from many of those who were called up for National Service. Serious in some parts, and hilariously funny in others, there are tales of training in the UK; square bashing and ’bulling’, the somewhat crude ways the forces used to instil discipline into its recruits; war games; the antics many of the testosterone charged men got up to; humour; and the camaraderie which arose from men being thrown into a massive pond and having to sink or swim. Overseas postings are mentioned with some men being sent on active service and nearly 400 making the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

With 512 pages and many photographs this book is a fascinating read for anyone, be they ex-National Service, Forces or ex-Forces, relatives of someone who served, or anyone interested in this period of our history.

(my numbered and author signed copies arrived today; scroll back to earlier blogs to read my contribution)

David Fowler responds

This is wonderful stuff and quite different to most memories I have received.  I am out tonight but give me a few days to digest it and come up with any queries when I will certainly get in touch and arrange to visit.  You mention photos. Were they to be attached or might I see them when we meet with a view to copying them?

Many thanks for your rapid response; I shall be in touch again shortly.

Moving to the previous book - God Bless the Prince of Wales, Scarborough during wartime was a fascinating place but got it's fair share of bombing and damage. Whilst I lived here I was only knee high to a grasshopper having been born in 1938 but the research I have carried out has brought the town to life for me. Probably few of your residents are from Scarborough.  I don't know whether you ever have speakers but I am always happy to attend groups and talk about those war years and the book.
There would of course be no charge if a group of you were interested.

(p.s. David is also treasurer to the Friends of Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough and helps with their magazine)

National Service

(David Fowler is a Scarborough neighbour also working on a new book of National Service memories and I responded to his requests for material)

I enlisted 03.09.52 as 2571064 AC2 and left 03.09.54 with the rank SAC.

I come from a South Yorkshire coal mining village and I was educated at Royston Board school and Normanton Grammar school.

When I was in the lower 6th at Normanton I had a religious experience which left me knowing what I wanted to do with my life and with whom I wanted to share it. Before this vocational experience I was destined to go on from grammar school to university and to become a maths teacher. Everybody wanted me to continue on to university and then to theological college but I had other ideas. I was looking for some real life experience before preparing for Methodist ordination so I left school to do 2 years as a railway clerk and 2 years national service. I am now a retired Anglican priest. The photos show me with Cynthia soon after enlisting at 18 and again in 2007 when we celebrated our golden wedding.

I enlisted at RAF Padgate and I have a guide issued by the chaplains there.

My recruit training was at RAF Hednesford and I have an official photographic record with the signatures of my fellow recruits and training corporal.

Soon after the start of training I was called to interview with a senior officer who said they wanted to transfer me to officer training. He was surprised and upset when I declined and explained that in order to see my national service as a positive experience on the way to ordination I wished to share it with the other ranks. I was aware that if I ever retruned after ordination it would be as an officer. I have never regretted my railway and RAF experience on the way to ordination even though it was clear to me that I could have delayed, or even avoided, national service if I had chosen to go on from grammar school to university and to theological college.

After initial training I was posted to No.1 Group HQ, Bomber Command, at RAF Bawtry, near Doncaster and I remained there for the rest of my 2 years working as Clerk (org) on officers records. Being near to home I was able to return there each free weekend to persue my relationship with Cynthia and to continue taking Sunday services in the chapels as a lay preacher. The officer under whom I worked at Bawtry Hall was very sympathetic to my vocation and allowed me to return to his office in the evenings to persue my studies. He would even see there was a burning fire and plenty of fuel in the winter. He let me take my first flight with him, in a small 6 seater plane, when he flew from RAF Finningley to the Farnborough Air Show. Batry was a small station with extensive grounds. We shared the hall as our work place with a civilian met office. For some reason we had a lots of Scots with us and they produced a pipe band which rehearsed far off in a hut in the
woods. They volounteered for Christmas duty so I even got home for this important festival. Bawtry is a pleasant little town on the old A1 - one side of the road in Yorkshire with gas lamps, the other in Nottinghamshire with electric lights in my day. Plenty of opportunity for cycling down A1 to Retford or out to the Wesley family home at Epworth. Local Methodists - ministers and laity - welcomed me into their homes to counter balance the experience of camp and barracks.

Whilst stationed at RAF Bawtry I was seconded for two important experiences (both on my own):
1) As a member of the RAF contingent at Her Majesty's Coronation when we first gathered from across the country and around the world for training and then under canvas in Hyde Park for the event. On the great day we lined the route in Oxford Street (pouring rain) and I have a press cutting and photograph as the Royal coach went by to prove it.
2) For a Moral Leadership Course in a private hotel at Kents Bank, Grange over sands (3-10 Oct 1953) , organised by the Chaplains Department. I have photos and a log book of this experience.

When my national service ended I went to Cornwall to the home of a Methodist friend from Bawtry for an enjoyable holiday before taking up my place at Richmond, Surrey, Theological college. After Methodist ordination I married Cynthia and we had 3 postings in Cardiff, Leeds, and Knaresborough before I became an Anglican. After further training with the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield we had 3 further postings in Leeds and Bradford before I retired. We first returned to our home village and came to Scarborough 7 year ago in November.

I am the proud possessor of National Service medal 50736, tho I have never worn it

Wartime humour

THE new book God Bless the Prince of Wales, by Scarborough man David Fowler, stems from a period when the town was full of Royal Air Force aircrew trainees.

There were no fewer than three Initial Training Wings in the town during the earlier part of the 1939-45 War.

Scarborough's empty holiday hotels were a ready source of billets for the trainees. One ITW was based on the Esplanade's Prince of Wales Hotel, another on the Grand and other hotels in the St Nicholas Cliff area, while the third was centred on Scarborough College and hotels in its vicinity.

The book has reminded me that the big contingents of RAF personnel left their mark on the town in more ways than one.

Years later, when redecorating work was being done at the St Nicholas Hotel, some cartoons were found drawn on walls which obviously dated from the RAF occupation. They had simply been covered up when the hotel had been handed back for civilian use.

The cartoonist was obviously talented, though 65 years later the RAF humour clearly doesn't come across as well as it would have done when the work was done.

God Bless the Prince of Wales

A 70-year-old Scarborough man has released a book about hotels in the town which were used as bases for aircrew during the Second World War.

David Fowler spent three years writing God Bless the Prince of Wales, Volume One – The War Years about the former Prince of Wales Hotel and others in Scarborough which were used as RAF Initial Training Wings.

The book covers stories such as aircrew training, education, blackouts, air raids, rationing and evacuees as well as memories from many men who trained in Scarborough.

Mr Fowler, of Avenue Victoria, said: "It's really a dedication to people who served in the war. The reaction has been very favourable generally. One guy didn't think it would be his sort of book but when he read it he was fascinated by it all."

He planned to write a trilogy of books about the hotel, which was on the corner of the Esplanade and Prince of Wales Terrace, during different periods of its history.

In 2005, the Evening News ran a piece about Ivor Thompson, who had trained for RAF Aircrew at 11 Initial Training Wing in the Prince of Wales Hotel in World War Two.

Mr Fowler, who is a former bank manager, contacted him for some information and decided to focus on the hotel during the Second World War.

He put an appeal for people's memories in several magazines including Intercom, the Aircrew Association's magazine, and received more than 60 replies.

Mr Fowler said: "The memories from those who got in touch are largely fascinating, in some cases they show true courage, some memories are very humorous and all of them, however brief, paint a vivid picture of those far off days."

The book also looks at the other Initial Training Wings in Scarborough, which were at the Grand Hotel and Scarborough College.

He hopes to write about the pre and post war years of the hotel, which were converted into apartments, in the second and third volumes.

His next book though will focus on the background of the national service.

Mr Fowler used to live in the Prince of Wales Apartments and is President of the OId Scarborian's Association, which includes former staff and pupils of the Scarborough High School for Boys.

God Bless the Prince of Wales is published by Farthings Design and Publishing and is available from Mr Fowler, Scarborough Library, the Stephen Joseph Theatre bookshop, Doodles bookshop in Newborough, the Clock Cafe in Esplanade Gardens as well as online on http://stores.lulu.com/farthings.

Prince of Wales hotel factfile



l The hotel started life as a terrace of houses in 1850 before the site became a hotel 10 years later, soon after the railway came to Scarborough.



l In 1874 Richard Hunt, the manager of the hotel, was instrumental in building the South Cliff Tramway, the first cliff lift of its kind in England to ferry passengers to and from the Spa.



l After the war it was owned by Bertie Cockerline, who owned racehorses and had shipping interests in Hull.



l The Prince of Wales closed as a hotel in the late 1980s and developers moved in to convert the building into luxury flats.