ROYAL ENGINEERS
BOYS SQUADRON
ALDERSHOT
Richard Nobby Clarke
R.I.P.
Richard Nobby Clarke
R.I.P.
I served with the Boy's Squadron
between 1953-55
Richard Clarke and Who?
Hoping this site may bring a few of
us together
Nobby Richard Clarke
I joined boys Sqn at Gibraltar barracks on 3 Jan 1953 I was
just fifteen on the first day I was issued with my kit and a 303 rifle and
bayonet and a bugle then a trumpet but Bob Hardaway the trumpet major gave up
on me as I was tone deaf, the barracks were from Victorian times and they had
not changed much from that time no heating only a stove in the middle of the
room with only enough fuel for a few days no hot water in the wash rooms just
cold taps, every so often we where marched to the bath house to be signed in
for a bath with a time limit of about 10 minutes.
I think we numbered about forty or fifty boys and life was
hard as well as the discipline but we got on with it and made the best of it,
we where paid 17/6 a week 7/6 was kept in credit for us with 10/- = 50p to
spend you had to buy your toiletries and cleaning kit and pay for your frequent
haircuts from this.
Later I think about 1954 we moved to Malta barracks into the
old wooden spider huts that was like coming out of the dark ages as they had
central heating lots of hot water, showers and bath’s.
My time in boys Sqn was a happy time with many friends who I
would like to meet again one of my best friends was Scotty who I met again in Singapore at 10 Port Sqn were he was a skipper of a old Z craft
