Smashed Windows

I remember walking down King Street and Darwen Street and seeing with something of horror the smashed shop-windows of a few alien pork-butchers who only a few days before had been regarded as honest and substantial citizens.

Somehow, it seemed incredible that this could be the work of my own fellow-townsmen; it wasn’t quite “cricket.”  Yet it proved to be only the first of many signs and portents of the new era of war -fever into which we had entered.

Soon there was an epidemic of recruiting posters, infesting the hoardings like a disease, with huge patriotic slogans aimed particularly at the rising generation.

Some of these I remember well.  One depicted a wounded and weary member of the original expeditionary force in a shattered emplacement.  (This was before the period of trench warfare), looking back vainly for reinforcements and asking desperately: “Will they never come?”

God knows we were willing enough.  I myself enlisted at the age of 18 and I could name several youngsters who celebrated their 19th birthday in the firing line.

Probably the poster that influenced us most was that famous one of Lord Kitchener with its pointing finger and steely blue eye above the caption: “Your King and Country need you”.

Another was a vivid illustration of a field gun battery cantering into action with its six-horse teams at full stretch.  “Be with the guns, boys, this is an artillery war” ran the slogan beneath.  In point of fact, it was that spirited drawing that really decided my army career by turning my thoughts towards the Royal Field Artillery.

But meanwhile parental consent had to be obtained, and this involved some discreet manoeuvring.  At the age of 17, active service with a fighting regiment was out of the question.  Ultimately, however, it was decided that I might join some non-combatant corps such as the R.A.M.C. as an orderly or the R N. Medical Service as a sick-berth attendant.