There were no wireless or crystal sets in those days. You just read what was in the paper.
My father took the Penny Pictorial that only cost a penny.
A crystal set had a bit of shiny coal with a coil and earphones. There was a cat’s whisker in a holder with a variometer.
Before the War, we moved to 25 Consett Road, Castleside, which is just behind the Royal Hotel. Father got a car and we ran taxis. I’d help on a Saturday. We had this big Mercedes for Weddings.
Pubs in those days were open from 6 in the morning ‘til 11 at night until the Gretna Crash on 22nd May 1915 in which the driver was found to have been drunk. The two signalmen were imprisoned.
It was soon after that I went up to the recruiting office.
We learnt about the ‘Fourteen Eighteen’ War through one of these huge posters which were put up all over the place in August of 1915 with Kitchener pointing his finger and saying.
“Your Country Needs You.”
Ernie Caldwell and Tom Brown joined early on. They were in the Royal Garrison Artillery. There were two divisions, the Royal Field Artillery and the Royal Garrison Artillery. Ernie Caldwell joined the Royal Field Artillery. He was a driver. He was killed on the 16th September 1916. Tom’s brother Dick got his leg shot in Amsterdam early on. I bumped into Tom at Passchendale in late 1917.
One lunchtime Bill Baron and I went down to the recruiting centre.
Bill and I took it all in a jovial way.
“Fancy going up to the recruiting office in Consett one lunch time?”
I was nineteen but there were lads a lot younger than me who got passed the Recruiting Officer. Boys of 14 and 15 were taken on. My young brother Billy got into the Royal Flying Corps and he was only 16. He claimed to know a bit about planes though, which probably helped. He was flying by the time he was 17, a bomber pilot.
Consett was the recruiting office for the area. It wasn’t far from the office, only about a quarter mile. Up Blackhill by the bank. Bill failed the medical on account of a groin rupture whereas I passed.
Within a few weeks I was called up.
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