A personal family story of a soldier - billeted at the Institute in April 1941.
Reproduced here with kind permission of Angela Di Santo.
My father’s name is Harold John Scott from Ashford, Kent and on 26 February 1941 aged 19, he was registered for Army service. He was drafted
in the Royal Ordinance Army Corps along with Harry Harding, Don Simmons and John Osborne, all from the South of England.
They were to be
stationed at Old Dalby Barracks but as these were not equipped and ready for use, they were temporarily stationed at Earl Shilton.
Arriving at Hinckley Station on 24 April 1941, they slept on the dance floor at George Hall that night. Next morning 40 of them were
transferred to Earl Shilton on an open topped wagon. Their sergeant counted them on arrival and found 42 men and 1 dog! No one knew what
happened to the dog! They were sorted into alphabetical squads, and spent 2 weeks in turn at the Working Men’s Club, the ‘Stute’ and the
Constitutional Club. Their days were spent doing drills in West Street, the fields near Weaver’s Close School and in Station Road. Some
soldiers were already billeted in the Co-op Hall and the Adult School.
My father’s group spent their last weeks in Earl Shilton at the Constitutional Club. During that time, one night when the siren went, everyone
hurriedly dressed and waited for orders. After a while my father decided to lay on top of his bunk and next he knew it was daylight and
realised he had slept through the raid.
His first weeks in Earl Shilton he had been unable to sleep because he found it too quiet. Before
being called up he’d been a bread rounds-man in “Hell Fire Corner” (Ashford, Kent) with a horse driven van. Every time the siren went off, the
horse bolted, so my father became a good sprinter until he learnt to wrap the reins around the brake pedal! As his delivery round was next to
the station, (which is now called Ashford International), he’d seen quite a lot of bombing there. In fact the previous rounds-man had asked
for a transfer - he was too nervous to deliver!
The local vicar at St Simon & St Jude Parish Church asked local residents to host the young soldiers once a week to make them feel welcome in
Earl Shilton and give them the chance to have a hot bath. Imagine 40 soldiers wanting a bath at the Stute, cold water and tin baths? In
return, the soldiers repaired fences and did some gardening and the like for the hosts, and that is how my parents met on 6 May 1941 at my
grandparents’ home.
My mother’s maiden name was Kathleen Joyce Goodman and she lived in Mill Lane, Earl Shilton. When the Old Dalby Barracks were completed my
father left Earl Shilton on 13 June 1941. They marched down to Elmesthorpe station and caught a troop train at 9.00 am travelling via
Leicester, Derby and Nottingham, finally arriving at Old Dalby at 3.30 pm.
My father continued meeting my mother and many times walked from
Old Dalby near Melton Mowbray to Leicester and then caught a bus to Earl Shilton. They were married on 10 October 1942 at St Simon & St Jude
Parish Church with a local girl Rona Startin nee Forman as bridesmaid and fellow soldiers, Harry Harding acting as best man, and Bill Morgan
as organist.