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Londoner Brian Minchin, born the year the Titanic went down, in 1912, was in the military during World War II. (His previous recollections can be found under Cambridge in the East of England section of this website.)
'On V.E. day I was still serving in Italy so one or two of the chaps decided to get drunk but I did it afterwards. We were miles behind the lines and not all that much involved, and what we were doing more or less went on.
I was actually lodged in the old Neapolitan Royal Palace at Cassava, not very far inland from Naples. We were at times able to hitchhike into Naples. One earlier occasion I was stationed in Naples but that was when the actual fighting had moved on.
On V.J. day I was in a transit or dump camp just outside Rotherham in Yorkshire, and at one time I had the actual job there of being a dustman to the local camp, to the utter disgust of my father who said I should not have been doing such low things, but I'd always taken the view that if there were such jobs I'd have to do them.
I had at that time risen to the rank of Sergeant, but because it was only a war substantive Sergeant I was stripped of one stripe when we came back to England. Corporals were two a penny and we had just to muck in with everybody else. I later got my stripe back and became more substantive. That was in another job which was a very worthwhile one, but that's another story.
When I came back from World War II I felt rather oppressed by the size of London: the money, the amount of travelling and the crowds generally and decided I would get work outside. This I actually succeeded in doing, first in Tunbridge Wells and for a short time in Newmarket and eventually in Worthing.
I can say I was reasonably successful though I'd not made as much money as I would have done had I stayed in London. However much money you'd earn there, you could not go for a swim in your lunch hour! In the sea anyway! I moved to Worthing in 1957. I came here in digs for a time and then we got a house and the family moved down too.
So I'm a comparatively old inhabitant now but to some I'm still just a newcomer!'
That concludes the memoirs of retired solicitor Brian Minchin.
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