Military kit soon acquires a name amongst military folk. Webbing is one such. It is the name we use for the harness and carrying pouches worn by soldiers during, and for some time after, World War II. It was made of stout cotton webbing, hence its name. It was secured with brass buckles which required constant polishing as did boots, shoes, badges, and barrack room floors.
The second time I encountered it I was in the Royal Air Force and of the lowly rank of airman 2nd Class undergoing my recruit training.
Compulsory National Service was in force. Most men of 18 were required to serve in one of Britain’s armed forces for two years. Ladies were not required to do so. Thousands of young males were assigned by a remote bureaucracy to one of the three main arms of the British military. They were dispatched to camps where their civilian identity was removed and replaced by a military one. I was amongst them. I had been accepted to train for a short service commission in the Equipment Branch of the R.A.F. for which prior basic training was needed.
The first step was to divest us of our civilian clothes and replace them with an RAF uniform. Thereafter we drilled repeatedly on the great parade ground wearing our heavy boots until we responded in unison to words of command. We learned, amongst other things, how to handle our Lee Enfield .303 rifles, salute officers, read maps, polish linoleum floors, and to bayonet straw dummies suspended from frames. We were instructed in all these skills and more by men with loud voices, a predisposition for disciplining others and a jaundiced view of officers. One of them explained to us that ‘officers is shit’. We called the process square bashing, but you may know it by its American version as boot camp. We spent three months doing this in deep winter in bleakest Staffordshire.
I wore full kit on my way to my grandmother’s house from an RAF station which specialised in square bashing sometime in 1955. I was on leave. I carried a large square webbing pack on my back in which I stuffed such things as a waterproof cape, a housewife, shoe polishing gear and spare underclothes. There was a water bottle at my side and small, but empty, ammunition pouches on my chest.
All this webbing was support by a canvas belt fastened by a brass ‘hook and loop’ buckle and with two brass buckles at the back to secure the braces on which the webbing packs and pouches were attached. I carried a white canvas kit bag over my shoulder and wore my airman’s hat as casually as I could.
I recall walking along the black cinder path from the last bus stop of my journey, past the little grocery store, through the council estate and over the canal bridge to my grandmother’s house where I was to spend time before the next stage of my training.
I had met webbing before as a young army cadet in my Cornish boarding school. At the age of 13 we boys were dragooned into army uniforms and taught military stuff such as what to if a Bren gun stops firing, how to march in time, salute officers and read maps. Whilst so doing our trousers were supported by an army webbing belt.
Our leisure time was unsupervised. Violence was commonplace amongst us. When we were driven inside by harsh weather, we spent time in the large schoolroom heated only by a log fire before which we jostled for a place to warm our backsides. Singed trousers and itchy chilblains were not uncommon.
It was here that I witnessed a small boy cruelly and extensively beaten by a large youth with an army webbing belt. I was later to fight the large youth in a bout of Cornish wrestling. Cornish wrestlers wear a short canvas jacket. He tried to strangle me with mine when he thought the referee, the Stickler, was unsighted. I met him in the boxing ring later with a little more success.
God, Latin, and the cane were the authorised version of our education. We lived in another and more brutal world.
DON'T KILL ME NOW 