Boy Soldier

Published in Windlesora 20 (2003)

© WLHG

Late afternoon on 1st July 1952 I arrived at Windsor station, having travelled all day from a small mining village in Nottinghamshire. I had accepted the Queen’s shilling the previous week at a recruiting office in Mansfield where I worked as an apprentice moulder in an iron foundry. I was 16 1/2 and I had joined the Grenadier Guards as a drummer boy.

A military vehicle picked me up from the station and took me to Victoria Barracks. I had never seen such huge buildings, and seemingly vast barrack rooms. The first few weeks I spent in barracks with the two other new recruits, Sam Samson from the Isle of Wight and Brian Gilbert from Portsmouth. The first time I marched to the castle with the corps of drums playing my fife I was staggered by the size of Windsor Castle, which I had not been able to see before. Back to barracks we marched down Peascod Street and William Street. After this we boy soldiers were allowed to walk but in uniform after a meticulous inspection; belts had to be blancoed inside and out. We went to one of the three cinemas, two in Peascod Street and one near Eton Bridge, or we walked to the Brocas or in the Great Park. Of course we were not allowed into any of the many pubs in Windsor, but we heard the old soldiers say that you could not get to the bottom of Peascod Street, having had a drink at each pub on the way, without getting very drunk. On Sundays we marched to Holy Trinity Garrison Church. The boy soldiers had to sit in the choir stalls, where we played noughts and crosses.

In the following year we moved to Wellington Barracks from where I took part in the Queen’s Coronation. It was not until 1971 that I came back to a much-changed Windsor.

Ray Mitchell