Joe Brown

Robert Gray Love, 7th.9thRS.

The Recruit On the 18th December 1942, I was just one month short of being seventeen and a half years old, I made my way to the railway station to catch a train to Inverness. I don’t remember much about the journey but remember arriving in Inverness as it was late in the afternoon and I had to make my own way to Cameron Barracks which was about a mile from the station, and after asking a few directions I finally arrived. After reporting to the guardroom and getting sorted out, I was taken to the cook house for a meal, I was starving as I hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast that morning. I met five other recruits there and within half an hour a sergeant came in and ordered us outside and marched us to the Quartermaster’s Store where we were issued with blankets, but no sheets, we were shown how to fold our blankets for when we got up in the morning and then left to ourselves and spent the next few hours getting to know one another. We were awakened in the morning at six o’clock, with the familiar cry; wakey, wakey rise and shine, it was a cry I learned to hate, there was also a piper playing in the square, I liked that. By the time we had folded our blankets as we were shown and had a wash and shave, I never had much to shave, I only had bum fluff, and we were marched to breakfast. After breakfast we were paraded again and marched off to the Quartermaster’s Store to be kitted out with our uniforms, two pairs of boots, underwear, shirts, and all our webbing equipment, plus rifle. I had to do six weeks basic training before I joined the regiment, The Royal Scots. At last came the day when my basic training was over and I was posted to the Royal Scots. In those days there were only two regular battalions, the 1st and the 2nd, and two territorial battalions the 7/9th and the 8th; I was posted to the 7th/9th Battalion. I was happy about that because the 7th/9th were the only kilted battalion in the Regiment, all the other battalions wore tartan trews and I rather fancied myself in a kilt, our tartan was the Hunting Stewart. The 7th/9th Battalion The Royal Scots were stationed at Stonehaven and reported to ‘B’ Company H.Q. where I was interviewed by the company commander. He gave the usual information about how good a company ‘B’ was, and if I behaved myself there was no reason why I should not make a good new soldier to ‘B’ Company. The Sergeant-Major then assigned me to 11 Platoon billeted in a church hall on one of the main roads, near the centre of Stonehaven where the Platoon Sergeant welcomed me and became a member of No. 4 Section. The whole platoon slept in double tier beds around the wall of the church hall. It was a wee bit strange at first, I knew no one, but it wasn’t long before I made friends and there was one particular guy I teamed up with who came from Edinburgh, we went everywhere together. The year was now 1943 and I soon found out that the unit I had joined was in the 52nd (Lowland) Division being trained as a mountain division and we had to be A1 plus in fitness we trained as no other division in the British Army trained. As mountain troops, we had all the usual equipment other divisions had, but we had lots of extras like skis, snowshoes, rucksacks, sleeping bags, two-man and four-man tents and even sledges. When we weren’t in the mountains we were forever training in and around Stonehaven where we spent a lot of time on the firing ranges, and I made a crack shot with the Bren gun, so I was duly promoted to Bren gunner of No. 4 Section. During the year of 1943 and early 1944 we had exercises in the Cairngorm Mountains for about three to four weeks at a time, we had to make the most of a hole in the snow, or a hole in the heather, it was tough going but we all felt a lot better and fitter. I had been in Stonehaven for about three months when I got my first leave.

Robert Gray Love, 7th.9thRS.
Joe Brown, Feb 2, 2014