Being a Boy in JLRRA
I HAVE LOST THE PLOT — PART 2
Some might claim that I had never been in possession of the plot in the first place.
When you are a kid, the good-times are the best times ever. The bad-times are just too terrible to think about. You really have no sense of perspective.
Me, I am confused. I am almost permanently confused.
Here’s a thing.
In March 1981 I was supposed to be catching the train back to Woolwich. I was a patient on Ward-9 of Queen Elizabeth’s Military Hospital. Never mind why. I would rather not talk about it right now. Let’s just say I was a bit ill.
I’d had a day-pass to go into London for an afternoon of mediocre fun and was returning to hospital. I was waiting on the platform at Waterloo-East and was amazed to meet Trumpet-Major Cooper and the Junior-Leaders’ Fanfare Team. They all looked good in smart suits. Me, not so much. I think I may have been a bit of a mess.
When I was in Brats, in 1974, I had been a member of the Junior Leaders’ Fanfare Team. Therefore, I was very pleased to meet up with the new lot. Unfortunately, I got so excited and confused that instead of getting on the train to Woolwich I accidentally caught the train to Sidcup.
I always seem to be messing-up like that.
The thing is, that I get confused about stuff. For example, when I was in my Regiment, I was supposed to be sitting a typing test but went to the library instead. The Chief Clerk went nuts.
So, it is not too surprising that, when I am returning to Bramcote from leave in April 1974, I get the wrong train. The journey from Watford Junction to Nuneaton is supposed to be direct and requires no changes. Therefore, I can’t explain why I am standing on the grey, wet, dreary platform at Crewe. That is nearly 100 miles out of my way.
When you are a kid, and you mess-up, and it all goes wrong, you generally don’t have the capacity to articulate what has happened. You can’t explain why it has gone wrong. At age 17, you just stand on the unexpected platform, in the drizzle, in your shabby-suit, with your army suitcase, looking a bit lost and feeling a bit miserable. That’s me, that is.
That sort of thing seems to happen to me quite a lot. Even now.
In any event, I get back to Bramcote nearly 7 hours late and I can’t find ways to explain myself.
It hardly matters. The RPs are going to find fault regardless.
Accordingly, there I am, Junior Gunner Lamb, in my shabby-suit, looking a bit lost and feeling a bit miserable and doing circuits of the tiny exercise yard in ‘Joe’s Hotel,’ for reasons I can’t explain and don’t understand.
Now I am a Mustering-Gunner. I am supposed to have special privileges but I don’t feel particularly privileged.

I have qualified as a ‘Clerk-RA’ and I am working in the Battery Office. What I am actually doing is running around. The Battery Clerk doesn’t really want me hanging about, so he makes up stuff and I run futile errands. It is all a bit of a waste of time really. One of the other kids who has qualified is popular and they all love him. Not me.
After a couple of weeks I get the message. The Battery Clerk sends me on some random errand. Instead I go down the NAAFI for half-an-hour.
No questions are asked. I can’t say I feel terribly motivated. He has pissed me off. Yet, he tells me that I have to ‘Buck-up’.
I don’t very much care.
If you want to know the truth, I am depressed. I have given up most things. No more sport activities. No more clubs or hobbies. I tend to spend any free time lying on my bunk and staring at the ceiling.
Once again, I have stopped looking after myself. I have stopped going down the cookhouse. I have stopped washing or doing my laundry.
I am on parade and the new Troop Sergeant from 1st RHA charges me for being scruffy. He’s probably right. I get extra duties. I have to mop out the control tower, under supervision.
Then something a bit odd happens. I am in my grovveling-pit bulling my boots. The Sergeant is giving grief to one of the other kids. He throws his boots down the room and instructs him to follow my example. He holds up one of my boots and says that is the standard he is looking for.
I look at the other kid and he looks at me. Neither of us know what the Sergeant is talking about. My boots aren’t of a particularly high standard. We both know it. They never have been. We don’t say anything.
I don’t quite know what to think. A couple of days earlier I was being charged for slovenliness. Now I’m being complimented on the standard of my turnout.
This is plainly a gigantic pile of bollocks.
All I can tell you is that I’ve lost the plot.
