John was born in April 1929 and went first to the Foundling Hospital School in Redhill and the next year, moved with the rest of the children to the new school at Berkhamsted. He joined the army on leaving school and then went into bookmaking. He now lives in Surrey with his wife.
I mean we didn't have a civilian ah uniform-- civilian clothes when we left the school so the only clothes we had when we left school was in our school uniform, and all the other boys came in their civilian clothes and we had no civilian clothes so we went from school uniform straight into Army uniform. So we went out of one uniform into another. We was-- we were used to it, that was our way, and I remember the first night there, a lot of sobbing going on in the dormitory, or in the... the army hut, where boys were missing their mums and they were homesick. But our boys weren't homesick because we... we were used to being disciplined or whatever, and we had nothing to cry about so we lis-- we listened to the other boys sobbing as they went to sleep, missing their home. Well we had nothing to cry about.
