Attention! And best boot forward ...

On STarTIng national Service in the royal army dental Corps at aldershot in 1951, we were issued with all of our kit, including two pairs of boots. one pair was termed ‘working boots’ and one ‘best boots’. Working boots were polished pretty well. Best boots were for parades and guard duties, and these were bulled up (although nowhere near to Pirbright standard). When posted to various dental centres, we were forbidden to wear boots in the surgeries (imagine the noise and vibrations), so we had to wear our own shoes. Most of the lads followed the trend at the time and we all had crepesoled ‘brothel creepers’. These squelched like mad on the over-polished brown lino and annoyed everyone. eventually, we were told we were to be issued with shoes, but had to surrender one pair of boots, and this would be at our local QM stores. ours was at hadrian’s Camp, Carlisle. on the day, a quick short phone call from the QM sergeant: ‘your fancy shoes have arrived, get down here at the double, we are closing in ten minutes!’ So, I grabbed a pair of boots out of my locker and got down there sharpish. nice shoes they were, too, saved using my own! Some time later, I was posted to Strensall, near york. I packed up my kit, put on my boots, and guess what? one boot highly polished, the other still pimply! In haste, I’d taken one of each pair. So I had to wear them like that to york and sort them out later. I often wondered who was reissued with the other pair of odds!

David Broughton, Wigston, Leicestershire.