Here's the next part of James' story, and his life takes a very different turn to working in a grocery store...

I wanted to join the army but I was still a few weeks away from my birthday. Then I met a friend in the village. He was dressed in a blue uniform, and he told me he’d joined the Royal Marines, and they were recruiting people in the old school in the village.

There were two Grenadier guards without their bearskins on and they pointed us down the corridor to the room. Then there was a sergeant and a chief petty officer, and they asked me if I wanted to join the Navy or the Marines. He said the Marines were the finest corps in the world, "Per mare, per terram", by sea, by land, and he gave me a picture of the Royal Marines. I thought that sounds alright, and I signed up, just like that.

My mother told me I’d received a letter and a warrant from Plymouth, and she packed my things in a case. I was sent on a train to Winscombe in Devon on a certain date. I fell asleep so they lifted me up and put me on the luggage rack. I nearly fell off. My mother was a clever girl and she gave me sandwiches to eat on the way, and a flask of tea of all things, and then the other boys gave me a beer, a half pint glass. It was the first alcoholic drink I’d ever had. It wasn’t meant to make me drunk, just to be with them.

When we got to the big station there was a lot of noise- it was being bombed, and there was crashing and banging. Eventually it stopped and we got out. We were put into files of threes and we ran up the grassy bank to the depot.

We sat down in the mess to have our meals. The first meal I had in the Royal Marines was a tiddy oggy, a huge Cornish pasty that went over the edge of the plate, with meat at one end and jam at the other, and a cup of tea or cocoa, and I ate every last bit. They cleaned the tables with a little brush, made sure there were no crumbs left.

The next morning we were woken up at 6.30am by the sergeant who was very rude. Our civvies were packed up and sent back to our homes, and we went to the store wearing dressing gowns, socks and pants. I put a label on the parcel and it got sent back to my mother in Oldham. The store was full of rows and rows of clothes. We’d all been measured previously and we needed two vests (woollen), boots (two pairs), slippers, tunic top, trousers, all to be stamped.  It was all piling up in front of us. “Get dressed!” Then we got changed and one by one we stood in front of the mirror, and the corps sergeant made sure we properly dressed in Royal Marine battle dress.

Then we went and signed the papers, “Sign there! Sigh there! Sign there!”  We went down to the quartermaster’s store and we were issued with a rifle and a few rounds of ammunition, and a beret. We also had a leather string with a number tag on it. Sergeant Blackburn asked, “Who are you?”

I told him my name and he said, “Forget about being James Smith. Now you’re a Royal Marine.” And that was what happened, you weren’t a person with a name any more, just a number- PLY/H8218.

After that we weren’t allowed out of the barracks. We could go to the naffy, where you could sit down and have a rock cake or a cup of tea and a bun.

We’d walk and run for ten miles and they’d drag you through the drainpipes. We went over the moor, Dalditch Moor. When I see these things on television now, I think, “Did I really do all that?” It’s hard to believe but I did.