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205896 Dvr. George Parkinson British Army Royal Army Service Corps from:Manchester My dad, George Parkinson,joined up at the start of the "phoney war" in 1939,-he didn't need to go,-he was married with three sons.I was the middle one.He'd had a driving licence since he was eighteen,(unusual in 1919),and thought his driving skills may have been put to good use. He had joined the Grenadier Guards(1Bn)when he was nineteen,(which explains his "Guards" number). He did three years,-in which time he went to Constantinople to support some uprising against Kemal Ataturk,-then came out.
I can remember him Blancoing his webbing,checking the contents of his "hussif" (housewife) and having a .303 SMLE rifle at home! Then he was gone...
Because of his age,-he was 38,-he spent all his service in this country,-I believe he spent some time driving an ambulance in Birmingham; the rest of his time he was stationed in Cornwall,transporting stores of every kind countrywide.If ever he was coming to somewhere near Manchester,he would call in give us all a load of chocolate,(which he had saved), then he was gone again. One time he arrived in what he called an "eight legger"-an eight wheeled ERF with a drawbar trailer and parked it in our dead end street in Longsight, Manchester.How he got it out I have no idea! He came home in various trucks,Chevrolets,Dodges etc., etc.,mostly stuff that presumably the country had had to buy from the USA or Canada because of the shortage of vehicles after Dunkirk.
As I said he was mostly based in Cornwall,he thought it was the most wonderful place,his stories were full of names like Taunton,Truro,Bodmin,Penzance,Falmouth etc.,and that all true Cornishmen had names that began with either Pen or Tre,-it was a world apart...
When he was demobbed,-and after all that effort,he was awarded three medals,Victory;War,and the TA; he "didn't qualify" for the '39-'45 Star,as he didn't serve abroad! |
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