Grandad, Reg Critchley, spoke a lot about two friends from the Royal Artillery in particular, Ray Lodge and Tiffy Kent. I would love to hear more about either of these two men. Here is a story as told to me by Grandad in 2001.
"I had a mate there, the gun fitter, Tiffy Kent, was a good mate of mine, and he was always joking some road. He was always having a... When we went in convoy, Tiffy, and the vehicle mechanic, went in motorbikes, up and down, see if there were any breakdowns, things like that. Well the gun never broke down because it was being towed, but the vehicles might. So Tiffy always found out... prospecting for booze outhouses, some farming... He'd nip off there, and he'd spend the next two, three hours there, and catch us up like..."
AN "and he would drive the motorbike like that?"
RC "Oh yeah. Oh he'd always find a farmhouse with a supply of er, juice there. And er, one day we'd gone up the road and turned off, to where we parked the guns. And Busty was his mate, the vehicle mechanic, and he, he was staunch tea-total. Now Tiffy was about five foot six, Busty was a good six foot. And very big too. Big with it. Very big fella in all ways... but staunch tea total, where Tiffy was a little boozer. Anyway, Busty came up to me, he said, 'you seen that little buggar like'?
'It's, er, Tiffy' I said, 'who we talking about.'
He said, 'Y'know, Tiffy. He should have been here by now.'
I said, 'he's probably found a farmhouse somewhere with a drop of juice in it for him.'
Anyhow, he er, he was over about half an hour, three quarters of an hour later, Tiffy. Rolled up on his motorbike like, with his xxxx xxxxx. 'You'll never guess,' he said to me.
I said 'I'll guess, you're bloody half cut again.'
'No, no, apart from that,' he said. 'I was going down the road and the Red Cap stopped me, military police.'
And I was like, 'we didn't see any military police, coming up here...'
'So he stopped me and said 'And where do you think you're going?'
He said, 'I'm looking for the artillery.'
He said 'Whose? Ours or theirs?'
'Ours ya daft buggar.'
He said, 'you're the daft buggar if you go any further cause the Germans are next.'
He said, 'well where's ours like?'
Told him, 'well go back about quarter of a mile, three hundred yards, and you'll see the turn off.'
SW "that was close!"
That was one of the strokes he pulled."
