1953 – the year I first heard of Longmoor. Can it really be half a century ago? In those days all able-bodied young men were called upon to do two years National Service. World War II was less than ten years past, Korea a vivid memory and Suez still to come, so I suppose there was a need for it. The problem was keeping so many usefully occupied. After eight weeks basic training at Cove, my next posting was Longmoor, considered by many to be rather “cushy”, and certainly better than Elgin or even Oswestry! The travel pass said Liss, which meant nothing to me, and leaving the train from Waterloo we boarded something called the “Bullet”, which took us to Longmoor Station.

Longmoor, it transpired, was the Headquarters of the Royal Engineers Transportation Centre and home of the famous Longmoor Military Railway, a railway trade training school. Those of us with a few O levels were shunted into the Movement Control School, where we were taught the basics of clerical work and documentation involved in transporting troops and freight.

Being an eighteen-year-old and relatively close to home in London, I was quite anxious to stay at Longmoor when the course was completed, and was lucky enough to be appointed to the staff as an instructor. We were a diverse, but close knit group, under Sgt. Hayter, an efficient Korean veteran, and the witty and laid back Sgt. Carman. There was the debonair Tim Delaney, whose real name was Austin, and who later became an executive with Marks and Spencer, John Cockerill, who still has a large chicken farm in the north-east, Frank Fawcett, a proud Yorkshireman and John Rann, who had a battered old Austin Seven called Wendy. In the background lurked the dreaded “Q” Walton, a warrant officer of the old school!

Sport was high on the spare time agenda, and it was at Longmoor that I played my last game of rugby. The trouble was, with everyone doing National Service, you never knew who might turn up against you, and one day I was flattened by a gentleman who had played on the wing for England a couple of times, knocking every ounce of breath out of my body. After that I took up refereeing, which, I discovered, was almost as dangerous!

Several of us enjoyed singing, so it was natural that we should gravitate towards the garrison church, a converted forage barn with colourful windows commemorating the railwaymen who died in World War I, a beautiful reredos by Martin Travers and a good organ. We were lucky enough to be joined by David Wilde, a Mancunian child prodigy, who later became a well-known concert pianist, and by Bob Andrews, a brilliant organist from Bingley, whose family were wool-toppers in Bradford. David was quite unsuited to the army and was given a job as clerk in the Transport Office. But he spent most of his time practising Chopin and Rachmaninov on the battered old upright piano until it gave up on him. His was the only rifle I ever saw that really did have a cobweb in the barrel!

At St. Martin’s, with the encouragement of the Padre, Capt. Habberton and his wife, we were joined by members of service families and civilians living near the camp: Pam and Colin Peake, Ann Sebire, Pat Brewer, Margaret Foster and June Scott, and several children, including Irene Oliver and Martin Clare, whose greatly respected father, Colonel Gordon Clare, died recently. Several of them still live in the area.

Under David and Bob’s guidance the choir became quite proficient, and performed Handel’s Messiah in 1955 and even made a few recordings! Naturally a good deal of our spare time was spent in local pubs. With twenty-five shillings a week, those of us who had joined the army straight from school felt like millionaires! The Woolmer, later renamed the Silver Birch, was just a short walk down No Road, but our favourite was the Spread Eagle at West Liss, where Friary, Holroyd and Healy’s beer from Guildford was much to our liking. And on Saturday nights there was the cinema in Petersfield, alas, long gone.

The Longmoor Military Railway was often used for films, and in 1955 it was the setting of the spectacular train crash in Bhowani Junction, John Masters’ story of the last days of British rule in India. The engine was actually made of plywood, but naturally had to be guarded night and day – the task, of course, of the squaddies. The stars of the film, Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger, stayed at the Officer’s Mess, and by all accounts the beautiful American actress caused quite a stir with her informal dress sense! Unfortunately, we never saw her.

Another spectacular crash was due to be staged in March 1955 for the live TV documentary featuring the LMR, Saturday Night Out, but in the event it turned out to be something of a damp squib”.

Naturally there was a down side to National Service life. Although the worst excesses associated with basic training had been left behind, there was still the daily grind of barrack room inspections and parades, and there was still the occasional nine mile bash in full kit. The last section, back along the Longmoor Road from Liphook, seemed interminable. The most terrible punishment if you were charged with some minor offence seemed to be polishing the locomotives, and what boy didn’t have a childhood ambition to climb on to the footplate of one of these monsters! Worst of all were the Regimental Weekends, when all leave was cancelled and the whole garrison had to be found occupation of some sort. As well as maintenance work on the railway, including hand weeding the track, we really did have to cut the grass outside the Transportation Centre with scissors! In these days it would incite a mutiny, and quite right too.

Today Longmoor Camp is a shadow of its former self. The Railway, pride and joy of so many Royal Engineers for sixty years, closed in 1969 and the Signals School stands derelict beside the new A3. The Kitchiner Theatre is dark and the Church has been pulled down, but the windows and reredos remain, having been transported to the Army School of Transport’s new Headquarters at Leconfield in Yorkshire. The camp is under heavy security guard, but, driving past, there is always a feeling of nostalgia for the good times and the comradeship of those far off days.

Tom Muckley, August 2003

This article was originally published by the Petersfield Post


POSTCRIPT

May 2005: Three friends who were stationed at Longmoor Camp with the Royal Engineers during their National service during the 1950s met up again recently for the first time in fifty years. David Wilde, John Cockerill and Tom Muckley had a reunion dinner at Easingwold, Yorkshire, recently to celebrate half a century since their demob in 1955. They were all members of the Movement Control School at Longmoor, but in civvy street their lives were quite different.

David enjoyed a successful career as a concert pianist, appearing with every great orchestra in Britain before becoming Professor of Piano at the Hochschule in Hannover. He now lives in Edinburgh, whilst John has for many years kept a poultry farm at East Boldon in Tyne and Wear. Tom lived and taught in Hampshire for many years before retiring and becoming a regular contributor to The Post.

May 2007: At a further meeting the three were joined by another old friend, Frank Fawcett, for the first time. After a career in marketing he is retired and living near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, and is enjoying taking part in Gilbert and Sullivan! Bob Andrews, who played the organ at Tom’s wedding, had hoped to join as well, but tragically died on the very day of our meeting.

tommuckley.co.uk