This story starts in the spring of 1939. It was then clear to most people that we should be very lucky to avoid a war with Germany. I had noticed the occasional absence of some of my friends when they attended training camps of one sort or another. Most joined the local Territorials which comprised an Anti-Aircraft Battery, but some joined the R.N.V.R. and one or two were learning to fly. I did wonder, from time to time, whether I should get involved in any of these activities. I received an informal invitation to the Territorial mess to "meet the colonel" but I did not then make any decision. I knew my parents were worried, both being active Quakers, but sensibly they were not getting involved.
I was really only concerned about the next football season, when totally unexpectedly, a letter arrived from the Friends Ambulance Unit asking if I would be interested in joining the first training camp to be opened in Birmingham in September. This letter went to all young men of the right age who had been in Quaker schools. I replied and after an interview I was accepted.
The Friends Ambulance Unit had been created in World War I and had earned an enviable reputation. It had been disbanded when that war ended but was now reconstituted. My invitation and acceptance as a member of the first camp could hardly have been better timed. I informed the manager of the Midland Bank branch where I worked and he accepted that I had, in effect, been called up. The bank gave a party to see me off as the first member of the staff to "go to war."
During the first few days at the camp it became clear that nobody had any idea for what we should be trained. Obviously we ought to get as fit as possible. In that area I had no fears. My sporting activities had made me fitter than most and the tough regime left me untouched, while the majority of the others, after one or two days, were hobbling around in acute discomfort. We were taught very basic first-aid and also, to the noisy disapproval of a minority of trainees, we practised elementary drill and marching. It was this point that brought to the fore a fundamental question that was to divide all the sections of the Unit in which I served. It seemed to me, and many others, that if we wanted to work with the military - whether British, French or Finnish - they were unlikely to accept an undisciplined set of people who, possibly, would question orders. We would be assessed on our appearance in the first place, we would need to dress smartly and march and drill when required to do so. There were many who saw this as clearly as I did, but for others it was hard to accept. They felt that they might just as well be in the army.
One part of the training needs to be explained to those reading this essay sixty years after the events. In 1939, it was by no means usual for a young man of about 20, as most of us were, to know how to drive a car, or have much experience of motor transport. Clearly those without that skill needed to be taught. In that area I had a flying start. A few years earlier I had used a small legacy to buy a car. I had arrived at the camp in it, where-upon, it was very tactfully but firmly requisitioned. It became the "camp-car" with me as the driver.
The days at the first camp passed very quickly. We did all get reasonably fit, and most learnt to drive after a fashion. We could apply bandages and splints and tie the right sort of knots. One or two of us even became quite good cooks. About the middle of November the whole camp was moved to London where hospital training was organised. After a slow start the Middlesex and London hospitals began to let us into operating theatres and act as useful hands in casualty on Saturday nights, but still no settled work appeared for us. However, on the 1st of December, war broke out between Russia and Finland, and that was where our real work was to begin.