40s and 50s Memories
radio signals at the War Office.
In 1941, I volunteered to join the services, and
continued the same training in the Royal Corps
of Signals. After further training, I was sent to
the Middle East as a radio operator, where I
played a part in maintaining radio links with
personnel involved in activities within enemy
occupied territories.
At the end of the war I studied for an M.A. degree
in Theology at Oxford, and for my General
Ordination Examination at Wells Theological
College.
In 1950 I was ordained deacon in Chester
Diocese, and priest in 1951, and after serving
my title as an assistant curate in a parish in that
diocese, I moved back to my native diocese
of Salisbury. Here I served in parishes before
moving on to Essex where my responsibilities
were centred upon youth, as Assistant Director
of Religious Education (Youth), and Diocesan
Youth Chaplain in the Chelmsford Diocese from
1964.
In 1967 I gained a teaching qualification and I
taught in a state primary school until I retired as
a Deputy Head Teacher in 1987, at the age of
65 and returned to Salisbury Diocese.
I continued to undertake services as a priest,
in my retirement there and in the Winchester
Diocese, when required. In 2011 I celebrated 60
years in the Priesthood, and my 90th birthday
and 65 years of happy married life with my wife
in 2012.
J. D. BRAISBY
Meynell 1947
John Braisby left King's in 1947. He had been
a member of Meynell House with Howard
Padfield as his Housemaster whom he
remembers, on arriving at King's, as a tall, red
haired man waiting, perhaps a little impatiently,
while he (John) fumbled in his suitcase
for his ration book! He also remembers, in
recent years, helping Howard to his chair at a
King's OA reunion when he was in his 101st
year. He liked and respected him, as he did
also the Headmaster Mr R. C. Unmack. The Chaplain was the Reverend Miles Sargent.
He remembers as a great spiritual guide and
teacher of the Christian faith.
In 1946 he achieved a good School Certificate
and qualified for matriculation. There followed
an enjoyable year in VIb, reading history,
english and geography, before he left King's.
In those days, probably no more than 50% of
pupils at King's stayed on to take Higher School
Certificate. University was only for a minority,
mainly for those who won county or state
scholarships, or whose parents could afford
university fees.
Of his later life he writes:
My father, who was a City of London banker,
arranged for me to have an interview at the
Bank of England. There I was taken on as an
uncovenanted clerk, with employment until
my call up for the Armed Forces, which came
in July 1948. Little did I think then that I would
spend the next 47 years of my life in the Army.
G Troop, 184 LAA Battery RA, 54th AA Regiment RA,
Gilbraltor, May 1954
Following basic military training with 8th Royal
Tank Regiment at Catterick, I was posted to
Belsen, now called Hohne, to 5th Royal Tank
Regiment. To the north of our barracks there
was a shanty town of dwellings, containing
homeless German people and refugees. To the
south of the barracks were the survivors of the
concentration camp, mainly Jewish people, in
wired off former barrack blocks. Many of the
latter were hoping to get to Palestine. Working
at clerical duties in our regiment was a former
German Army major, who had been wounded
and was in a nearby German hospital, when
British tanks rolled in, at the end of the fighting,
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