The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's)

The Clock © Tom Barker

"Shut yer moanin! Yu miserable scroat!" said a voice from behind another bunk.

I was laid on my bunk listening to this banter and having a quiet chuckle to myself. I had made a boat in one camp probably just because there was a pond to sail a boat on, now I had made a clock, because it gave me something to do. At first no one took any notice of me metal bashing. But as time went by and blokes like me, who were handy with their hands, made various utensils for eating or cooking with. Then when most blokes had been supplied and the demand had dropped a tin basher suddenly became a noisy beggar. I would get an empty tin and with a small piece of sharpened metal bar and with another metal bar as a hammer I would cut the tin and make cooking trays.

So if one of our lads, or any of the others, --we got the odd bloke would wander into our barrack room,

"Who's the bloke as makes tin trays?" they would inquire.

And to a chorus of, "Aw Gawd, not aggin! Bang, bang, bliddy bang! y' don' yu jist nick off?"

The bloke would approach and with a nod, "Hi, dyu' reckon yu cud mek me a tray hap'n so ah cud cuk me spuds in it, ave ony got two fags (all in one breath).

I think maybe, so I couldn't say, "No" before he'd finished asking. But I would have made him one for nothing if he had no fags, I was just glad I had the knack to make things. But fags were as good as money. Better in fact, because money had no value in a POW camp.

I said, "I usually charge 4 fags for a tin tray." and he looked disappointed and mumbled,

"Shute, ah've on'y got two." so seeing he was genuine I said,

"O.k. no problem, you keep one fag and give me one and I 'll make your tray."

For a while I lay on my bunk and found myself analysing the conversation that from time to time would float round the room or through the open window from blokes outside.

One time I heard, "We could start tomorrow." and it would fade as they moved away and I thought

"Yea, walls have ears. You never know who is listening".

Another time, "I'll swap you this for two of those, they are easier to carry when we go." and I thought, why doesn't he borrow Jerries camp speakers and let every beggar in the camp know?

"What time is it?" growled a voice.

Just four words. But the response sometimes to a simple question could bring the house down. Most blokes with nothing to do all day would just lie on their bunks. Some would read. Some would write letters home. And if some one was thinking fondly about his sweetheart who will be waiting for him when he got home, clean pinny, hair permed, cherry lips, and lots of red roses growing round the front door, get the picture?

When suddenly this coarse voice comes up with, "Wot toime eset then?"

Our mate, who had just been mentally adjusting his tie and whetting his lips with his tongue in anticipation of a smacker on the gob replies with,

"Ow the bleed'n' 'ell should oi know? Bleed'n Big Ben oi ain't!"

And as this bit of enlightening info permeated most brains in the area, someone would start to chant.

"Why did yu flog yu watch?
why did yu flog yu watch?
knees up, knees up,
don't get the breeze up,
if I catch you bending
I'll saw yu legs right off,
knees up, knees up,
why did yu flog yu watch?"

and soon everyone would join in.

Sometimes the Guard on the wire would pause in his walk to the next tower, and he would look toward our barracks and slowly shake his head. One could almost hear him thinking,

"What am I doing here watching a load of idiots from England singing their heads off? What they got to sing about? They are the prisoners and singing, I'm out here and as soon as it hisses down I get wet through while they sit by a nice warm stove."

We had a picture of a scantily dressed girl on the brickwork, but it was a cover for a map on the reverse side. An R.A.F. bloke called Coulson had painted it in watercolours. It resembled most sketches found on Yank bombers depicting buxom young wenches smuggling footballs in their blouses, and shapely legs going all the way up to the back of their haircut, and they looked really cheeky viewed from behind.

We also had a notice board, and to my mind all that was missing was a clock. I suddenly thought, "What a challenge?" I would make a clock with nothing more than an old hacksaw blade (nicked from a pub tool shed). With the back of the blade sharpened and some cloth and string wrapped round it, it could cut metal and whittle wood so there was no way I would part with it. Armed with my tool kit, to whit, one old hacksaw blade, one iron bar (me hammer) and a sharp nail, (ground down on cement) to make it a chisel, I began collecting various tins.

The bloke in the next bed, noticing all the tins under my bunk saw me stash two more and resting the book he had been reading on his chest he leaned over and whispered,

"Yu will need someone to navigate fer yu. I can navigate real good."

He reached up and turned his battledress so I could see the 'N' in the circle and half a birds wing above the left pocket - so he was a navigator in the R.A.F.

I asked him, "What are you whispering for" and he did a quick look left, then right, and screwed his face up as he hunched his shoulders and whispered shssssssh,

"I know what you are going to build."

And I asked, "Who told you?" and again the finger upright on the mouth,

"Not so loud! Every bugger will want to come with us!" and I said,

"What the hell are yu burbling about?"

Suddenly the hair on the back of my neck began to stand up, "I was sleeping near a nutter, he could think I was a Jerry in the night and cut my throat, I gotta move."

"We got to save grub up tu take wi'us."

He was still in a fantasy world, what stupid book was he reading. Oh God….. Treasure Island.

"Do you need a hand to build it?"

"Build what?"

"The submarine."

"What submarine? I'm building a clock."

There was a long silence. I could imagine someone putting the corner of a sheet of blotting paper on an ink blob and watch the ink as it crawled up the paper. His brain was doing just that because it just looked like buying a pound of bacon, you watch the needle on the scales sweep round, then crawl to the correct weight. So it was with his face as the information registered and the look on his face changed, and a faraway look took its place. He picked up his book again and with a look like someone who has just read his next of kin had died, he turned his back on me and he laid there and quietly read his book. This bloke was well overdue for home.

I started work on my clock and came across problems straight away. There was no way to put a spindle through a tin lid and fit another tin lid on the same spindle and drive both, because the lid has no grip on the spindle. Since I had no welding gear I had to sit and think about it. Now I came up against lots of problems, but I will bypass most, otherwise this could get suddenly boring, but the spindle and lid problem had to be fixed - or no clock.

It was tedious, but it worked something like this. I cut a cross in the centre of each lid, then hammered the four triangles outward. Then I did ditto to another lid. I put them face on face and riveted them together using small cut down nails. Next I removed the rims, then carefully measuring, I cut teeth. Now I had a large gear wheel. I got a bit of wood and shaved it square until it fit into the square of the wheel, then I did ditto to a smaller wheel and mounted it to the same shaft. The wooden centre was then removed and cut length ways and a red hot nail was laid to make half a groove in the wood. The same was done to the other half and when put together there was a clean straight hole through the wood. When it was assembled I had a spindle bound tight with cotton and lacquered with a big cog wheel about 4ins across and a little cog about 1ins across.

I made three like this and one with a big cog only, but with a drum to accept the string with a weight to drive the clock. The escape wheel was different, in that, each tooth had to be shaped to push the pendulum at the end of its swing. A huge cheer went up as we mounted the clock. Not because we now had a time piece, but to quote one bloke,

"Thank Gawd fer thaaat. Now mebbe we can ger a bit o' piece an' quiet in the afternoons."

Well, it had taken me off and on about two months, and with all the noise complaints, I had moved into the wash house to make my clock. Let's face it, it's not every day some one makes a clock that keeps perfect time with just a hack saw blade and tin, not forgetting a bit of wood and nails as spindles.

For what it is worth by the way, we had an air raid one night and the clock fell off the wall due to vibrations of the bombing. The clock was held up on the wall by a six inch nail driven into one of the main uprights, but due to the bombing the clock inched away from the wall and the weight of the clock bent the nail and of course the clock hit the deck. We thought we had an unexploded bomb in our barracks, until someone pointed out that the clock had fallen off its nail. The big thump was the bucket of concrete needed to drive the clock.