Reid.Philip.12.1.1901
From Livesretold.co.uk
Life story of Philip Reid written by his son, Alex Reid, in January 2008.
Related life stories:
Son: Reid.Alexander.11.1.1941
Grandson: Reid.Philip.30.1.1989
Granddaughter: Reid.Elisabeth.11.8.1992
Great grandson: Creswell.Jocelyn.26.5.1999
Contents |
Introduction
I am writing this life story of my father here at 27 Millington Road, Cambridge, in 2007. The news is of the war in Iraq, the difficulties of the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and the contest between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama in the Democratic primary elections in the USA.
Philip Reid was born on 12th January 1901 in Lahore, then in India, now part of Pakistan. He had an older sister Hilda, and a younger sister Lesley. But before telling Philip's life story, a word about his parents.
Philip's father Arthur Reid came from a Scottish family which had sent its sons to India for several generations. Arthur's grandfather, John Fleming Martin Reid (1797-1859), served in the Bengal Civil Service. Arthur's great grandfather, John Reid (1754-1810), was a surgeon in the service of the East India Company.
Philip's mother, Imogen Beadon, also came from a family with strong Indian connections. Her father, Sir Cecil Beadon (1816-1880), had been Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. He is buried in the churchyard of St.John the Baptist Church, Latton, Wiltshire. Our glass fronted bureau bookcase, now in the sitting room at Millington Road, came from the Beadon house in Latton.
My father wrote an autobiography while he was a prisoner of war in Palembang, Sumatra, during the Second World War. He completed it when homeward bound on the MV Tegelberg in October 1945. He used the pseudonym Martin instead of Philip, and gave it the title 'Mainly Martin'. It is written in the third person, and much of this life story is drawn from it.
Once There Were Three Children
In about 1945, Philip's sister Hilda hand wrote and illustrated a little book called Once There Were Three Children which described their childhood in India. It is very special, and there is only one copy. Its first six spreads are reproduced below:
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Childhood in India
Philip's first memory of India is of an earthquake. He was wrapped in a blanket and carried downstairs one early morning, whilst the big hanging oil lamp swung like a pendulum. He also remembers lying on his back in a canvas cot on a house-boat in Kashmir when he was aged two. At Lahore the railway ran within earshot, and the noise of a distant engine's whistle has always carried him back in mind to his railed bed.
The Reid children had an English nanny - Annie Bugg - and an Indian nurse called an Ayah. A log fire blazed behind the big brass guard in the day nursery; the hot weather was spent in the hills. Their father, who was Chief Judge of the Punjab province, kept an establishment of about thirty servants. The servants lived with their families in the compound - a village behind the house. Arthur was fond of entertaining, and proud of his horses and stables.
The garden was bounded by a cactus hedge. Water came from a well, worked by bullocks that walked round in a circle. The machinery was made of wood; one could hear it continually creaking and clattering. The flower beds and lawns were fed from irrigation ditches. Philip liked to ride in the driving seat behind the bullocks and played for hours damming the little streams. Two men did the household washing, standing in a cemented tank with the water up to their thighs, and beating the clothes on a slab. An old bespectacled tailor sat cross-legged on the house verandah, sewing.
The children said 'Good-night' to their father as he sat over home work in his study. Their mother came to see them in bed, often beautifully dressed for a dinenr party or a ball; once she wore fancy dress.
The Reid children left India when Philip was seven. Their father served some more years before retirement. In the autumn of 1909, when Philip was eight, he started boarding at Earleywood School. His sisters Hilda and Lesley went to live with their Aunt Nini. Their mother returned to India for the winter. Nanny Bugg married Sergeant Applin, who had waited patiently for her.
Earleywood School
Earleywood School, near Ascot, was a small establishment with a total of 28 boys. It was described in its prospectus in the following terms:
The school buildings, designed and built for the present Principals in 1902, are situated near Ascot on the well-known 'Bagshot Sands' in a high and bracing locality. The playing fields and garden comprise nearly 10 acres of ground, including cricket and football meadows and a gravelled playground. The lighting, ventilation, and sanitation have been carefully arranged in accordance with the latest modern methods of Hygiene. An experienced Matron has charge of the health and comfort of the boys. Breathing and other exercises for boys of insufficient physical development are carried out daily under the personal supervision of Mr.Pitkin (St.Thomas' Hospital).
Philip had three outfits: a tweed suit with breeches and belted Norfolk jacket in the winter; grey flannel coat and shorts for the summer; and Etons on Sundays. The Eton suit had a black jacket like a page-boy's, black waistcoat and striped trousers, stiff white collar over the coat collar, and black tie. The collar was difficult to button with cold fingers, and collar studs were a new thing to Philip. In addition to the headmaster, there were two assistant masters, and a governess for the younger boys. Sergeant Buckle, who had a spiky, waxed moustache, taught Swedish drill, rifle shooting and swimming. Philip enjoyed winter carpentering lessons with the atmosphere of pine shavings and glue. Sergeant Buckle and the carpentering were both still going strong when I was at Earleywood forty years later.
Philip had an aunt and uncle who lived at Sunninghill, two miles from Earleywood. They had no children, and were very kind to Philip. Their house was beautifully tidy and clean, as though just painted out with white enamel. Philip walked there every Sunday. Arriving while the grown-ups were still in church, he played with their black cocker spaniel, or read Punch in the drawing room.
Philip loved Henty novels and boy's magazines. Chums was a penny weekly paper with serial stories of pirates, and the heavy red annual volume formed a splendid Christmas present. He took in The Scout - General Baden-Powells' paper - and a monthly magazine The Captain. Captain readers of this period discovered P.G.Wodehouse and John Buchan. Philip also enjoyed more serious reading. On his way home for the Easter holidays of 1913 he bought at Sunningdale Station a secondhand copy of 'A History of the British Nation' by A.D.Innes. It is more than three inches thick and runs to 984 pages.
When he was ten, Philip made up his mind to join the Navy. He cannot remember why, for the Reids had no naval connections, and he was always sea sick. His father knew nothing of the Navy, and wrote on Philip's application form 'Not willing, but resigned'. In the summer term of 1913 Philip went to London for an Admiralty interview. He was asked where Cape Finisterre was. A few days later written examinations were held in Bloomsbury. The naval tailors Gieve, Matthews and Seagrove took a room in a hotel nearby and measured the boys for uniform, as a speculation. Soon afterwards a telegram came from them - 'Congratulations on your son's success'.
Osborne and Dartmouth
In 1905 Admiral Sir John Fisher had abolished the old system of training officers in the Britannia and substituted a plan under which cadets were entered very young, to learn a great deal of science and engineering. There were two Royal Naval Colleges - on at Osborne for boys aged from twelve to fourteen, and the other at Dartmouth, from fourteeen to sixteen. After a further six months training, the cadets became midshipmen and could serve at sea.
Osborne
Osborne was organised on a term basis. Each term, named after an Admiral, lived and worked and played by itself, despising those below and frightened of those above. The St.Vincent Term - seventy little boys wearing naval uniform for the first time - collected at Waterloo and took train for Portsmouth. They crossed to Osborne, which is on the Isle of Wight, in a paddle-tug. They learned to salute on the way.
Cadets wore an officer's gilt-buttoned serge monkey-jacket and serge trousers, white shirt, stiff double collar, black tie, black boots, officer's cap, and a lanyard that had the key of one's sea chest on the end. White flnnel trousers, which shrank very much in the wash, were worn for daily work.
The College was in the grounds of Osborne House, where Queen Victoria had once lived. Most of the buildings were bungalow rooms, joined by covered passages. The walls were of a patent material, through which a driven golf ball punched a neat, round hole. Long rows of beds were allocated in alphabetical order. On each bed was spread a dark blue rug, with red embroidered initials. At the foot stood the occupant's sea chest - a great heavy black and white iron-bound wooden box, its brass name plate on the lid. The chests had partitioned spaces and trays, which held all a cadet's clothes. Old pensioner servants kept them tidied. At the end of the dormitory was the plunge - a cold bath into which the boys jumped every morning.
The drill for going to bed and getting up was rigid. Two minutes were allowed for arranging clothes and turning in; one began to undress during the wild stampede up the long corridors after the final parade. The uniform cap was balanced on the open sea chest's lid, with vest and drawers hung on either side. The rest of the things were neatly folded and put in their ordered place; then the cadets said their prayers and brushed their teeth, by signal from a brass gong.
The Term was divided into two Watches - Port and Starboard. By an arbitray rule, the Port Watch learned German and the Starboard Watch learned French. Cadets were paid a shilling a week, and spent it buying sweets at the canteen, where each used to should what he wanted at the top of his voice, and 'mouldies' - a kind of toffee - were the usual food. Oranges were provided at Sunday supper, before the Evening Service, so sticky orange juice on his fingers reminds Philip of Osborne Sundays.
Much time was wasted on the usual illnesses. An amusement at the Isolation Hospital was to peel an orange in two halves, fill the skin with rice pudding, and throw it at someone. Philip had pneumonia in the summer term of 1914; he was back just in time for the Sports, which included a great tug-of-war involving all four hundred cadets - Port watch versus Starboard. During the summer leave of 1914, Philip's appendix was removed. As he lay in bed at Leonard Place there was shouting and cheering in the street - the beginning of the First World War.
Dartmouth
In 1915, at the age of 14, Philip moved to the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, in Devon. Dartmouth was just like Osborne only even more strenuous. The hill up from the engineering school was steeper, and there was scarcely time to wash the mud off one's knees after playing football. The river was pleasant in the summer; rowing up to Dittisham in a 'blue boat' for tea, or fishing round the moorings of the old Britannia hulk.
The Reids moved from place to place in Gloucestershire during the war years. Philip was happy fishing for chub near Tewkesbury, and learning to shoot. He had a single barelled sixteen bore gun, hired in Cheltenham, and a dangerous miniature rifle. The bicycle that his mother gave him afforded great delight. He got more pleasure swooping downhill on the shiny new thing, than he ever felt in any motor car or aeroplane.
First World War
In January 1917, three days after his sixteenth birthday, Philip went to sea. His father saw him off at Gloucester station, where a sea-chest dismayed the war-time women porters. Now Philip had his first sight of Scotland - the snowy scene which his ancestors must have dreamed of, sweltering under the punkah. At Rosyth, he found that the squadron had sailed to Scapa Flow. It was a cold journey through the Highlands, with deer feeding close to the railway lines. He crossed in the King Orry to the Orkneys where his ship, HMS Valiant, lay with the Grand Fleet.
Eight months after the Battle of Jutland, the Grand Fleet had greatly increased in strength. Workmen were constantly on board fitting deck armour and protection against cordite flash. The Barham, Malaya, Valiant and Warspite formed the Fifth Battle Squadron. Training took place in agressive tactics, night fighting, and the concentration of gunfire. Everyone longed for another great battle, but the Germans avoided action, and it never came.
The Captain of HMS Valiant, Maurice Woolcombe, was a formidable figure - tall, with a deeply lined face the colour of a brick, firm mouth and iron-grey hair. He was a Gunnery Officer of the days when all orders were shouted, and made a brave noise hailing the forecastle from his high bridge.
At the after end of the Mess, dilapidated basketwork chairs for the sub-lieutenants were grouped round a coal stove. Forward was the buttery, with hatches opening into the pantry. Junior midshipmen read or did their work at the two long dining tables. On Sunday morning they cleaned the brass rims of the scuttles. Philip's hands smelled of Brasso on Sundays, and his locker did so all the time. The gramophone was nearly always in use - Tonight's the Night, with Leslie Henson singing Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days, was the latest thing. Wireless broadcasting was unknown.
The midshipmen's sea-chests were stowed, and their hammocks were slung, in the middle cabin flat. This was a space down below aft, where the air got very thick when ventilation was shut off in rough weather. The canvas hammocks were comfortable, with mattresses, pillows, and blankets. In harbour, the midshipmen did physical drill before breakfast. The day was spent under instruction, running picket boats or keeping watch. In the evening they rehearsed theatricals or wrote up their notebooks. Their instruction covered a wide field. For example the textbook 'Queries in Seamanship' advised on how to deal with the following situation: You are Officer of the Watch on Easter Day. Russian officers come aboard to call and say to you 'Christ is Risen!'. What would you reply, and what action would you take in the matter?
The ship carried two 56 foot picket boats, got in and out by the main derrick - a great steel stick hinged to the foot of the main mast. Their crew was a coxswain, three seamen, an engineer and a stoker, with a midshipman in charge. The midshipman steered, though some of them were barely tall enough to see over the spray shield. When hoisted out, these boats were moored up to the lower booms - wooden spars that stuck out on either side of the ship, about fifteen feet above the water. Manning the boats over the boom in rough weather was a tricky business.
A ship in each squadron towed a captive balloon manned by gunnery spotters. As an experiment, the Valiant carried a little Sopwith Pup fighter biplane on her forward turret. the pilot flew off boldly with no definite plan for landing.
Trips to sea were restricted by an oil fuel shortage, caused by the German submarine campaign. Such trips usually lasted three days. While at sea half the armament was continually manned; men off watch slept in the turrets and batteries. On winter nights at sea Philip wore a flannel shirt and long drawers over his pyjamas, thick socks, grey flannel trousers, long white sea-boot stockings, two sweaters, a woollen muffler, a monkey jacket, sea-boots and Balaclava helmet, with a 'lammy suit' on top of all. The lammy suit was a thick blanket affair with wide trousers and a hooded coat. He had a Gieve's life-saving waistcoat, to be blown up thorugh a rubber tube.
In the spotting top, Philip worked an optical instrument. The control Officer ordered 'Shoot!' the fire-gong went 'Ting Ting' - then, after a second's pause that seemed much longer, the ship jumped and quivered, the mast on which they were whipped like a fishing rod, a hot blast fanned their faces, and the tremendous noise of big guns fired together was followed by sour clouds of yellow smoke that blanketed them.
Towards the end of the war an increasing amount of time was spent at Rosyth; the squadron ususally moored just east of the Forth Bridge. Philip's messmate, Bob Stuart, was an Edinburgh boy; his family lived by the Dene Bridge, and were extremely good to Philip. One went from South Queensferry to Edinburgh by bus with a gas balloon on top of it. Aunt Nini had charge of a Church Army hut at Rosyth, and Philip used to see her there. Her old Sheffield maid, Walker, was on the staff. Philip sometimes dined in the Malaya - the next door ship - with his St.Vincent Term friend Andrew Yates. They played pool on a small billiard table, and the slight roll of the ship was excuse for missing a shot.
It must have been difficult to keep a huge fleet keen and happy during long dull periods in harbour, and the Commander in Chief, Sir David Beatty, deserves much credit for this. He visited once a year, when he gave away the prizes for the pulling regatta. Each time he said 'This year, I am convinced, we shall see the whites of their eyes!', and everyone was re-filled with enthusiasm, though nothing of the sort had been sighted in the interim.
Philip experienced no battles or horrors. Just before midnight one summer night at Scapa Flow HMS Vanguard, the next ship in the line, blew up and disappeared, but Philip knew nothing of it until the next day. Over 800 of the Vanguard's crew were drowned. The cordite in one of the Vanguard's magazines had exploded, probably as a result of the heat from a undetected fire in an adjacent coal bunker.
In November 1918 Philip's batch passed for sub-lieutenants. A few days later the Armistice with Germnay was signed, and the war ended. The ships let off their stock of fireworks and blew their sirens, whilst all hands shouted and cheered. 'Splice the Maibrace!' was ordered, and everyond got tipsy - excusable only at the end of each war.
The surrender of the German High Seas Fleet was the most remarkable thing that Philip ever saw. One had been out so often to look for them, and their apperance was so familiar from the little black silhouettes stuck up in the gun control positions. On a calm, grey November morning the Grand Fleet steamed out to meet them, and in they came - German battleships, cruisers and destroyers, in long lines, keeping perfect station.
Between the wars
Minesweeping
In January 1919 Acting Sub-Lieutenant Reid joined a torpedo boart, P.41, at Portsmouth. She was 200 feet long and 700 tons, with maximum speed of 20 knots. She carried one 4 inch gun, stern torpedo tubes and depth charges. Aged just 18, Philip was the green and ignorant First Lieutenant. P.41 was Senior Officer's ship of a mine-sweeping flotilla working frm Ymuiden, at the mouth of the Amsterdam Canal. The Senior Officer was a temporary Lieutenant Commander, ex Royal Indian Marine. He sometimes gave Philip a strange look; it turned out he had a glass eye. There was difficulty in inducing men due for demobilisation to do minesweeping work, so a highly paid Mine Clearance Service was formed, and Philip drew forty pounds a month for the three months that the job lasted. This began his extravagant bachelor phase, which lasted eighteen years.
HMS Bramble in the Persian Gulf
In August 1919 Philip was appointed to the Bramble, a Perisan Gulf gunboat. It was an interest relic - built of wood copper sheathed, rigged to sail as well as steam, and fitted with a hand capstan. There were no refrigerators or fans. The ship carried a Royal Marine detachement of a sergeant and six men, including a butcher who dealt with the live sheep penned on the upper deck.
They set off on a cruise, stopping first at the stifling little harbour at Muscat. During the hot still night one could hear the Sultan's sentries hailing each other across the mouth of the harbour. At the next port, Jask, they got orders to go to Bombay, pay off and sell themselves.
HMS Wivern
Philip's next ship, and a happy one, was the Wivern, building at Samuel White's yard in East Cowes. They joined a new flotilla at Port Edgar, for training in the Firth of Forth. In March they went to Scapa Flow, and each ship attemped to tow a surrendered German destroyer to Rosyth for breaking up. Whilst alongside her tow in narrow Gutta Sound the Wivern broke adrift from her bouy in a squall, and they had an exciting night.
Cambridge
The Admiralty decided that young officers hurriedly trained during the war needed further educaiton, so Philip and his contemporaries were sent to Cambridge for a few months.
Philip found himself at Downing college for the May Term and Long Vacation of 1920. His father, a trinity Hall man of the 1860s, looked upon Downing as a poor, unfashionable place, and admittedly the undergraduates there could not spare much time or money for clothes or amusements; they were scholarship men competing for degrees that would be their livelihood. Many of the older ones had fought in the war. The Sailors, and obstreperous lot, were treated with great kindness. Philip had firends in many of the Colleges and got glimpses of a different world - the Classics and all the liberal studies n a light hearted summer setting.
The Reid family were living at this time at Canford Magna, near Wimborne in Dorset, in a house that later became part of Canford School. There was a Real Tennis court there, with grille and penthouse and dedans, so Philip took lessons from the Cambridge Real Tennis professional. He bought a little two-stroke motor bicycle secondhand for sixty pounds - motors are dear after wars. This was later succeeded by a heavy machine, the Rudge Multi; one went along like a human bullet, but the Portsmouth tramlines were treacherous and Philip's shoulder long reminded him of one heavy fall there.
In the autumn Philip returned to the Wivern, leaving the ship before Christmas to undertake Sub-Lieutenant's courses at Portsmouth. They learned navigation, signals, toperdo, and gunnery. The torpedo instruction was done afloat in the Vernon hulk; the gunnery instruction was at Whale Island.
Whale Island
Whale Island, known as HMS Excellent or 'Whaley' was the home of naval gunnery. For nearly forty years the capital ship had been the unit of naval power, and the big gun its principal weapon. Gunnery officers have shaped naval policy and predominated in the high commands. Whether or not the bomb and the airborne torpedo have ousted the big gun, Philip remained very proud to have been a Gunnery Officer in the great days.
At the Sub-Lieutenants' course at Whale Island there was plenty of hard exercise, work, and fun in the evening. Philip liked it all, and applied to to a long gunnery course.
The drill rig was white flannel trousers, flannel shirt, scarf and khaki leggings. Classes always moved at the double. Morning Divisions was a parade under arms, ususally followed by field training - squad, small arms or company drill. The Mess provided good food and cheerful guest nights. Philip played rugby, and lots of squash. Lord Louis Mountbatten was the outstanding member of the class - a hard worker of great ability.
In the summer of 1921 there was a serious coal strike. Most of the Regular Army were stationed in Ireland, and there was fear of Red revolution, so all naval reservists were recalled, and formed into units for maintaining order. Philip joined the Fourth Devonport Battalion at Tidworth, near Salisbury, and there they remained, since there was no trouble in the industrial areas.
HMS Ramillies
Philip joined the Ramillies at Rosyth in January 1922, a day or two after his twenty first birthday.
To be continued.
