Shortages of many items were now beginning to make themselves felt in Britain, army boots and leather for their repairs for one thing and somebody realised that lying idle throughout the country were the shoes belonging to the men who had been called up. It must have caused a severe shock to all the Colonel Blimps but it was decreed that the other ranks would now be permitted to wear shoes when off duty. There was one proviso however, they had to be black, just in case the other ranks got confused with their betters. Another shortage concerned watches or rather watch glasses. Unbreakable types were not in general use at that time and all types were difficult to obtain. I got over this by using a draughtsman's ink spring-bows to which a snapped portion of a razor blade had been attached. Circles were scribed out on the transparent material of goggles anti-gas and then broken out. Since the QM and a lieutenant both had watches needing glasses I had no difficulty in getting a few goggles anti-gas diverted from the QM store. Nearly all of us smoked in those days and our favourite brands were not always available; matches were also in short supply so we doubled our stock by splitting them lengthwise with a razor blade. Swan Vestas were the easiest to split. A sentry was stationed at the drawbridge; during daylight hours he was armed with a stick but at night he had a rifle and fixed bayonet, the rifle though had no ammunition. The total Signals complement, GOR, Line Section, assorted clerks, QM stores personnel and others amounted to about 80 I guess and for this number we had six rifles, two SMLE's, a couple of Canadian Ross rifles and two American .300's made in Springfield. All ammunition was very limited. However, later, probably sometime in 1941, someone at a higher level decided that we should not be defenceless and a blueprint arrived one day showing how to make raid party truncheons. There were two types, the first consisted of an 18-inch length of stirrup pump hose loaded at one end with concrete and fitted with a thong at the other. The second type was more lethal if one could get near enough to the enemy; it used an 18-inch length of electrical conduit to the end of which was welded a discarded gear, any old gear would do as long as it was sharp, heavy and pointy; in fact we were now armed with maces reminiscent of the middle ages and chronologically more in keeping with our Victorian surroundings. The blueprint had arrived at the same time as a length of stirrup pump hose and no time was lost in manufacturing type number one only to discover later that it was intended for incendiary purposes and not raid party truncheons. Too late, we couldn't put it back together again but we did have some fun out of the exercise by trying out the effect of the first type of truncheon on our tin hats; after a few blows the concrete cracked and fell out while the tin hats emerged unscathed. We didn't risk trying out the second type.