One other incident stays with me from those days, a sad one really. A young lad of about 19, infantry I believe, was in quite a state. He told me that his mother was a widow and that he was the youngest of three sons. One brother had been killed in North Africa and he had heard that very morning that his other brother had been killed in a training accident; he himself was waiting for a posting to Lord knows where. I believe the army has been known in such cases to discharge a lone survivor but this lad was not to be consoled. I don't know the outcome. Oxshott does not evoke very happy memories in my mind and for a long time afterwards I harboured thoughts of meeting those three after the war, on more equal terms or on terms more favourable to me but now I can't even remember what they looked like. The future became a little brighter when on a later postings parade my name was called out and I was en route to Aldershot, to Parson's Barracks. ALDERSHOT Accommodation in Parson's Barracks was in the comparatively new spider huts, six corridors emanating from a common hub terminating in our sleeping quarters. Again the beds consisted of three bed boards on wooden trestles and three biscuits; Four blankets completed the ensemble. I think that we were there just filling in time before we were sent on an overseas draft and each morning we paraded in front of the Company Office for roll call before being marched off to the Ordnance Workshops, there to be split up into our various trades. Initially I was sent to a fitting bench where my main unofficial job was to convert an English penny into a spitfire brooch for my sister. Later I was transferred to the Drawing Office. I don't recall exactly what I worked on, nothing earth-shattering but this was to be the pattern of things for the next couple of months. This was a peacetime undertaking employing mainly civilians both in the offices and workshops and supplemented during the war by army tradesmen. There were relics of a bygone age when time was not of the essence; on the walls were some drawings on thick cartridge paper of weaponry with the various metals indicated by colour washes, blue for steel and yellow for brass while some drawings were in ink on tracing linen. Current drawings however were in pencil on tracing paper.