Two Boys from Shildon

I was born on the 29th September 1918 in the town of Shildon in County Durham. Tom Raine was born there too, and from the very beginning we were great friends. We went to school together and spent our free time together, and when our fathers — both railwaymen — were transferred to York the year we turned seventeen, the move did nothing to part us. We simply went on being friends in a new town.

A young man in a suit standing before a brick archway; a caption on the photograph reads Barrackpore, Tom Raine, 1940. — Tom Raine at Barrackpore, 1940 — Bill's friend since childhood in Shildon, and later his best man.

In the late summer of 1939 the two of us were sitting on one of the rides at the fairground, killing time until two o'clock, when we were to register for the Militia at the Employment Office. The terms were six months in the forces followed by three and a half years in the Reserves. The pay was to be one shilling a day, and out of that we were expected to buy our own cleaning materials — shoe polish, Brasso and the like. It was only after the mothers of the called-up lads made their feelings known that the rate was raised to one and sixpence. As it happened, the war began a fortnight or so before our call-up on the 15th of September, and we found ourselves paid two shillings a day instead.

A hand-tinted studio portrait of Bill Troughton in uniform as a young man. — Bill Troughton in uniform, before embarkation.

We both began our training at Fulford Barracks in York. After about ten weeks we were on draft to India, to join the West Yorkshire Regiment. Neither of us could have guessed, sitting on that fairground ride, how far from home the next five years would carry us, nor how few of those who set out would come back.