Free Parky: My Autobiography by Michael Parkinson

understood and admired them. What is more they were recognisably creatures from the planet I had known, unlike one or two of my fellow officer cadets and certainly a couple of the officers I encountered at Mons.
    I was in a billet with a languid young man who was a son of a member of the aristocracy. He drove a large red sports car and often arrived at the camp gates on Monday mornings accompanied by his ‘chauffeur’, a blonde with long hair who looked like Veronica Lake in The Blue Dahlia . His insouciance was awesome. One morning he arrived late on parade and, upon approaching the regimental sergeant major, a man who positively quivered with authority, smiled, and said, ‘Terribly sorry, sergeant major, delayed by tourists outside the Palace.’
    My training officer was a captain in a posh regiment. He had a slight Scottish accent delivered in an affected drawl. He didn’t like me. He thought I was an imposter and a useless soldier, an opinion confirmed when he asked me to lead my platoon across a ploughed field to attack a copse allegedly hiding a German gun emplacement.
    I studied the map, considered the options and decided on a full frontal assault in true up and at ’em style, like Gary Cooper in Sergeant York . I hadn’t calculated that heavy overnight rain had turned the field into treacle and that by the time we had got halfway to our target the majority of my platoon were too knackered to carry on and those of us who slogged it out were being bombarded with thunder flashes and blank rounds. I made it to the cover of trees and fell down in utter exhaustion.
    I was lying there thinking of All Quiet on the Western Front and that final scene when they are all dying and Lew Ayres reaches out for the butterfly, when I heard and felt an explosion near my crutch. Then another. I opened my eyes to see my favourite officer standing over me lighting thunder flashes and dropping them between my legs, shouting, ‘You are dead, sir, quite dead.’
    ‘I know, sir,’ I replied, and lay there thinking what a silly bloody game this was. I was also certain I was about to be kicked out, given the dreaded RTU, returned to unit. In fact, they called me in, said I was a borderline case and gave me a second chance. I was to be held back for another term.
    My second spell with the training officer was easier for both of us. He came to accept me as a sign the army was going to pot, as I continued to lead my men with the kind of gung-ho bravado displayed by Errol Flynn when he single-handedly defeated the Japanese Army in Objective Burma .
    My major problem was getting leave. The totting-up system of offences meant that I was more often than not confined to barracks at the weekends. I wasn’t an unruly soldier, merely an untidy one. I decided to concentrate on getting at least one weekend in London. I succeeded to the point where I had only to survive a visit to the adjutant’s office to answer some minor offence, and I was up the West End.
    I was marched in, double time, by an NCO who halted me side on to the adjutant’s desk. All I had to do was a smart right turn, bringing up my left knee and driving my foot down to attention facing the adjutant. He was a cavalry officer with beautifully tailored breeches and a soft barathea jacket. He had sandy hair and a moustache and was the very picture of a man born to lead. The sergeant major gave me the right turn, whereupon my left knee caught the underside of the adjutant’s desk and sent a bottle of ink spiralling into the air. It seemed to hang there for a while before tipping its contents over the officer’s trousers. All I remember is the sergeant leaning in and whispering into my ear, ‘Bang goes your fucking weekend.’ And so it proved. I think, in the end, they gave me a commission to get rid of me.
    I went back to Devizes to await my posting. The first time I was duty officer I went on a tour of the camp, which included a visit to the barber’s shop. The man who had given