Training The great influx of men recruited to the ‘Pals’ battalions took the army authorities by surprise. There was a chronic shortage of uniforms and equipment and the men paraded in civilian clothes. Some had old service tunics but most dressed in what they had: sweaters and jumpers in a variety of colours, and especially hats such as bowlers, flat caps, straw hats and boaters. In November they were issued with emergency ‘blue’ uniforms but full dress khaki would not arrive until nearer Christmas. It was the same with equipment, especially rifles. They had to use wooden stakes and poles as drill rifles. The rifles they did have were old and often out of service and those which could be used for musketry training had to be shared. As the men were training in their camps and barracks, back home in Oswestry people followed their stories in the Border Counties Advertiser. In a letter, Private 12360 Samuel Gowrie Dalrymple Campbell, wrote of his time in the camp, ‘we have plenty of blankets. Bread is the main food, and we had margarine for tea yesterday, which was a great treat. We get brawn for breakfast and four loaves have to last sixteen of us a day”. He also wrote of watching aircraft from the nearby Royal Flying Corps base at Farnborough. He said they were ‘looping the loop …..it is very pretty to watch them against the setting sun’. Each day they trained, ‘we skirmish every morning from 11 - 1 o’clock, and it is awful charging the hills’. He finishes by listing the other men in his tent: ‘Owen Williams (the librarian), Corp. Cecil Huxley, L/ Corp Woolledge, L/Corp Beaton (from Phillip’s), Tudor Roberts, Bert Kenyon, Ernie Evans (Mr Gaius Evan’s son), Hughes (North and South Wales Bank), Charlie Hughes, Gwilym Roberts, TP Price, Corp. Beck (Barrs Bank), Billie Edwards and Sabbin (United Counties Bank)’. In a letter home Corporal Charles Hughes wrote that they have been on brigade manoeuvres to attack a hill. He said, ‘we… advanced by companies with five paces interval between each man. It looked fine. You can imagine what it was like, 500 khaki clad soldiers in extended order dotted all over the common’. The next day there was a surprise visit and inspection by the King, where the men were paraded in their smartest order. Charles only caught a glimpse as the King passed by a 100 yards away, ‘we saw nothing more and were informed the parade was over’. 12 | The Oswestry Pals
we have plenty of blankets. Bread is the main food, and we had margarine for tea yesterday, which was a great treat . | The Oswestry Pals 13
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