The Instructors – Grahame May – 25th

The recent article by Ted Huntley which mentioned Reg. Drinkwater and Joe Salter prized open my memory of the start of the 25th Entry’s fourth term, in which we were introduced to our new Pay Accounts Instructor – Sgt. Campbell. I recall that he was grossly overweight and had a rather unpleasant manner to begin with but then underwent a dramatic change, due mainly to two of us calling his bluff. He had started off by inferring that the class appeared to have a fair number of suspect queers and pansies and he kept on bringing this up time after time. He then made the mistake of taunting Harrison, who was in the boxing team and Wallace who was no slouch by any means. They responded to his offer of taking on any two of us in the ring at the same time and I recall he was visibly surprised when they both confirmed that they were ready and willing. As a result, I understand that Campbell then went into a programme of serious training and dieting, because within a month or two he had trimmed down, smartened up and was far less provocative. The result was that this change of attitude meant that Harrison and Wallace did not have to perform. although I feel sure they would have done so, if necessary. As the term drew to a close Sgt. Campbell pulled me to one side and said that if I did not get my act together then my chances of passing out as a J/T would be zero. I do not know if he said this to anyone else in the class but it did me a great deal of good and I remember thinking maybe he was not as bad as we all thought. Our fifth and final term was with Chief Tech. Price and it was then that I did get my act together and just scrambled a pass in the final exams. My lasting memory of Sgt. Campbell was on the morning after our Passing Out Parade when he gave me the thumbs up from a distance, just as we were all beginning to go our separate ways.
I always thought that dear old Sgt. Joe Salter was like a friendly uncle. He always had great difficulty in pronouncing the names of our two lads from Ceylon ie, Ediriwira and Amerasekera, and the different variations that he came out with, when taking a roll call, always made us giggle a bit, but Joe soldered on as though nothing had happened. Cpl. Drinkwater , on the other hand, was totally professional, always smartly turned out and he was always on top so as to make our drill sessions mean something. I recall we had a lad with two left feet at one stage very early in our first term and Dinky went out of his way to help him. He also frowned on anyone who took the mickey out of the lad and so he gradually overcame his problem. Unfortunately, he was re-coursed and so I have no idea what became of him nor can I recall his name. The last I remember of Cpl. Drinkwater was a football match , probably sometime in mid December 1956 in which, I think, a mixture of our A an B teams played a friendly against some of the Instructors and the Teaching Staff . Why this was done I have no idea because all I can remember was Drinkwater chasing a long ball into our penalty area and the two of us colliding. I was able to grab and hold onto the ball whilst Dinky got up, pulled a face and then ruffled my hair. He also shook my hand when the match was over.