Service UK
Brancepeth Castle Co. Durham No 4 Infantry training centre
The July 1946 edition of the Regimental Journal of the Durham Light Infantry, brief extract follows: 'The Durham Light Infantry Training Centre was organised as follows. Headquarters with four recruit companies, each of nine platoons of thirty recruits. A specialist company, where selected men were sent for training in either MT, Signals, or mortars or carriers`.
‘There was also a large Depot Company that held trained soldiers until they were posted to battalions or elsewhere. The strength of this company often reached a thousand men in rations apart from more who were detached on employment elsewhere.....'
George arrived at Brancepeth camp for his infantry training and this posting the Durham Light Infantry Regt.
He completed his infantry training on the 7th of November 1945. He was then posted internally to DLI and Duke of Wellingtons camp as permanent Staff.
He was a quick learner and was now in his element doing what he had been dreaming of over the past few years, he was mixing with others of the same age and accepted the discipline as a keystone to army life and he was a fast learner and had adapted well to the regiment and was well thought of by his fellow colleagues and his superiors. He did well in the DLI as permanent staff he promoted to L/CPL. unpaid L/Cpl. 7/11/45 and had achieved paid Cpl. 29/8/46.
It was whilst at Brancepeth camp he met an ATS private Annie Tomlinson who was attached to the officer’s mess steward duties, a relationship developed, and this led to them getting married on the 5th of October 1946. They were both 19 years of age. This was to have a major effect on Georges posting as at the time a man and his wife could not serve on the same station together neither was he eligible for a married quarter or marriage allowance until he reached the age of 25? The resultant was that he was posted as permanently attached to No 9 Primary training at Maryhill barracks Glasgow 4 days after his marriage. [No.9 Primary Training Centre was disbanded on 7 November 1946.!]
The reality was that in 1946 George was now some 145 miles away from his wife with little or no chance of seeing her on a regular basis transport was very poor and cars were a scarcity and well out of the budget of an army and now unpaid Lance Corporal. It was shortly after this that Annie was discharged from the ATS as she was pregnant [obviously the reason for marrying in the first place? Comment her son!] Annie’s parents had moved from Co Durham to Askern in Yorkshire to find work in the colliery and the gas works and this is where Annie ended up now in 1946 some 265 miles away from George in 1946 this without doubt was a recipe for trouble on Georges weekly wage of 48 shillings [£2:40p]