March 1941

Reported to the Royal Army Service Corps Clerk's School at Aldershot on 3 Mar and was attached for all purposes to No. 12 Training Battalion RASC for #66 Basic Course and #22 Staff Duties Course to qualify as a Unit Orderly Room Clerk. I welcomed the break from routine around the billets and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of going back to school. It was on this course that I realized what I had missed in not applying myself when I was attending High School in Toronto. I was determined that I was not going to repeat that mistake again. We used Oliver Typewriters which had the looping key striking arrangement. We were told that these particular makes of typewriters were used in the South African War and they were indeed a very cumbersome and inefficient machine. We were also sent to the staff college at Camberley to act as Brigade and Divisional Clerks for a staff college 48 hour exercise. I still have a copy of the report that I received at the end of this course and it certainly did me no harm. As a result of the course I was promoted to Lance Corporal.

While I was absent on course Capt. J.E.F. Seagram was killed in an air raid in London and was buried with full military honours by the unit at Brookwood cemetery. Unit boxers went on to win 4 Corps Championships. When the battalion was in France we were forced to leave Pte. G. Thompson behind as he took sick. Word was received by the unit that he had returned after many adventures and landed at Gourach in Scotland on 17 Mar. The circumstances of his escape from occupied Europe were never really told to anyone in the unit.