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I was a telegraph boy at the time and thought it was a great joke. I realised later that what the old German had said was very wise. Anybody who wears a uniform of whatever description is a person dictated to by some other person and usually holds a job in which he allows his actions, sometimes even his thoughts and morals, to be under the control of someone else.

Young people were exploited pretty thoroughly when I was a boy. In those good old days when I was apprenticed to sailmaking and rigging for the Cunard Steamship Co. we started work at 6am and worked until 8am. Breakfast was from 8 - 8:30am. Then we worked until 12 noon. Then a break for dinner of an hour, and then we worked until 6pm. I had three miles to walk to work and the same back home. I got 7/6 a week to start for the first year, with the prospect of £1.12.6 a week when I finished my time.

There were about twelve boys in my gang. We used to get called out to dock small vessels belonging to the company. This job, which happened at night, was eagerly looked forward to by us as, although it usually meant four hours work, we received the large amount of 2/6 for it. We had to take a boat and row ahead of the vessel docking and, if necessary, take ropes ashore to warp her through the numerous dock gates until she reached her mooring birth. Sometimes the vessel never arrived on the night we were ordered out and this meant a watch at the end of the pier for four hours. We took it in turns, one boy muffled up in oilskins at the end of the pier and the other two boys dozed in an old rope and fender hut. It was usually useless to go home after one of these ‘tides’ as we called them and we used to sleep the rest of the night on one of the company’s ships, usually on a table or bench. Then back at work at 6am.