Letter: Memories of ‘Sgt Guinness’

Published on: 9 Nov, 2019
Updated on: 8 Nov, 2019

From: Helen Ward (nee Corlett) aka “Guinness”

In response to: Memories Of Queen Elizabeth Barracks And The Women’s Royal Army Corps

Great to read everyone’s memories in the comments posted under the article. I joined 9 Sept 1978, in 1 Platoon, 1 Company (yellow flash) and the training NCOs were Cpl Carol Hughes and L/Cpl Beth Webber.

I then went into the WRAC band. Saw a few familiar names in the above letters, Jill Tully, Loraine? Sgt? Rolfe, The Doddy the band drank with was a driver, I think.

Have some great memories. Did Rheindahlen many times and remember shopping in the American & Dutch PXs, the pools and discovering chips and mayonnaise (Frit sauce) in Pops & Eddie’s.

Mind you, we missed the IRA bomb outside the officers’ mess by a sheer fluke. It was a German night and the German guests decided they didn’t want to be entertained by the WRAC band so we went to a party with the Royal Artillery Band (Dortmund I think). Came back to RheinD to all hell breaking loose and a damn great crater in the mess car-park where the band bus would have been loaded.

Did a couple of tours of Cyprus including a trip to the Turkish side. The final tour was miserable. They put us in the transit blocks in Episkopi at the tail end of their coldest winter for years. This was March and there were stone floors and no heating. The lead trombone player (Leslie) returned to UK with chilblains on her ears.

Loved my five weeks in Hong Kong. Think I left a piece of me there, and three weeks performing with the Irish Guards band (and Vera Lynn) was great fun.

We saw Niagara Falls at night, although can’t say I remember it as I’d spent the afternoon/evening learning how to consume large amounts of rye whiskey with the legendary Dixie Dean (drum-major of the Irish Guards)
Spent 18 months studying at the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall. Best 18 months of my life and learned so much.

The accommodation block at Queen Elizabeth Park leaked like hell due to the flat roofs. I found a pool of ice on my bunk floor after one Xmas leave, so they started a programme of adding pitched roofs.

The band got moved to an old officers’ block at Stoughton Barracks “for a few months”. Think we remained there nearly two years, left pretty well alone. Was great. We used to bring the horses round from Gravetts Lane stables.

We didn’t want to move back to the camp. It was like living out. Which is what I did and rented a shared flat locally. A lot of the band did because we were based in Guildford permanently.

Having said that, most of the summer was spent travelling to and from gigs far and wide. Many thought us band girls had a life of luxury. But they never saw us loading heavy kit onto a Bicknell’s bus/four-tonner/pantech in the pouring rain or returning from a gig at 0300hrs.

And, best of all, eating a cookhouse haversack lunch which had sat on a bus all day during the height of summer while on Royal Park concerts. By late afternoon, a ham sandwich had morphed to a toastie.

None of us ever got food poisoning though. Think our stomachs just got used to them.

Met hubby in the Royal (Hotel) which forces were barred from. It was nearer than having to risk it down Pigs Alley in the dark, plus it was nice to be part of the local community (ie the drinkers at the toilet end of O’Malley’s bar).

We were lucky because once married the Army rented one of the eight married quarters at Stockton close (by sea cadets). The rules had just changed so serving WRACs could be housed in these instead of Deepcut (I couldn’t drive).

In the end, despite the best years of my life, I decided to leave because my knees had suffered for years and all the travelling and propping up bars in various parts of the world was losing its appeal. So I jumped from the frying pan into the fire and we became publicans, running the Ship Inn up the Worplesdon Road from 1990-97.

Loved my time in the band and was proud to have served in the only all-female military band in the world and also met (and drank with) some wonderful (and memorable) ladies from other trades.

I would particularly like to thank a great character, Cpl Sue Furness (still remember her laugh now), who nicknamed me “Guinness”, probably down to the copious amounts of the stuff I consumed. I was never really known by any other name.

Trouble was, on the day of my discharge, the commanding officer was just about to put me down as “Sgt Guinness”. I had to stop her and say: “That’s not my real name, ma’am.”