A camp called Happy Valley

First World War Audio Archive

A camp called Happy Valley

Transcript

Soldier standing at attention in front of steps.

We were then in a camp called Happy Valley and we were mixing then with the artillery boys, and also the engineers and other ancillary units and some of the infantry too, because, the reason we were moved there in the first place was because headquarters found that the Canadians were attached to the British Army and didn’t like it. They wanted them under their control. And we stayed there for a few days. At least a few months, I dare say. We not only did a lot of survey work there, we were doing an awful lot of topography - getting up on hills and making sketches of the surrounding country. Testing the speed of rivers by throwing in a cigarette box or something and watching it go down

Soldiers on bicycles.

the stream and find out what the speed of the river was. Testing the little bridges to see how much weight they could carry. If a field gun or something went over, could it carry the weight, and things like that you see. And we did an awful lot of that and running around the country to condition our muscles so that we wouldn’t get stale. And we were issued with shorts for the first time. It was difficult riding around that part of Sussex and so on. It was a marvellous time. I was one of the unfortunate few who was kept twenty months in England. I was an expert in a good many things. I was reading Morse at thirty words a minute for one thing. And that’s as fast as you can write it in long hand. I was an instructor in musketry, in signalling of any kind, whether it was heliograph,

Soldier standing in front of door, holding a cane.

or Lucas Lamp, or tapper or flag. No matter how you sent it; upside down, inside out, I could still read it and teach it. And, of course, the heliograph was a very difficult instrument. And we had to learn all the different parts of a telescope. And all the workings of our field telephone sets. And how to lay out the wiring which was just plain enamel thin wire with black enamel on it. Well, the ground spike was the ground and you had to know how to service the things, and keep them in good running order. Well, we got to be quite expert in not only that, we were in bombing, too. We’d do a lot of bombing. There was one amusing story about that. We were sent out on this bombing job and it was

Photograph of serviceman wearing glasses.

before the Mills bomb was invented. What it was, was a jam tin (inaudible) citrus or apple jam, you know. A little tin about two and a half inches tall and about two inches in diameter. And you’d fill it up with old bits of metal, nails and stones and so on, and then put in a round of gun cotton with a hole in the middle. You put that in and then you had a fuse, about that long, about two inches long - a black fuse. And you struck a match. We had a brassard with some sandpaper on it and you struck the match on that. You’d light this fuse and you’d have about twenty seconds to get rid of it, you see. And then you’d lob it over into the trench of the enemy, so called. Of course, there was nobody in these mock trenches. They were just firing from one

Photograph of Mr.Ellis as an older man.

trench into another. And we’d been doing that for quite a while. And then they were to break off for lunch. So, we all went back into the hut. And there was a door at each end. I was senior corporal in charge of this hut. We had a chap named Tomsley, Fred Tomsley. We called him Lightening because he spoke so slowly but he had a mind like a whiplash and he came in with one of these bombs and this fuse was sputtering. He says, “Corporal, what do I do with this?” You should have seen that crowd. They were just out of that door before you could turn around. I grabbed it out of his hand and threw it out the door and I said, “Get that darn thing out of here!” He said, “It’s alright,

Newspaper article of Mr. Ellis and another fellow veteran drinking wine.

Corporal, there’s only mud in it.” We thought it was live, you see. We had a riotous time, we really did.

Description

Mr. Ellis describes the wide variety of training he took and instruction he gave at Happy Valley Camp in England, including an amusing story about explosives training.

Wilfred Dancy Ellis

Wilfred Dancy “Dick” Ellis was born in Surrey, England, on September 10,1895. Mr. Ellis emigrated to Canada in 1912, joining his parents who had left him in England to finish school. He became active in the local boys club and Home Guard, and finally enlisted in the 4th Division, Canadian Bicycle Battalion, because, in his words, he wanted to preserve his British heritage. This group, nicknamed the “Gas Pipe Cavalry”, was a highly mobile support battalion which could quickly move into reinforcing positions. The events described by Mr. Ellis took place at Vimy. In addition, he was wounded at Lieven on the Lens Front. After the war, Mr. Ellis wrote a Battalion history entitled, Saga of the Cyclists in the Great War, 1914-1918. He was employed with the Bank of Commerce for 48 years and involved with the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires. Mr. Ellis died, aged 100, on August 14, 1996, leaving behind his wife of 75 years, Gladys (nee Loram), and two children.

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