Finally we got called up to go to Russia. The Russian convoys at hat time used to take tanks and everything for the merchant ships to Russia planes trips and tanks and so on and eh for the Russian war effort. So we landed in Archangel. Now Archangel was a town in Russia, it was a little town a little port actually. The houses were wooden the streets were wooden and the only place you could go to have a cigarette was a park. You weren’t allowed to smoke in this place. However we met the Russians they were very nice and looked after us very well and they used to beg for cigarettes and the kids used to run up and say cigarette comrade and eh chocolate comrade. We used to give them cigarettes and chocolate and they used to give us what they called roubles that’s Russian money and eh we could spend it in the shops there which was very few shops as the Russians had practically nothing food or anything so we would supply them with that as well. But I remember one time a few of us went out to a tram in Archangel a tram you know what a tram is they are not here nowadays. Tramcar. Any way the conductor came along asking for the fare so I said “Scolcol roubles” how many roubles so she looked at me and counted all the folk in the place in the car this was Russians as well I gave her roubles and she gave me back kopeks that’s like roubles is the same as a pound and kopeks is the same as a penny. She gave me back that money and I found out that I had paid for the whole lot Russians as well.

Having said all that the safest place to be in the war was in the services. Eh we never got anything like what the civilians got by bombs and what ever they threw the likes of London Coventry Liverpool Glasgow and that the bombs that these people got were 4 times more than we were putting up with because we were in the open and these people lived in houses and the house was a danger if there was anything like that being thrown about. So the safest place I thought was the army and eh it was altogether six and a half years.