Geordie E-Book

Geordie Doran

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 599

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Geordie Doran ranks as one of the most remarkable fighting soldiers of the twentieth century. Growing up in Jarrow during the Depression years of the 1930s, Geordie signed up as a private soldier in 1946 and embarked on a career spanning 40 years. He saw active service in Germany, Cyprus, the Korean War and Suez; he became an expert in jungle warfare in Malaya and in Borneo, as well as on key special operations in the deserts of Oman and Yemen, and Colonel Gaddafi's Libya. After returning to England in the early 1970s, a serious road accident curtailed his frontline soldiering career; however, he found a new and vital role as a permanent staff instructor with 23 SAS (TA) training the cream of recruits. He left the SAS in 1972, but could not settle into civilian life and found himself a job as a storeman in the SAS Quartermaster's stores – a job which lasted another 12 years, during which time he equipped many famous SAS characters for their famous clandestine missions.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Title Page

Foreword by Chris Ryan

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Prologue: Assault on Hell Mountain

1. A Tough ‘Jarra’ Lad: Forged from Hardship

2. Facing Worldwide Threat: Germany, Greece and Cyprus

3. Fighting Real Wars: Touch and Go in Korea

4. Terrorism: Egypt and the Canal Zone

5. The Paras: Cyprus and the Suez Crisis

6. The SAS: The Irresistible Call of Britain’s Finest

7. Selection: Winter on the Brecon Beacons

8. Who Dares Wins: Malaya

9. On the Trail of a Phantom Jungle Foe: With D Squadron SAS

10. Heroic, Hair-Raising Action: 22 SAS Regiment in Oman

11. Special Training, Special Troops: Malvern

12. Daredevil High Free Fall: From Hereford to Foreign Missions

13. High-Altitude Parachuting: Jungle Missions with the SAS

14. The SAS ‘Hearts and Minds’ Campaign: Borneo on the Brink

15. Clandestine Cauldron of Fire: A Secret Mission to the Yemen

16. Training the Young Lions of the SAS: The Infamous Killing House

17. First Pink Panther Jeep: Desert Testing with 22 SAS

18. Training Wing Quartermaster: 22 SAS Regiment

19. Permanent Staff Instructor: 23 SAS Regiment

20. Up North with the SAS Terriers: Forming a Sabre Squadron from Scratch

21. SAS Stores Supremo: The Iranian Embassy Siege and a Final Farewell

A Short History of the SAS

Plates

Copyright

FOREWORD

Geordie Doran is a legend to all soldiers of the Special Air Service (SAS). Few men have gone through so many famous conflicts in Britain’s history. From active service in the Paras in the Suez crisis of 1956, through the humid and steamy jungles of Malaya, to the burning deserts of Oman and the Yemen and many other hot spots, he became an inspiration to his comrades and those who have followed in his footsteps.

In the SAS, there are, and have been, many brave men, but Geordie was always in a class above in modern times.

His personality is deceptive. He has always had a quiet, modest, dignified manner while at the same time being very tough and hardy, and possessing a fine sense of humour. But in action he was always fearless, fiercely determined and never frightened to sacrifice himself to help a fellow comrade.

I first heard of him in 1976 as a 15-year-old when I was introduced to C Squadron 23 SAS by my cousin. This squadron, which had been formed by Geordie several years previously, all held him totally in awe as a vastly experienced regular of the SAS. Although it was completely unofficial, as I was not old enough to be attending the selections, I still took part. Geordie set out all the routes, which he himself had planned, and oversaw the process. At the end I was the only one left out of the whole selection course! But I was too young, so they told me to come back the following year, when I duly passed. I was well versed in the process of selection by then and knew all the routes and rendezvous (RV) points. I then joined 22 SAS in 1984.

One of these points – Geordie’s RV – is still used on the Otterburn training area selection course north of Hexham, which runs to the Scottish border, where Geordie used to sit on a bridge as a Permanent Staff Instructor overseeing hundreds of potential recruits from all over the north and then supervising their selections. These selection courses are exactly the same as the famous current ones for 22 SAS at Hereford, only they were run over weekends rather than a six-month block process.

Geordie always treated the Territorial Army (TA) soldiers in his care hard but fair, and never made us feel like weekend soldiers. I myself was in the TA SAS for six years before joining the regular SAS.

Such was Geordie’s reputation, among both the ranks and officers alike, that his exploits and persona were an inspiration to men he had never even met. His quiet courage, confidence and unmatched experience set a standard that everybody tried to reach. Not all succeeded, but the cream of the best were generally found and nurtured by Geordie’s tried and tested methods. He is one of a select number of legendary figures who all inspire SAS soldiers even to this day – David Stirling, Paddy Mayne, Johnny Cooper (who Geordie served memorably with in the Yemen) – and many more unforgettable soldiers, all the cream of the best that Britain can produce.

When SAS troops go into action today in places like Afghanistan they know they are part of the most famous regiment in the world and that they have standards to live up to, as set by legends like Geordie, which their own self-discipline tells them they have got to meet, even when they are at the point of exhaustion.

I and others like me in the modern SAS would truthfully find some of the operations people will read about in this book hard to complete successfully today, even with all our modern weapons, technology, intelligence and back-up. In fact, some of the operations that Geordie and others pulled off were almost impossible: they were going into uncharted territory in terms of survival and operations. For instance, they were going deep into the jungles of Malaya with inadequate food supplies, the men sleeping in trees, living on their wits and courage, and fighting a very competent enemy, the Communist guerrillas, who were used to living and fighting in the jungle. And yet they won! The same applies to the famous desert campaigns of Oman and the Yemen.

All tactics used by the SAS today stem from the hard experience learned in the jungle – for example, the four-man team, each man capable of covering for the others. Nowadays the basics needed are exactly the same and can be modified for the desert, an urban environment or virtually any other campaign or terrain.

As well as being a superb soldier, with a formidable and almost unique length of service in Special Forces in so many danger spots the world over, Geordie is genuinely a very decent, honourable man who will always have my respect and that of countless other former and current members of the regiment.

There have been many fine members of the SAS, but Geordie himself has no idea how much of an effect he has had on so many lives or of the number of lives saved by his thorough and dedicated training of younger members of the SAS. In fact Geordie and soldiers of similar calibre devised a lot of the tactics that I and many others fell back on and used in the first Gulf War of 1991.

In this timely and historic book, co-authored with Mike Morgan, whose own father, Corporal Jack Morgan, was a founder member of the elite 2nd SAS Intelligence Section during the Second World War, Geordie richly deserves to take his place among the true legends of the regiment.

CHRIS RYAN

Chris Ryan is an international best-selling author and holder of the Military Medal, awarded for his outstanding courage in his famous solo escape back to Allied lines during the Bravo Two Zero SAS raid in Iraq in the first Gulf War in 1991.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to pay tribute to my friend and Special Forces author and co-writer Mike Morgan for the tireless amount of work and expertise he has put into this book regarding its content, editing, format and layout over many months of hard endeavour. After asking Mike to view and vet my original manuscript, he expressed firm confidence in the project from the beginning. Ours has been a very happy and harmonious working relationship, and long may our friendship continue.

I also thank Chris Ryan, a former member of the TA SAS and a famous SAS soldier and author in his own right, for his excellent foreword which puts my life story into a very clear, concise nutshell at the start of this book.

My loyal wife, Ann, has offered me unstinting support over a long and happy marriage, as have my daughters Frankie (Frances) and Jackie (Jacqueline). I owe them all a debt of gratitude for being there when I have needed them most. In fact Frankie was the inspiration for this work as, one day – it seems like an age ago now – she asked me to put down my memoirs on paper as a family record. As you can see, I got rather carried away! This book, in its refined form, is the result, and I hope general readers, military veterans and serving soldiers alike will enjoy it for what it is – a true record of some of the key campaigns and experiences that have helped shape Britain’s postwar history.

Lastly, I sincerely thank all my former Army, Para and SAS comrades without whom my book, Geordie, could not have been written. In a very real sense it is also very much their story, and I dedicate it to every one of them.

GEORDIE

ABBREVIATIONS

AFD

Airborne Forces Depot

BAOR

British Army of the Rhine

CO

Commanding Officer

CQB

close-quarter battle

CSM

Company Sergeant Major

CT

Communist terrorists

DCLI

Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry

DF

defensive fire

DLI

Durham Light Infantry

DZ

drop zone

EAPC

East African Pioneer Corps

FF

free fall

FFR

fit for role

GP

Garrison Military Police

GPMG

general purpose machine gun

HALO

high-altitude low-opening

HE

high explosive

KAR

King’s African Rifles

KL

Kuala Lumpur

KOYLI

King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

LG

Life Guards

LMG

light machine gun

LRDG

Long Range Desert Group

LZ

landing zone

MG

machine gun

MP

military police(man)

MTO

motor transport officer

NCO

non-commissioned officer

NF

Royal Northumberland Fusiliers

OBLI

Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

OC

Officer Commanding

OP

observation post

PDC

parachutiste de choc

(French)

PE

plastic explosive

PJI

parachute jump instructor

PSI

Permanent Staff Instructor

QM

Quartermaster

RA

Royal Artillery

RAOC

Royal Army Ordnance Corps

RASC

Royal Army Service Corps

RE

Royal Engineers

REME

Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers

RF

Royal Fusiliers

RQMS

Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant

RSM

Regimental Sergeant Major

RTU

returned to unit

RV

rendezvous (point)

SAF

Sultan’s Armed Forces

SEP

surrendered enemy personnel

SLR

self-loading rifle

SMG

sub-machine gun

SQMS

Squadron Quartermaster Sergeant

SSM

Squadron Sergeant Major

TA

Territorial Army

WO2

Warrant Officer 2nd Class

WP

white phosphorus

PROLOGUE: ASSAULT ON HELL MOUNTAIN

GEORDIE DORAN is widely regarded as one of the truly memorable founding veterans of the modern-day postwar Special Air Service (SAS), writes Mike Morgan, author of Special Forces books Daggers Drawn: Real Heroes of the SAS and SBS and Sting of The Scorpion: The Inside Story of the Long Range Desert Group (The History Press).

Few front-line soldiers of the Paras and SAS have survived as many danger-packed campaigns throughout worldwide history as this quietly spoken but teak-tough veteran, who went on to transmit his hard-won skills and train new generations of Special Forces soldiers, the latest successors of which have performed with ultra-professional heroism in Afghanistan and Iraq. But, as he recalls his long and distinguished SAS career through the vivid actions described in this book, he admits that one of these campaigns in far-flung lands – the crucial battle to capture the Jebel el Akhdar, a towering mountainous plateau in Oman – could easily have spelled the bloody demise of the SAS Regiment not long after it had recovered from disbandment following its tremendous initial successes in the Second World War. The famed Malayan campaign against Communist insurgents in the late 1950s had recently been successfully waged, but there were many doubters in High Command who found it hard to believe that the SAS could operate – and win – in different environments around the world, and they were within an ace of ordering a second, final disbandment of the SAS if the ambitious attack in Oman failed. Now a vastly outnumbered SAS force was ordered to defeat a rebel enemy six times its size, well dug in at least 5,000 feet higher up the treacherous slopes of what the locals called the Green Mountain, owing to the vegetation that sprang miraculously from its dizzy heights in the midst of mile upon mile of barren, waterless wastes. It was obvious that the odds were stacked high against the SAS on this momentous occasion – but, as past heroics had proved, that was exactly the way the SAS liked it …

The hand-picked but vastly outnumbered SAS veterans of A and D Squadrons went about their warlike business with cool, confident efficiency as they prepared for their historic assault on the rebel fortress, almost impregnably sited on top of the towering Jebel mountain which loomed from the desert wastes in front of them like a dark, forbidding colossus.

The assembled British forces consisted of well-armed and superbly trained SAS ground forces, backed by helicopters and the pinpoint air supply and strike airpower of the RAF. Britain, having signed a treaty with the Sultan of Muscat and Oman in the 1950s, had to come to the Sultan’s aid when his interests were aggressively challenged by Sulaiman ibn Himyar, chief of the Bani Riyam, his nominee the Imam Ghalib ibn Ali and the latter’s brother, the powerful Talib. The ambitious and cunning Talib raised a powerful army of expatriate Omanis in Saudi Arabia and brought them to the Jebel, declaring himself master of central Oman and openly independent of the Sultan. The ancient fortress seemed impregnable to attack, and Talib was able to impose a stranglehold on the vital communications between the interior of the country and the coast. Action had to be taken to defeat him, but the Sultan did not have sufficient military might to solve the situation himself, and so he asked the British Government for urgent help. This was not a job for conventional forces and so, in turn, the British Government turned to the SAS Special Forces to do the job, using their experience, adaptability and skills.

The SAS commanders on the ground were, fortunately, able and experienced. They were led by their Commanding Officer (CO), the highly respected Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Deane-Drummond, a former Para Red Devil of Arnhem fame – a soldier who, rather than surrender to the Germans in that heroic and highly costly debacle in 1944, had hidden in a cupboard in an enemy-occupied house on the battlefield for 11 days to enable his eventual escape. Earlier in the war he had taken part in the first British parachute raid, at the Tragino aqueduct in Italy; although captured by the Italians he made a daring escape to Switzerland.

The SAS plan to defeat the Omani rebels was sound, but it carried a considerable portion of risk. The SAS attackers, each carrying around 100 pounds in weapons and equipment, would have to scramble up the treacherous slopes to the plateau above cloaked only by the protection afforded by the hours of darkness – without being seen or heard – and, once on the plateau, have to rout a powerful, well-hidden and fanatical foe. However, the window of opportunity to achieve success was dangerously small, and the thought of the SAS men being caught helpless in the dawn light and decimated piecemeal on the exposed mountainous slopes below by the rebels’ heavy machine guns, snipers and mortar fire was an unthinkable option.

Geordie, then a Lance Corporal in charge of two mortar teams, says of this mission, one of the most memorable earlier SAS actions which he describes in detail later in this book:

I arrived with around sixty to seventy of D Squadron SAS in November 1958. There were estimated to be at least 600 rebels dedicated to overthrowing the Sultan on the heights above. We were vastly outnumbered.

So we contained them, carried out reconnaissance and waited for reinforcements. A squadron arrived direct from Malaya in January 1959, which brought our strength to around 120–140 SAS. But there were still more than 600 heavily armed rebels in strength above us with many heavy machine guns, rifles and 82mm mortars. A few of them even had the old pre-First World War Martini-Henry rifles left over from earlier British colonial campaigns!

Many of the rebels lived full time on the Jebel, up to around 8,000 feet, but their main forces were on the plateau below at around 5,000 feet, well dug in and hidden in caves. It was an imposing natural fortress, last conquered by the Persians in 1256.

There were no qualms about it. We believed it could be taken, and we were all confident. We knew they were confined to that area, and we had to assault it to get them out. We had an ace up our sleeve, in that a diversionary attack was going to be mounted by some of our SAS boys just as we went in.

We were relying on detailed preparation, fitness, surprise and a cunning deception plan. News was leaked to our donkey handlers, who we knew could not be trusted with information and would almost certainly feed it to the rebels, that the main assault was going to be in a different place from the one we had planned. That seemed to work a treat, and the rebels moved a lot of men to where they thought the attack was going to come in.

The final assault was at 8 p.m. It was pitch-black, but the moon came out, which helped us. We all carried our own gear, weapons and ammunition, but each soldier also carried spare rocket projectiles for a bazooka-type rocket launcher, which was among our heavier weapons.

Around 110 men, including myself, took part in the main assault, with around 30–40 men from A Squadron SAS carrying out a diversionary attack in the Aquabat area of the mountain. They just went in hard and created as much noise and mayhem as they could.

When we got started on the main push it was very difficult climbing, on broken ground and with much scrambling over rocks in the dark. We had to balance the need for stealth and quietness with the pressing need to make solid progress to reach our objective at the plateau above before first light. If we didn’t, we were dead. It was as simple as that. It was very cold and got colder the higher up we climbed, and the air was thinner. Some men found it hard to breathe with all the exertion and the 100lb packs, and one or two actually flaked out under their heavy bergen packs as they climbed. We had all trained hard to acclimatise by constantly moving up and down the steep terrain for several weeks, and most of us completed the climb without a problem, but it was tough.

We got to the top at about 4 a.m., just in time before daylight was due to flood the area, giving away our audacious advance. When we got to the top many of the enemy positions were unmanned, with the rebels preoccupied by our diversionary attack on the other side of the mountain. All the positions had to be thoroughly checked. Some of the rebels were found asleep near their weapons and had to be killed where they lay.

The men made good use of their reliable SLR rifles and and 7.62mm Brens, and my section was following up with the mortars, which could engage the rebels at long range, saving quite a few casualties among our SAS forces. Although we had .303 Lee Enfield sniper rifles, the SLR in particular did not have a long range and was pretty useless if the opposition was holed up in rocks at a distance – you just couldn’t reach them.

But the masterplan worked out by our commanders worked like a dream, and we only had two casualties in A Squadron – caused by a stray bullet hitting a hand grenade one of the troopers was carrying in his bergen pocket. This exploded, badly wounding that man and the one nearest him. Both wounded soldiers were flown out by helicopter but, sadly, died later.

Many people did say before this assault that we had a massive disadvantage in the height that had to be climbed, combined with our vastly inferior numbers of troops. Many said that it could not be done, and, in all honesty, if the troops employed had not been SAS and had not been so fit and well trained and disciplined, it probably would not have been possible at all in the limited time span available. It had no right to be anything like a certainty, given all the factors apparently overwhelmingly against. But everything was meticulously planned, our knowledge of the ground was comprehensive and nothing was left to chance.

Our one big advantage was that the rebels did not know exactly where we were going to climb up and attack them. We kept them guessing, and it worked like a charm. However, it could so easily have gone horribly wrong, and if we had been caught cold in the daylight, it would have been a suicidal bloodbath.

In the event, as soon as we reached the rebel stronghold we found that the majority had been lured away by our diversionary attack, so we took up defensive positions, waiting for a counter-attack that never came. The rebels were routed, ran away and were completely dispersed, and we solved the problem for the Sultan, who was extremely grateful. We went round the villages in the area for about a week looking for any sign of the enemy, but they had just vanished. The rebellion was beaten and over, and the area secured for the Sultan.

It was a tremendous victory for the SAS Regiment, which had successfully operated in the jungles of Malaya, but this was a totally different desert environment. It proved beyond doubt the adaptability of the SAS. It saved the regiment’s bacon, because the powers that be were at that time seriously thinking of disbanding it again, as they had in 1945 at the end of the Second World War. But this spectacular success literally ensured the survival of the SAS Regiment as it is today.

But then, survival was second nature to Geordie Doran. He was born a survivor on the tough streets of Tyneside and later survived, more or less intact, through some of the most famous – and notorious – Para and SAS campaigns that Britain waged through the 1950s, 60s and 70s, eventually playing a key role in training hundreds of SAS recruits right through to the early 1970s, recruits whom he honed to perfection, and who in turn trained many of the best-known SAS characters of today.

The reader will soon discover for him- or herself the unique capabilities of this extraordinarily self-reliant soldier.

But it is now appropriate for Geordie to take over the narrative himself to describe in pin-sharp detail the early influences that forged and shaped his character, and how his tough upbringing helped him become one of the most indomitable and respected – and talked about – veterans ever to serve in the elite ranks of the SAS.

Chapter 1

A TOUGH ‘JARRA’ LAD: FORGED FROM HARDSHIP

I believe it’s a fact that no one seems to know exactly where the term ‘Geordie’ has come from. But over the centuries it has become widely accepted that it refers to a person born on Tyneside – not just the city of Newcastle, but in any of the towns that lie along the banks of the River Tyne. This Geordie, as I became known in the SAS Regiment and later far and wide, was born in Jarrow, pronounced ‘Jarra’, in 1929, the year of the infamous Wall Street ‘stock market crash’. I was later confirmed in the Catholic faith in the full name of Francis William Joseph Doran, but have always been known to my family as Franky. However, the instant I joined the Army my comrades dubbed me Geordie – and the name has stuck to this day and is the one by which I will be referred to throughout this book.

The north-east of England, where I was born on 23 February of that fateful year of 1929, was to be devastated by worldwide economic depression. It bred poverty, crushing unemployment, desperation – and some of the toughest breed of survivors and fighters known to man.

I first saw the light of day, or rather the dim light of my parents’ bedroom, in their upstairs flat in Hope Street, Jarrow-upon-Tyne. Catherine Cookson, the late famous novelist, lived about 2 miles away at the time, and I have to admit that I later became an untypical, but avid, fan of her dramatic, romantic works.

The fifth of eight children, I had two brothers and five sisters, of whom only two sisters now survive.

Hope Street, like most other streets in Jarrow, was terraced. There were no front gardens – just a backyard, usually shared with another family, in which the toilet and water tap were situated. Pa, who was also called Francis, used to hang our tin bath on the wall out there as well. We didn’t have a bathroom; the accommodation was so small and cramped – two rooms – there was just no space for such luxuries. It was so crowded at times that whenever someone wanted to leave to visit the outside toilet, or ‘netty’ as we called it, everyone else had to stand up to let them out!

I was born a second-generation Englishman. In the 1880s my paternal grandfather travelled over from Ireland to find work in the Tyneside shipyards. Both he and his wife, whose maiden name was Quinn, came from Mayo Bridge, a small village in County Down on the slopes of the Mourne Mountains.

My mother, Dorothy, whose maiden name was Blythe, had Scottish ancestors. Her dad died before I was born, as did both my dad’s parents, so I knew only my maternal grandmother, also called Dorothy. I was 8 years old when my grandma died, and I missed her very badly. She was a lovely woman and had a large family, so I had lots of uncles, aunts and cousins.

Sunday afternoon was visiting time when Mother would take us little ones to see an aunt or two, but we would always end up at Grandma’s at tea-time. Grandma would always have a big, roaring fire going, with a huge, black cast-iron kettle on it to boil water for the tea. She would give us all a king-sized mug of char with some of her beautiful home-made scones to go with it.

My earliest memories are of dimly lit rooms in the house where we lived and of figures huddled around the fire. My parents often had to use candles for light when they couldn’t afford a penny for the gas.

The Wall Street stock market crash in New York caused an unprecedented worldwide depression of cataclysmic proportions. In Britain it generated a vicious slump which hit the north-east particularly badly, especially Jarrow, where there was only one main industry: building and repairing ships. Few ships could be built or repaired any more, because there wasn’t the cash or credit available to pay for them. What work there was went to the bigger yards further up the river, or to other parts of the country. Most of the men in Jarrow were consequently thrown out of work. My dad was a shipyard riveter, so he was also forced onto the dole queue and had to find casual work doing anything whenever and wherever he could. It was an increasingly hard existence, but my family was very close-knit and stuck together and made the best of it.

When I was about 3 years old the family moved to Stanley Street, a carbon copy of the salubrious surroundings of Hope Street.

One of my more dangerous games involved a fresh fish shop across the road. I used to love to run over, touch one of the fish, which were laid out in an open window, and then run back again as a dare. Crossing the street then wasn’t the hazard it is now: there was just the odd horse and cart or coal lorry. But I nearly copped it one day, though, when I ran out in front of the coal lorry and the driver managed to stop just inches from me!

Just before I was 5 years old we moved to Caledonian Road, which was near the centre of town. We occupied no. 33 at first, next door to Dad’s sister Annie in no. 31. Later on we moved into no. 31 after Aunt Annie and her family went south to Luton. Caledonian Road was exactly the same as the other streets, except the houses were mainly single-storey. There was a pub at one end of the street – The Cottage Inn – and Meggie Colwell’s little sweet shop at the other end.

We were desperately poor at this time, but even though we were dressed mainly in hand-me-downs and old shoes we never went seriously hungry. I remember having porridge nearly every morning. On Wednesdays we would have shepherd’s pie. Mother was a dab hand at making broth with just spare ribs. She used to make it in a massive black pot. You could smell it cooking half a mile away – everybody around knew when the Dorans were having broth for dinner! We used to get fat dripping from the butcher’s in a jam jar to spread on bread like butter, and it was delicious. Saturday was ‘pease pudding’ day. Mother used to send me to the pork butcher’s for a jug of pease pudding, which was always hot and liquid. The jug used to be so heavy that I had to carry it with both hands. I would quite often stop and have a sip – it was lovely. Our family always had a decent Sunday dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, with spuds and cabbage, followed by semolina or sago pudding. A big bag of broken biscuits (cost, one old penny) was a special treat. I don’t think I had a whole biscuit until 1953, when sweets were de-rationed eight years after the Second World War ended.

Every day at school all the children whose dads were on the dole or on very low income were entitled to free milk and a dinner. We had milk at school but had to go to the public baths for our dinner. They put boards over the pool, and the place became a dining hall. It was only used for swimming in the holidays.

Once a week the Salvation Army, which had a hall in the next street, would give out free loaves of bread to the needy. To qualify for that handout locals had to go into the hall, listen to some preaching and join in the hymn-singing. The hall didn’t have a lot of room inside, and so it paid to get in the queue early. There was always a crowd of ragged kids attending these sessions, usually including myself and one or two of my sisters. The Salvation Army staff, to their great credit, never asked any questions about which religion anyone belonged to. They simply handed out the bread regardless. As soon as the Dorans got their loaves we would run home and give them to our mother, who didn’t ask any questions either!

This tough regime of hardship and daily survival on the streets, living by our wits and luck, continued more or less unabated until the outbreak of the Second World War. I grew leaner, fitter, stronger and ever more streetwise, but never lost sight of the strong family values which became my permanent anchor throughout my adventurous life.

Money may have been extremely short at this time, but there were some things in Jarrow that the locals had more than enough of – and that included vermin of all kinds. Rats, mice, beetles and cockroaches were liberally distributed throughout the town – and some families specialised in extras, such as fleas and bed bugs! Most of the houses suffered from damp, as there were no damp-proof courses or cavity walls then. I recall that beetles and cockroaches thrived in such conditions, and the first one out of bed in the morning would hear their tiny feet scurrying away to hide. Mousetraps were essential pieces of equipment in every household. What made matters worse sometimes was that a lot of people used to stick wallpaper on with a mixture of flour and water. That was fine until the damp caused the wallpaper to peel and, usually through the night, drop off. Mice would then home in on it for a snack. The rats were not quite so numerous, but they were exceedingly bold. One day I was walking down our street when I spied a big rat squatting on its hind legs in the gutter. It was chewing on a lump of something which it held with its front paws. As I drew level it stopped chewing and looked right up at me. It seemed to be saying, ‘Who the hell are you, and what do you think you’re doing walking down my street?’ Even the rats were tougher than anyone else’s.

When I was 5 years old my mother asked me if I would like to stay at home or go to school. As I had a lively, enquiring mind, I readily chose school and started at St Bede’s Roman Catholic Infants’ School in Monkton Road, Jarrow. I can’t recall much about my time at that school. The priest would take confession and then give absolution and a penance – usually a few prayers which had to be said later. I can’t remember on that initial occasion having any sins to confess. I was only a nipper, when all was said and done. If I went back today it would be a very different story: the priest would need a secretary to write it all down and I would be excommunicated on the spot!

Our family was strict Roman Catholic. Besides going to Mass on Sundays and so on we had to say our prayers every night before going to bed. All of us children would kneel down and say our prayers together. Pa would usually be listening to make sure we said them correctly and didn’t miss anything out.

Religious fervour and young boys don’t mix very well, however; I was much more interested in going out to play with the other lads in our street. We were too busy climbing, fighting and playing games to worry about saving our little souls. No one could afford a football, so we played with old tin cans, each boy guarding his own back door and at the same time trying to score in another. Tin cans are dangerous missiles, and I’ve got a scar on my chin to this day to prove it.

Paper aeroplanes were another popular pastime. The type of paper used in the manufacture of an aeroplane is crucial to the quality and performance of the finished product. Pages from mail-order catalogues were the best: they were glossy, strong and stiff enough to hold their shape for long periods of active flying.

Another popular use to which catalogue pages were put in those days was as toilet paper. Hard and glossy they may have been, but they were free. Newspapers and proper toilet paper cost money. A good, big catalogue could last a family for a month or so, especially when economy was practised, whereby each page was torn into at least four pieces to make it go further.

I still remember the names of some of my back-lane playmates. There was Ginger Ambrose; Freddy McLellan; Reggie Jarvis, whose dad was killed in the Merchant Navy during the war; Philip McGee, whose cousin, with the same name as myself, Francis Doran, was killed at Dunkirk; ‘Tich’ Clinton; Tommy and Billy Henderson; and Franky Dixon and his brother Donald, who, until May 1997, was the Labour MP for Jarrow. All good lads and good friends. We all knew much poverty, hardship and grief in those days: poverty and hardship, because of the economic plight of Jarrow in the 1930s; grief, because so many of our pals, relations and family members suffered and died in the war or from illnesses and diseases, most of which are easily prevented or cured now.

Donald Dixon would probably be surprised to discover that, considering my background, I now vote Tory. I have gradually become disillusioned with the Labour Party, which most of my compatriots supported ardently.

As we grew older our back-lane gang ventured further afield. We would often play down by the Tyne ferry landing and downriver at Jarrow Slake, an old anchorage area mainly silted up by then but still with enough water in it to be attractive to children. Also there was always an area somewhere in town where old houses were being demolished and the occupants housed elsewhere by the local council – in the 1930s that was the start of council house estates. Those places, plus the old pit workings where there was a deep pond, were very dangerous to play around in and were often patrolled by the police. If the cops, or ‘slops’ as we used to call them, managed to catch us, we would get a kick up the arse or a good clip around the ear. Some of the cops used to put pebbles in the fingers of their gloves to make them heavier, and when you had a clout you really knew about it. It was no good going home to complain, because the chances were you would get another clout from Pa for getting into trouble. That made sense, because several children were drowned or injured in those workings. But kids will be kids, and we went and played there anyway.

Another area was the slag heap just outside town: a very large, flat-topped mound of leftover moulding material from the local metal foundry. It had been built up over the years until it covered an area of about 3 acres and was 60 or 70 feet high, perfect for playing cowboys and indians on! But our gang had to take great care if we trespassed on the territory of a local rival gang. Our street and the next one, Charles Street, had a long-standing feud with Ferry Street and Queen’s Road, and we had many pitched battles with sticks, stones and fists. In one memorable clash we used clothes props as lances. But even though the street gangs were all rough and ready and fought hard, they had a certain code of honour. We didn’t pick on girls or smaller children, and if there was a stone-throwing battle going on between gangs and some girls or little kids wanted to pass by, then both sides would hold their fire. If anyone failed to observe the temporary ceasefire, there would be a yell from one of the gang leaders: ‘Hey, stop hoying them bluddy bricks, there’s lasses and bairns trying ti get past, man!’ Also, if the police arrived on the scene and participants had to make a run for it, any member of any gang was always given fugitive status while hiding in an ‘enemy’ street from the common foe. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it was perfect preparation for the real war situations I was to be involved in many times during later years when my life, and that of many other comrades, was regularly to be placed on the line in hair-raising, real-life action. Meanwhile, as a growing, energetic youngster, this was fun and part of the early glimmerings of manhood. Gang warfare tactics and armament varied. I remember just before the war when Robin Hood, the film starring Errol Flynn, came to a cinema in Jarrow. All the kids went to see it, and within days we were all armed with home-made wooden swords and bows and arrows. Caledonian Road met Queen’s Road in mortal combat on an old building site. We fired arrows in the air and clashed swords. No one thought about throwing stones: it was all Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham doing battle. There were some casualties on both sides and a quantity of blood flowed, but nothing serious. I can’t remember which side won, but it was very exciting while it lasted! The Law arrived eventually and chased us all away.

I left the infants’ school aged 7 and attended St Bede’s Junior. By now I hated school and often played truant. On those days I would go for long walks, sometimes with a companion or two, but mostly on my own. My fellow truants and I would think nothing of walking 10 to 20 miles in a day. A favourite route would be to cross over on the Tyne ferry and walk on to the coast at Whitley Bay. We then had to pass through Cullercoats Bay en route where, if we had any money, we would buy a bag of winkles to eat. Whitley Bay was a popular seaside resort, with pebble and sand beaches and a funfair, but it has now seen better days. Of course as truants we never had any money for the funfair, but we always enjoyed ourselves on the beach. Another favourite walk would be south to Usworth aerodrome, 7 miles each way. We went there to watch the aircraft taking off and landing. It was pretty awesome. When the war started Usworth became an RAF training base. Also, after a couple of years the Americans came in on our side and established an anti-aircraft position there. It was great talking to the Yanks and cadging chewing gum from them. We sneaked into their kitchen one day and pinched some slices of ham. I had never tasted anything so delicious in my life before! We were always ravenously hungry on truant days, because we couldn’t go home until tea-time. I would be so hungry, I remember eating orange peel and bits of mouldy bread that I’d picked up from the ground – kissing it all up to God first, of course. I sometimes ate caramel toffee wrappers from the gutter, as I could taste the caramel on the paper. I even ate worms and slugs when there wasn’t anything else! To quench our thirst we would drink straight from streams or horse troughs.

I don’t know about now, but in the 1930s and up to the mid-50s, a lot of Tyneside housewives used to bake large, disc-shaped loaves of bread which were about 12 inches across by 2 inches thick and known locally as ‘stottie cakes’. (The name ‘stottie’ came about because if the bread went hard and was dropped on the ground it ‘stotted’ or bounced.) If it was a fine day when the stotties were first brought out of the oven, they would be put on an outside windowsill to cool. A backyard sill was favoured, away from roving dogs and hungry children; but now and then a few stotties could be seen on a front window. Several times I or my truant pals would snatch a stottie to satisfy our hunger. It was lovely bread, the like of which you don’t often get these days.

We learned a lot about hunger, thirst and fatigue on our truant trips. Years later, when I was in the Army, I suffered those three things many times. I think my days as a youngster doing our walks toughened me up and helped me to withstand it all. Also, playing in the muck and eating things off the ground probably gave us a certain amount of natural immunisation against some diseases. I’m sure it did.

Quite a lot of my school and back-lane friends did die from various illnesses, though. Tuberculosis, pneumonia, diphtheria and meningitis, to name but a few, were usually killers if contracted. Many children and young adults were crippled with poliomyelitis too. Rickets was mostly wiped out among the poor by the free issue from health clinics of malt and cod liver oil mixed in a bottle. Mother used to give us a big spoonful every day. Dried-milk food was also provided for children under 5 years. What with those health supplements, plus free dinners and milk at school, we were kept quite fit and well, although most of us were still fairly stunted in growth when compared with the children of today.

Family outings were a treat to look forward to. We had lots of trips to the seaside. The nearest sandy beach was at South Shields, a town at the mouth of the Tyne. From where we lived it was 4 miles to the beach, and the whole family, usually without Dad, because he’d be either busy in his allotment or working part-time somewhere, would set off walking early in the day to get a good spot on the beach. We had to walk, as the bus cost too much. Mother would be pushing a pram with my two younger sisters in it, plus a load of sandwiches, a teapot, brew kit and old jam jars to be used as cups. Just before reaching Tyne Dock, a town halfway to Shields, our party would trudge past the bottom end of Catherine Cookson’s street. (That street is long gone now; an industrial estate now occupies the site.) Once established on the beach Mother would organise the tea and sandwiches. Boiling water for tea could be had at several stalls at a penny a pot. After that it was ice cream cornets and maybe a ride on the fair as a special treat. The outbreak of the Second World War put an end to our family’s seaside jaunts, however. All beaches that the Germans could have used for an invasion were closed off and guarded, and most were mined as well. They were not open for public use again for almost six years.

Our family lived at 31 Caledonian Road until 1955. At first we had four rooms: two bedrooms, a living-room and a kitchen. The kitchen and the room above it had been built onto the original dwelling, and when my two eldest sisters went away to work in Luton the house seemed almost spacious. I used to sleep in the bedroom above the kitchen with my older brother, Matty. It wasn’t long, though, before that part of the house had to be demolished, as it was poorly built and unsafe. I had my second early brush with death at that time, when I ran out of the back door just as one wall of the extension was being felled. It missed me by inches. In place of the extension the landlord built us a scullery with an inside water tap, a sink and a gas cooker. We felt quite posh with our inside tap, because most of the other houses in the street still had outside taps. When their outside supply froze in the winter they would come to us for water. As with every other house, though, we still had an outside toilet. The flushing systems were very noisy, and outside, on a still morning or night, all you could hear was the sound of chains being pulled as people paid their first or last visits of the day.

After the extension was demolished we only had one bedroom for seven people. My parents slept in a double bed. I, together with my three sisters, slept in another double bed in the living-room cum dining-room. We slept feet to feet, me at one end and those three at the other. I can’t remember where my brother Matty slept – probably on a couch in our room or the bedroom. Before going to bed, especially in the winter, we would be desperately, miserably cold. All the family would huddle around the fire, and to cheer ourselves up we sang songs, told stories or looked in the fire to see who could make out the shape of a face or something in the burning coal embers. Actually, I think I’d much rather do that now than watch some of the rubbish they put on TV these days! Our first radio, a ten-valve accumulator battery set, was still many years ahead.

First one up every morning was Mother. She would rekindle the coal fire, which had been banked up with coal dust the night before, and put a big black kettle on it for tea. Next she would start the porridge off, so that it would be ready for breakfast before we went to school. It used to take ages to make porridge then. If Dad had a job to go to, he would be up early with Mother. Lastly we young ones rose to get ready for school. Getting ready didn’t take long: just plimsolls, short trousers and a shirt or jersey for me. If it was winter, I might have a pair of boots. Very often I had no socks, and I didn’t have any underwear until I was issued with it in the Army in 1952, six years after joining up. My sisters always wore frocks, blouses and sandals, or, if they were lucky, proper shoes. Very rarely did we have warm coats to wear, unless they were hand-me-downs or even hand-me-ups, either too big or too small. My ambition, one day, was to own a pilot’s leather hat, which some of my mates had, and a pair of wellies. I never did get a pilot’s hat, and I didn’t get any wellies until 1967, when my wife bought me a pair for Christmas.

In 1936, when I was 7 years old, my brother Matty died. He died at home from meningitis, aged 19. My parents, big sister Rose and a priest were all round the bed praying. When he died they laid him in his coffin in the bedroom, and we all went to see him. It was the first dead body I’d seen. After the funeral Dad came home and found me lying on the couch crying. ‘Never mind, Franky,’ he consoled me. ‘If you don’t cry, Matty will come walking back through the door one day.’ I was young enough to believe him, and that helped me to get over my grief. But I’ll never forget my big brother. My mother had a baby son, Cuthbert, a few months after Matty died. She was so pleased, I remember her asking me to run up and down the street telling all her friends. I had a bad dream some months later: I dreamt that Cuthbert was lying in one of the big drawers of our sideboard, and he was dead. Tragically my bad dream came true not long after that. Cuthbert died, aged 6 months, from pneumonia. The family was devastated – two brothers gone in less than a year. I cried and cried. Very often now I think about what my brothers would have been like if they had lived.

It was about this time, in the mid- to late 1930s, when the economic depression really started to bite. The town was full of unemployed men just standing around in groups on corners. The dole was next to nothing, and there was a ‘means test’, which meant that some families who possessed items considered surplus to requirement had to sell them or else take a cut in their dole money. We Dorans got a lot of tramps and street buskers around in those days. The buskers used to walk slowly along the streets singing or playing a musical instrument – it was illegal to stand still and busk then. My mother would often take a tramp or busker into the house and give them a cup of tea and a bite to eat. She was a kindly soul and couldn’t bear the sight of those men and women out of work and trudging along the street in the rain singing for coppers. Our family didn’t have much to spare food-wise, but they would at least get a cup of tea, a slice of jam and bread and a warm by the fire. I can still picture my mother as she sat talking to those unfortunate people, her kindly eyes twinkling and her hands, all red and shiny from work, lying in her lap.

On one day during that period there was a riot in the middle of town. I was near the scene when the riot started, at the top of our street. What the cause was I don’t know, but it involved a large group of unemployed men and the police. All of a sudden there were lots of men and police milling around, shouting and yelling. Stones and bin lids started to fly through the air. Shop windows were broken and police helmets knocked off. Some men were arrested, others fled. A while later the action died down, but there was a heavy police presence in town for a few days afterwards. In order to try to stir things up a bit the Labour MP for Jarrow, Ellen Wilkinson, together with some of the town councillors, organised a marching crusade to London. The object was to lobby Parliament and present a petition from the people of Jarrow asking for jobs to be created in the area. I watched nearly 200 men set off from Jarrow on 5 October 1936, and they marched all the way to London. Dad didn’t go: he couldn’t afford to leave us. I stood with the cheering crowd at the side of the road watching them set off. It was a peaceful march, no trouble. A good proportion of the men had been in the forces in the First World War, so the discipline was there. It was tramp, tramp, tramp, but all to no avail. They walked into history as the famous ‘Jarrow Marchers’.

In that same year our monarch, King George V, died. The Prince of Wales, whose story is well told elsewhere, decided to abdicate instead of becoming the next king, Edward VIII. Instead, his brother, the Duke of York, was crowned King George VI in 1937. We had a big party in our back lane on Coronation Day. There was loads to eat, and the back-lane walls were painted red, white and blue. Individual commemorative photographs of every pupil were taken at school. The next year the King and Queen came to visit Jarrow. We had the day off school so we could line the route and cheer as they went past. I don’t think their majesties would have been favourably impressed if they’d known that one of their subjects was a persistent truant! Sometimes I would sneak out of the school gate at playtime or, as was most often the case, I wouldn’t go in at all. One day I didn’t even leave home to go to school: I hid on the top shelf of our pantry. As I crouched up there Mother opened the pantry door to get something but didn’t see me. After she closed the door again there was a long wait, and I was beginning to wonder how long I could stick it out. Eventually my sister Dorothy opened the door, reached up to the top shelf and saw me. Her mouth dropped open with surprise, but at first she couldn’t make a sound; then she let out a yell, and Mother came running to see what was wrong. So it went on – a couple of days at school, then a day’s truancy. One snag with truanting, of course, was that I couldn’t go for a school dinner: there was always a teacher in attendance, and I would have been captured.

By this time, however, I had begun to develop what would become a life-long love of reading. Being a member of the public library I was able to indulge this love by drawing out a book to take with me while playing truant. I would spend many happy hours lying in a field on a nice warm sunny day, reading, and could forget about everything while immersed in a good book. Even hunger and thirst didn’t seem to bother me so much in those times as I indulged my vivid imagination. But eventually my stomach, ever a reliable clock, reminded me when to go home for tea. As I lay reading I would drift off to sleep now and then, lulled by the sounds of cattle in the next field and the constant calls of birds, especially skylarks. There were lots of skylarks then, unlike now. I could see them rising and falling in almost any direction I looked. Truanting in the autumn wasn’t very good for reading, but it was much better for feeding. There were always loads of blackberries in the hedges, and plenty of apples and pears waiting to be picked off someone’s trees. I used to sneak into Pa’s allotment occasionally and pull a few radishes and carrots to eat raw. During the autumn, also, I and several others would go spud-picking for cash, no questions asked.

When the war started I didn’t have to play truant: they closed the school down until air raid shelters were built for us in the playground. During that time we had to go in small groups two mornings each week to a teacher’s house for lessons. Of course, this suited me fine, because it gave me and my pals more time to walk and explore. We used to go and watch the soldiers guarding the beaches. They were well dug in, with trenches and coastal artillery. A German invasion was expected at any time. Also, there was the newly formed Home Guard, which we would follow around to watch them doing their exercises. This world war, ironically, would provide full employment for all after the crushing economic depression of the 1930s.

I used to go with Dad sometimes on his expeditions looking for scrap metal. One of the places we went to was behind the metal works foundry. It was there that all the waste slag, consisting mainly of sand and lumps of iron from the castings, was dumped. We would rake among this stuff seeking the lumps of metal and put them in our barrow. This took place in all weathers, hot or cold, rain or snow. We didn’t possess raincoats, so we used to wear hessian sacks on our heads which were folded in such a way that they gave protection to the head and the shoulders. Sometimes the slag recently out of the foundry would still be hot, and we could warm our hands. We were never alone at that site: there would always be lots of other men and boys there too. All you could see were hunched figures, arms raking like mad and chucking metal into barrows. There was very little talk, just the frantic sound of the rakes going and the grim faces looking downwards all the time. Nearby was a railway line which carried the coal wagons to the foundry. If there wasn’t much scrap metal about, my dad and I would go along the line with our barrow looking for bits of coal that had fallen from the wagons. Both activities were illegal, but the police didn’t bother anyone very much. When the barrow was full it was my job to wheel it home, a distance of about 2 miles. My dad would carry on raking and get another pile ready for when I returned. It was backbreaking work for a few shillings. I remember taking a heavy load one day. I was nearly home when a bigger boy whom I didn’t know came up to me, pushed me out of the way and tipped the scrap onto the road. He then gave me a few wallops for good measure. I fought back furiously, but he was too big and I couldn’t get a punch in anywhere. Trying to kick him would have been difficult, because my plimsolls were too large and would have flown off. My attacker was about 15 years old and was easily 10 inches taller than myself. I never did find out who he was, nor why he had picked on me. But just then a woman came along, comforted me and helped me put the scrap back into the barrow. This was two more useful lessons in life – one about cruelty and the other about kindness, both from complete strangers. I was 8 or 9 years old at the time.

We had very few toys in those days. One Christmas I had a little red car, and about three years later I had a tiny model fort with knights on horseback. Another Christmas, at a charity party for ‘poor’ children, I was given a humming top. But my main playthings were small blocks of wood and flat-headed screws. I built forts with the blocks and the screws were soldiers. Steel screws were baddies and brass screws were goodies. When the war started steel was German and brass was British.

One of our most welcome visitors was the gas man, whose job it was to empty the meter each month. He was my favourite. I loved watching