John Loker, known to his friends as Jack Loker, joined the Army  before the outbreak of the Second World War and became a storeman in the Royal Army Service Corps. He quickly earned a reputation as a ‘tight yorkshireman’ and ideal storeman material. He was always a whizz with numbers and became adept at cooking the books, perfect for logistics and resupply!

He was also an accomplished cricketer and was an all-rounder that everyone wanted on their team. He told colourful, enthusiastic stories of his own ‘bodyline’ delivery against one particular ‘bully’ of a sergeant, the summer before the outbreak of war.

Early in the war my grandfather was volunteered by his RQ to take part in some trials being run by the RAF, dropping supplies by parachute from planes. He told my grandfather that if he went, he could guarantee that some of his stores would come back in one piece and that they wouldn’t all be written off and sold to the airforce lads.

My grandfather was nervous as he had never been in an aeroplane before, he went along and took part in the various packing trials and trial drops with different sized and shaped parachutes, sometimes attaching multiple parachutes and using different methods of deploying the parachutes from the aircraft.

He told stories of dropping crates of live chickens and on one occasion a live donkey!

He was closely involved with the record keeping of these early trials and started to enjoy flying very much. I now think this may have been part of the early inception of what we now know to be ‘air despatch.’ ?

He told me a great story once that has stuck with me all my life. He was never scared once they were above ‘maiming height.’ I asked what he meant and in his broad Yorkshire accent he said “If yer crash below 200 feet lad, you could be maimed or orribly burnt. Owt above that and you’ll be dead so there’s no point fretting!” He had a point.

He often talked fondly of the aircraft he flew in, Stirlings, Dakotas , and later Vickers Valettas and even Beverleys.

He went on to “throw stuff out “ as he put it; on various operations throughout the war. I once asked him if he ever crashed or if he had ever been shot down and he said they had been close on a few occasions and that their aircraft had once been shot to bits but that their pilot had managed to get them back to England and land “like a sack of spuds” in a farmers field near Cromer.?

He also told a tale about once being fined for deploying his parachute by accident whilst the aircraft was in the air. “I got a right bollocking and got fined when we got back; all the fines went to the girls who repacked the parachutes.”  ‘Id have been knackered if Id have needed the bugger mind!’

He only once spoke about Arnhem and it was in the early nineties after his house had been burgled. He was relieved to find that his medals had not been stolen and showed them to me for the first time. They were in an old King Edward cigar box. This was the first time I had ever seen them. He was proud of his ‘ Arnhem ’ medal but he said that he never felt like he had ‘deserved’ any of them as he wasn’t on the ground ‘in the thick of it.’

He spoke about the preparations for Market Garden with aeroplanes and gliders being packed and unpacked, kit counted and signed for then repacked again. Various bits of paperwork being ‘mislaid’ and the aircraft having to be unpacked all over again and the bollockings getting louder and more frequent! (Sound familiar?)  

He remembered the feeling of ‘he would be lucky to make it back in one piece.’ They dropped a lot of ammunition and resupply over numerous trips/sorties and he said that they didn’t sleep properly for three days and nights. He said that he and his mates added cigarettes and whiskey miniatures to the ammunition pods that they were dropping to the troops as a ‘bit of a morale boost’

He also said that he lost some friends at Arnhem . He had made friends with a lot of the RAF lads and foreigners? who they had shared accommodation with prior to setting off. “Far too many didn’t come home lad.”

I got the impression that my Grandfather really enjoyed being in the Army but I used to have to really press him to get him to talk about it, and to start telling stories. I used to sit and listen intently as he spoke about these adventures. He continued to serve throughout the war and afterwards stayed on as a ‘clerk of works?’ He once told a great story about shooting at Jewish terrorists in Palestine ? (This was after being asked about the local Synagogue getting planning permission for an extension!) 

My grandfather left the army in about 1950 and went to work at Kirkstall forge in Leeds as a night foreman. He worked nights all his working life and was almost nocturnal! He was the treasurer of his local liberal club and was always lucky on the horses.

Sadly, after a battle with cancer my grandfather died in wheatfields hospice, Leeds in 2000. I have only one old army photo of my grandfather, He is sat astride a very old looking motorcycle in khaki shorts in the desert somewhere. There are some ungainly, cumbersome looking aircraft in the distance and he has got a daft grin on his face and bigger muscles on his arms than the frail old man I knew and loved growing up.