A TITLED ORDERLY

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 103, 3 May 1919, Page 10

A TITLED ORDERLY

VARIED WAR WORKERS.

In the anti-air craft corps' early days rank and file (writes a Daily Chronicle representative) were drawn from the most swagger clubs in the West-end, and the officers —well, at first orders were taken from the naval ratings already in charge of London's searchlights. For the enthusiastic body of volunteers began with searchlights. From lights they passed on to guns: at first pom-poms on arches, next six-pounders on the ground, finally the deadly 3-inch. „ Those volunteers included a peer and peers' brothers, a number of baronets and knights, several M.P.'s, and, indeed, men of eminence in all walks of life. ' ■

"I remember," said an officer in the demobilised corps to the Daily Chronicle representative, "a visit we one day received in the park from an aiigust field officer. After gazing rather critically at my gun's crew, who were cleaning their weapon at the time, and certainly looked pretty grimy, he said, 'This .work doesn't attract a very good class of men, I suppose?'. 'Well,' I replied, 'the znau at the muzzle in a Second .Wrangler, the next is one of our foremost authorities on - Greek literature, the third is Lord 's younger brother, and the fourth —-well, I really know nothing about him except that his income is reported to exceed £5000 a year:' . . ■

"That field officer was destined to receive another shock. I accompanied him to the roadway, where he noted a particularly fine Rolls-Royce car.in waiting. 'I'm afraid,' he said, apologetically, 'I may have been detaining you when you were about to start on a. journey.' 'Oh, no,' I was able to assure him, 'that is not my car; that is the sentry's cai'.' "'But,' went on the officer,''l myself had had a similar surprise a few weeks before. On being transferred to an Eastend station, where the accommodation was very rough, I found myself with this minor consolation: the orderly appointed- as my servant seemed a decent sort of follow. Punctually every morning he woke me with, 'It's 6 o'clock, sir,' and it wasn't long before he would have made me a. cup of tea. He seemed quite clean in his ways, and one afternoon I was particularly struck by' th« thorough way in which, down on his knees, he was scrubbing the floor.' "Then, making the inqniry, I Jeamfc that he was a Scotch baronet, and found he and his family had owned a large slice of one of the northern counties for over ■800. years."