Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 151
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 151]
75
woollen khaki shirt was tucked into the top of stiff, brown, corded, knee breeches, with a thick wide leather belt around the waist. This unsoldierly and unsightly apology for a uniform terminated in brown cloth puttees and heavy, yellow, boots with the rough side of the leather outside, which were promptly christened "teddy-bear" boots. Instead of our school, or perhaps territorial badges, we wore plain brass area numerals. It would have made a good gaol uniform; and there was not a boy in any walk of life who did not loathe it. The unimaginate "poo-bahs" at Army Headquarters, who designed it should have been made to wear it themselves for a few years. If they were inclined to destroy the enthusiasm of Australian youth for citizen soldiering they could hardly have done better. Anyhow it soon proved to be unpractical too, when it rained heavily during our first big compulsory parade at Centennial Park, and water ran down our shirts, was funnelled into the tops of our breeches, and came to rest around our knees.
As a grudgingly granted concession, the "Scots" compulsory cadets were allowed to parade at the evening drills as a group within a bigger unit, after we were marched down Victoria Road to the Drill Hall at Double Bay. This form of military service was soon suspended by the outbreak of the 1914-1918 World War, and resumed after it ended, and was finally abolished by a Labour Government in 1930, ostensibly as an economy measure, but really more because too many of the young men who had been pressed into it, willy-nilly, now had votes.
All the national units formed after the Boer War (mentioned earlier) the St Georges, Scottish and Irish Rifles, also lost their fine "espirt de corps" and their gay uniforms, when they were merged into the drab new numbered battalions. Being mostly over the age for compulsory service some members resigned, but fortunately many of them still soldiered on until the next war.
During my three years at "Scots", I saw many changes in its streets and buildings. At Circular Quay a big fleet of steam-boat ferries operated from nearly a dozen jetties, fanning out on their routes to nearly a score of harbourside suburbs, from