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Member Spotlight: Brian Watt

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Honouring Our Veterans, One Story at a Time

Welcome to the Camberwell Pompey Elliott RSL’s Member Spotlight, where each month we shine a light on the remarkable individuals who have dedicated their lives to serving our nation. Through their stories, we celebrate the courage, commitment, and camaraderie that define our RSL community. Join us as we delve into the lives of our members, honouring their contributions and preserving their legacies for generations to come.

INTRODUCING BRIAN WATT

Long-term RSL member Brian Watt served with the Royal Engineers in North Africa in the wake of WWII. He was involved in constructing a railway as well as clearing mines and defensive installations in the challenging desert conditions of Libya, Egypt and Palestine. Life after service took him to the goldfields of Ghana before he married and made a home in Australia.

 

When did you join the RSL sub-branch? 

I was in a group for older retirees and we were looking for somewhere to hold our meetings. I went to the local RSL and by chance I met John Daly, the Sub-branch secretary. He and I became friends. There was only one other Englishman in the Sub-branch, all the rest were Australians, but we were made very welcome. The RSL became quite a [big] part of my life.

 

When and where did you serve? 

I joined the [British] army in October 1945, which was good because I missed the war! I was old enough to volunteer six months before I got called up and I joined the Royal Engineers, which is what I wanted to do. I got put into the Railway Section which was something new. It was a good experience and I had some quite happy memories from those times. It was quite entertaining in some respects. We ignored the dangers of what we were doing, but we weren’t stupid. We knew what we were doing had to be done.

When I was in the Engineers, I served in North Africa and Palestine. Initially, I was in a railway unit and we built a small railway line…which we were proud of. We used old army trucks, took the steering wheel out…and fixed rail wheels on [it]. It used to run between Tobruk and [Fort] Capuzzo on the North African coastline, say 70 or 80 miles between Egypt and Libya.
[Later] we went up to Palestine and started to dismantle our British railways. This was [19]46. The war had passed over there in ’43, but it was still recent. We had quite a few things [left behind] from the war [but] we didn’t want to leave anything for anybody.

One of the things that we did have a lot of trouble with was land mines. The war with the Arabs in Palestine was getting underway, and some enterprising people were trying to pick up the mines. Tobruk had been fortified and it was all mines. The Arabs used to come and try and pick up some of the mines and sell them. It was very dangerous. The Germans were clever [because] when they used to lay their mine fields they would connect one mine to another, so when you picked up one mine unfortunately there was a trigger, and the one that was close would blow up as well. It was alright during the war, but we had to clear them so that we could use the place. I don’t think we lost anybody…[but] we lost a few trucks, and things.

It was good experience if you were on mine-clearance. I don’t know whether we ever finished the job in Tobruk, but we had to come back into Egypt because they were going to close the border to us (the British Army). We were able to get across…through Cairo and they were very hostile to us. Anyway, we got [through] the [Suez] canal zone because we kept a little strip [of land] along the canal, but then I think [the British] gave that up. By which time we were up in Palestine.

Our job…was picking up the army railways. We used to take the rails and the ‘chairs’ that the rails used to sit in, [but] the sleepers were just left there because they weren’t any use. The Arabs used come around and pick them up, because [they] were wood and they could use it. A big truck would come and they would load these sleepers, and sometimes they got right on our tails. We’d put a bloke up on the back of the truck with a rifle, just so they didn’t come too close while we were packing up the sleepers!

I did enjoy my service in the army, because we went up to Palestine after a bit. I was on the Suez canal side, and then we went across Egypt, into Libya where the old Second World War battlefields were. It had a great history for us at that time, because it was all new. It was an adventure!

I haven’t thought about these things for years. I was 18 or 19 [then] and what am I, I’m 95 now, so you can work it backwards!

 

How did they prepare you when you enlisted?

When [we] joined the Engineers, we had training in all kinds of things and one of them was mine-clearance. And as I said, we got around it. They didn’t cause too many problems. I don’t even think about it now.

 

How conscious were you of the danger involved in your job?

As I said, I was 18 or 19 or something at the time. I was aware there probably was a risk there, [but] you didn’t think about it. You just said this is something that we’ve got to do and we’ll do it. It was quite an experience.

We used to have a thing called a ‘flail tank’ [which] was an old tank [with] a big roller on it. On this roller were chains hanging down, and as you drove the tank along, these [chains] used to beat the ground and it would blow up the bombs. Much better than people having to clear them. They had flail tanks during the war, but…a lot of them just got thrown on the scrapheap. We would commandeer anything that was of any use, because we were doing a specialised job.

If none of our equipment work[ed], and if we didn’t have mine-detectors, then about 8 or 10 [of us] had to lie on our stomach with a bayonet and prod the ground in front of us looking for mines. When we when we found a mine, we’d learnt how to how to disable it and disconnect it [from] the others. Then you’d mark it with stones, so that you knew what you’d cleared, and then you could drive the vehicles backwards and forwards. One of [the trucks] we’d just moved must’ve just gone over a white stone, and it blew the wheel off!

We weren’t silly, although in retrospect it seems a bit silly now. We were doing a job which had to be done. It was important, because people were going to work in that area. We couldn’t leave the mines where they were. The Arabs used to try to pick the mines up and they had a lot of casualties. We had a special ward down at Tobruk Hospital for them.

Tobruk was like a fortress with mines and things to protect it. There were so many mines. The Italians mined it and then we [the British] mined it, and then the Germans. It’s quite possible that some of those mines are still there today.

What career did you have after you served in North Africa?

I worked in what used to be called the Gold Coast, in Ghana. I worked in gold mining administration, and for a time I was working on the surface in the crushing and processing plant. We did the basic assessment of the [primary gold] and then it…went back to England to be refined.


We used to do about 15 months tour and then went home [to] England for three months. [That] is how I met [my late wife] Mardi. I came home for three months’ leave and Mardi was over [in London] with her sister, Shirley, to get work experience. After I’d met her a few times I said to Shirley, “Do you think [Mardi] would go out with me?” She said, “Well, she might, if you asked her!” So, long story short, I [eventually] came to Australia with Mardi…That happens when you fall in love, you know. And today, I love her just as much as I did when I met her.

Brian and Mardi

Who has inspired you most in your life?

I have to say my father. I have tremendous admiration for him. We came from the Tyneside, which is North East England. Dad was a marine engineer. He worked on tankers out of Singapore and places in the Far East [sic], before the war. Then he was working in Abadan [Iran] on power stations, because power stations work on the same principle as ships’ engines. That’s what he told me, anyway. He stayed in Abadan, or somewhere in the Persian gulf, on these power stations and he came back to England and then he was working in West Africa. It used to be difficult to get back in [to England] during the war, because the Germans were trying to sink our ships. He had quite a few experiences – one ship he was on was bombed by a German long range bomber and the seams of the ship opened and it started to [sink]. But he didn’t talk like most of the other guys…he didn’t talk much about it.


I was proud of my father and he was very supportive of me. He worked out in Abadan on these power stations and I was at home, so I didn’t see very much of him. But when he did come home, I can remember vividly the things we did, because he and I got on so well together. It used to make my mother very, very cross. We could look at the same thing, see the same humorous point, and laugh. That used to drive mum crackers!

What advice would you give someone who wanted to follow in your footsteps?

Keep your eyes and ears open. My dad used to say you can learn something from everybody. You know, never be averse to taking advice. You can always meet people that know a lot more than you do, but sometimes you meet people who know less than you, so you can help him along. Keep your eyes and ears open and then be openminded and always be nice to people, because you might meet them on their way up. You might also meet them on the way down. It doesn’t cost you anything to be nice to people.

Tell us something about yourself that few people know.

I don’t hang my heart on my sleeve. And I don’t try to tell people what to do and what not to do. You can always learn something from other people.

Do you have a favourite book that you have read?

I used to like war stories, historical war stories. As a boy I read Biggles books…they were a lot of fun, because you could always reread them. I could pick [a Biggles] up now and reread it and still get a lot of pleasure out of it.

Tell us about one of your hobbies.

I used to make model aeroplanes, flying model aeroplanes, out of balsa wood. It’s little strips of timber, and then you’d cover it with paper. And then there would be a propeller and a rubber band that went down the length of the plane and it used to work like that. They would often fly off-course and very often crash, and you’d have to remake them. That was part of the fun, definitely!

 

If you had to choose one meal to eat every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I don’t know why sausages come to mind, but I should like sausages. And mash! We had it when I was at school, during the war. We were in different houses and the one thing that the best [house team] in the school would get was sausages and mash for dinner. My house used to win it quite frequently.

 

What’s one thing you can’t live without?

I would say my memories. And friends. I haven’t got a great number of friends, but the ones I do have are very meaningful to me.

 

What is your favourite place, of all the places that you’ve lived and travelled?

I’ve often thought I’d like to go back to Tyneside, where I come from. I lived there until I was about eight or nine. And then my grandmother died. She was looking after me. I’ve often thought it would be nice to go back and to investigate where I used to go. There used to be a place on the beach called The Plaza. When my mum and dad were courting, it used to be a dancehall and they used to go dancing there. But when I [last visited] there, it was more like a funfair place. I’ve lived in lots of different places and wherever I hang my hat, I feel comfortable. In all the places I’ve been, I’ve been happy.

 

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