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6th Infantry Workshops circa 1954
5th Infantry Workshops ?-1959-1962-?
5 Armoured Workshops (1)
57 Station Workshop REME ?-1972-1976-?
Cornwall Girls Boarding School (fenced off for some reason)

Closed 6 October 1993

(1) Leaving Newcastle Barracks, Hamm, prior to the site being adapted for use as Windsor Girls School.

Memories of 5 Inf Wksps Dortmund (1959-62)

The move to Dortmund was ostensibly to set up a test facility for the new radios but there were already several boffins ensconced who needed no instruction. AQMS Biddell was in charge with S/Sgt Mike Watson and two young N/S L/Cpls, Don Graham B.Sc. and the other, a Scotsman, is in one of the photos but his name escapes me. There was a very good team of German Tels personnel with whom we worked and were very friendly: Friedhelm Baake, Hans Pfeffer, Herr Schreier, Herr Thurmann and two others. We had two Commer ‘Z’ lorries which were used on endless exercises on Lüneberg Heath, Brilon, Rheinsehlen etc. The OC was Major Johnson and Workshop Officer Captain Clothier.

The camp was on the tram route into the city which passed by the Westfalenpark and huge Westfalenhalle which had an indoor running track and was where a group of us went to see Louis Armstrong in 1961, the audience numbering about 20,000. It was here that I had my first taste of living in the Sergeants’ Mess which was on the barracks’ site but unfortunately I can only remember a few names:

S/Sgt Pat (Inky) Penn who was a good sportsman and all round good egg.
Sgt Frank Davidson,
Sgt Paddy Daly,
S/Sgt Sid Milstead who retired aged 55 and later became a Chelsea Pensioner.

The Mess was on the bottom floor of a block which had the orderly room and offices above it and the Tels and Instruments Workshops on the second floor. Inky Penn was i/c Instruments and he had been one of the seniors at Arborfield when I first joined the Army.

During 1961, I played cricket for REME BAOR against the RASC at Minden and the RAOC at Rheindahlen in the year in which 5 Inf won the Craftsmans Cup and were runners up in the hockey cup.

When I left Dortmund for REME depot several young Craftsmen who should have been demobbed at the same time as me, found that they had been given an extra six months of National Service so that manpower figures could be maintained. Needless to say they were highly miffed.

22794010 Sgt. Cooper C.E

The barracks were situated right opposite a huge cemetery and next to a hospital. As you went through the main gate, the guard room was on the left. Just past the guard room was the main accommodation block. On the ground floor was the cookhouse and canteen. The other end was the NAAFI. In the cellar were things like the photo club room, the go kart room etc. There were then two floors of accommodation. Above that a large stone attic. The right side of the gate, facing the accom block, was another block, the same size. Ground floor was the Sgts’ Mess. Under was where the FRG was based. Above the mess were the offices. Above that the Cpls’ Mess. In the attic was an indoor shooting range. The camp was split into the army workshops and the civilian workshops separated by the Square.

Geoffrey