THE LOST YEARS OF BOYHOOD
On 1st December 1941 Jim Brind with his younger brother Fred enlisted in Singapore for 2nd Bn Gordon Highlanders as Boy Soldiers. Him was aged fifteen and a half, his younger brother was still one month short of his fourteenth birthday. It was not a propitious day for two young boys to leave their family and join the Army. Tension in the Far East was increasing. On that very day the whole garrison had been brought to the second degree of readiness and the Volunteers mobilised. The Gordons were ordered to occupy their war station at Pengarang and left Selarang Barracks the following morning.
Jim and Fred had lived in Taiping with their family where theur father, an ex-Sergeant of the Wiltshire Regiment had taken up an appointment as a Wqarder in the local jail at the end of his Army service. Both boys were keen to join the Army and when Jim missed an opportunity of going to the Army Boys; School at Chepstow their father wrote to the War Office and inquired about local enlistment. He was told they could be accepted by the Gordons at Singapore.
The brothers joined Boy Bremner who was the same age as Jim but had enlisted earlier from the Married Questers in Selerang where he lived with his father, Private Bremner. They were attached to the Transport Platoon which had no role on Pengerang and were employed on a
