After leaving Lord Gladstone’s service, Jack returned to Aldershot, the town in which he had grown up.
By then, however, his family had been gone from Aldershot for more than ten years, and there was little reason for anyone he now encountered to know much about his earlier life.
It was here that Jack began another important stage of his engineering career, eventually working at the R.A.O.C. Workshops and becoming increasingly involved with military vehicles, tanks and the inspection of military equipment.
Dressed in civilian clothes, Jack appears to be present in his professional capacity rather than as a member of the unit.
On manoeuvres with the Cheshire Regiment, c.1935
By the mid-1930s Jack was already working in a military engineering environment. Photographs such as this help trace the progression of a career that would later include senior War Office examining work during the Second World War and research and development at the Fording Trials Branch, Instow.
R.A.O.C. Workshops, Aldershot — 1937
Jack Davies stands in the centre foreground among men working on tanks and other military vehicles at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps workshops in Aldershot.
By this time he was employed as a Fitter ‘A’ Vehicles, specialising in tanks and military equipment. Other surviving photographs show that his work was not confined to the workshop; he also accompanied military units on manoeuvres and appears in an inspection role around military hardware.
What none of the men around him knew was the full extent of the technical experience he had already accumulated. Before becoming John Davies he had trained as an Air Mechanic during the First World War. He then spent five years in Egypt with the R.A.O.C. as a Storeman, a role requiring detailed familiarity with military equipment, components, tools and stores.
By 1937, therefore, Jack’s knowledge of military machinery had been built over more than two decades, combining technical training, stores experience and practical engineering work.
His later wartime and post-war career would build upon that foundation, but the expertise was already there.
Jack holding his son Alfred - 1938
Jack holding his new-born son, Alfred - 1938 at their home Elm Grove, Normandy
