An Army veteran has remembered the difficulties he faced cooking Christmas dinner for hundreds of soldiers in a challenging environment, while serving in South Korea exactly 70 years ago.

Bob Sewell was in charge of a two-man team feeding 200 men breakfast, lunch and dinner daily while stationed in East Asia with the Army Catering Corps.

He is now 89 and a resident at Royal Star & Garter in Surbiton. The charity provides loving, compassionate care to veterans and their partners living with disability or dementia, and also has Homes in Solihull and High Wycombe. It has also launched new services reaching into the community.

Bob said he was faced with many daily challenges cooking with basic equipment and limited ingredients, but his toughest came during his first Christmas in South Korea in 1954.

He was on his first posting and attached to the Northamptonshire Regiment, where he prepared meals for the troops three times a day, despite his relatively limited culinary experience.

Food for the soldiers consisted mostly of items including ham, chicken, corned beef, eggs, dried mash and tinned milk.

But on Christmas Day, things took a surprising turn when Bob was approached by the Commanding Officer. “I was given two big turkeys and told to cook them,” said the grandfather. “And I thought how the hell am I going to cook them on an open stove?”

‘They were a bit scorched, but they were edible!’

However, help was on hand thanks to resourceful colleagues. Bob continued: “The Commanding Officer sent some Royal Engineers over, who made me an oven out of two oil drums. They cut the rims off, welded them together, and put them on a brick standing. They had a pipe and a petrol tank, which dripped on a hot plate at the back and sent flames round the oven. And we cooked the turkeys in that. They were a bit scorched, but they were edible!”

Bob was also able to use the impromptu oven to cook chicken and legs of pork, to ensure all the men had a memorable Christmas dinner.

Bob had joined the Army in 1954, aged 18. He said: “They decided I’d be in the Army Catering Corps, even though I had no experience beforehand. I had to do military training for six months in Aldershot, the same as everybody else, but then I was sent to training school for cooks for two weeks. That was it!”

‘Eggs would come out frozen!’

Looking back, Bob said: “Everyone says what terrible food it was in the Army, but we only had primitive equipment to use. And to be honest, the food we prepared was reasonably good. At first I was nervous cooking for so many people, after such a short period of training. They say an army marches on its stomach, so it was a very important position in the camp. Where we were stationed was like a desert, it was quite desolate. We had hot summers, and in the winter it was cold, really cold. There were times when we would crack eggs open and they would come out frozen!”

Bob also served in Japan and Hong Kong, before demobbing in 1960. He put the skills he learned in the Army to good use, later cooking at a hospital for children and young people with Down’s syndrome.

He has been at Royal Star & Garter since December 2022, and enjoys taking part in cookery and arts activities, and also calling out the numbers for the popular Bob’s Bingo sessions.

He is happy not to be tasked with the responsibility of cooking the festive meal this year: “I’m looking forward to the delicious meals they’ll serve here over Christmas. I’m happy I don’t have to do the cooking anymore! The food here is excellent, and the kitchen staff have a properly equipped kitchen and good ingredients to work with, which is much more than I had in South Korea! Royal Star & Garter is a lovely home and I’m very happy, and very lucky to be here.”

Royal Star & Garter in Surbiton is welcoming new residents. For more information on this, the new services it provides, or to work at the Home, go to www.starandgarter.org/surbiton