Chapter 10 … “Well someone had to do it” !

Now each ‘watch’ had an ‘unofficial’ clerk and I was asked if I wanted to volunteer for the post as the bloke doing the job was due for ‘demob’. I broke my vow ‘to never volunteer’ in an instant, and grabbed this golden opportunity to work normal daytime office hours, and, more or less, ‘be my own boss’.

The job entailed covering for officers and senior NCOs who probably preferred playing golf or pruning their roses to filling in forms and issuing leave passes. I suppose that I was rather like the character ‘Radar’ in the TV show ‘M*A*S*H’. I typed up reports and duty rosters and, needless to say, left my name off of every list except the one used at pay parades. Every so often an officer would turn up to sign the paperwork which I had prepared; after which, I expect, he would return to his gin and tonic in ‘the mess’.

After a short period in the job I got everything off to a ‘fine art’ and found that I was only working about one and a half days a week, and as I never did fire pickets, fatigues, parades or any other duties, I was able to spend time making new friends among the cooks, the medics, the storemen, the drivers and even the ‘snowdrops’, most of whom were on some sort of fiddle and could help provide the ‘goods and services’ needed to make air force life a little more bearable. I particularly enjoyed dining at the sick quarters on grilled steaks and other tasty items which were destined for the non-existent patients. I also got ‘on good terms’ with the Warrant Officer who organised the station dances. These were very popular with the local young ladies, including the nurses from nearby hospitals; as it seemed local young men were ‘in short supply’. My friendly ‘WO2’ put me in charge of the bar. Everyone seemed pleased with my newly learned barman’s ‘skills’, and a share in the profits turned out to be “a nice little earner” for me.

I devoted much of my ‘working’ time to improving my skill at darts and snooker, as the ‘NAAFI’ was close to the hut where I had my office and I was able to extend the office telephone line to the windowsill of the games room. On fine days I caught up on my reading, sitting in a deck chair behind the hut and out of sight of the prowling ‘SWOman’ (Station Warrant Officer). I even had a “chit” signed by a medical officer allowing me to wear sunglasses because I “suffered” from hay fever.

You might say that I was almost invisible, for the only time I appeared ‘in public’ was at the weekly pay parade, and then my name was never called, as I was the one doing the calling. I just waited until the paying officer, who was sitting next to me, handed over my pay (the same amount as a ‘regular’ SAC for the final six months service) after the last man had saluted and marched away. I didn’t even have to salute, as the paying officer was one of those laid-back WW2 “Wizard Prang” type pilots. He came complete with moustache, pipe and cocker spaniel.

Towards the end of my two years the RAF decided that it had too many national service air defence operators and started retraining many of them for ‘civil defence’ work. A list of those to be retrained was sent to my office and my name was on it ! .. But not for long, as I immediately re-typed it. Unfortunately a copy had already reached a higher authority, and I thought that I was in line for ‘the high jump’: and then a strange thing happened. I got a dressing-down, and, that was it !  I guess that I must have had some ‘friends in high places’, for I remained at my typewriter until the day that I was demobbed a few weeks later.

However, just before this happened I was called into the station adjutant’s office and was reminded that I had once informed another officer, at my original assessment interview, that I contemplated becoming a ‘regular’ if I were to be accepted into the RAF for national service. The question was .. “How did I feel about signing on now ?” .. I don’t think that the adjutant was very pleased with my answer !     

When that day finally arrived, I dressed in my civilian clothes. I shouldered my kitbag and headed for the camp gate where a taxi was waiting outside the guardroom to take me on the first stage of my journey back to “Civvy Street”. What I didn’t expect to see and hear were the airmen lining the road. No ! they weren’t there to see me off. They were rehearsing for that annual visit from the ‘AOC’. However, after two years, it was a pleasant surprise to receive a boisterous farewell from a ‘guard of honour’.

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Postscript …  Like all those who once served in the British Armed Forces I received my Veteran’s Badge. It arrived, one day, in the post. It was in a rather ‘posh’ box and came with a certificate which read …

‘With the Compliments of the Under Secretary of State for Defence and Minister for Veterans’.  ‘This HM Armed Forces Veteran’s Badge is presented to you in recognition of your service to your country’.

It had only taken 50 bloody years to arrive !

Chapter 9 .. “I do like to be beside the seaside”.

This is a picture of me (2nd from the right) when, somehow, I found myself as one of a ‘guard of honour’ for Air Vice Marshal Foord-Kelcey CBE. AFC. when he visited RAF Wartling for the annual ‘AOC’s (Air Officer Commanding 11 Group)) inspection…

… after some idiot picked me to be a member of the guard for the visiting ‘brass’. I can’t quite remember how this selection came about as a I spent much of my two years conscription thinking up ways to avoid doing anything in the least bit ‘military’; and I wasn’t the only one for, as I recall, many national servicemen had their own ways of “dodging the column” and of showing their dissatisfaction with a life in uniform. Like Bernie who would whistle the RAF march when ‘taking a dump’, and Ginger who would never say “Sir” unless reminded to do so, and would walk ‘miles’ out of his way to avoid saluting an officer.

However, there was one big compensation to being at Wartling, and that was it’s location near the seaside town of Eastbourne, where I enjoyed plenty of free time due to the way ‘watches’ were organised. This was particularly true when the holiday makers arrived in the summer months, providing plenty of attractive dance partners at The Pier Ballroom and The Winter Gardens.

If my memory serves me correctly, there was a pub next to Eastbourne Railway Station. This pub had a bar on the first floor, where our ‘demob’ parties would take place whenever it was time for one of us to return to “Civvy Street”. I remember that this bar was upstairs as I once fell from the top to the bottom of the staircase without injuring myself due to my ‘relaxed condition’ at the time.

This pub was also well located as it was possible to fall out of it’s doors at closing time just in time to catch a train to Cooden Beach, which was the nearest station to RAF Wartling. However that station was about two miles by road from the camp. A little closer if you walked across the farmland. The only problem with this was you could spend the night surrounded by a herd of sheep or sleeping in a ditch.

I do have a very vivid memory of one miserable rainy night on the platform of Eastbourne railway station when I waited with a group of other young airmen for the last train, which would take us back to our RAF station after attending one of those lucky national serviceman’s ‘demob’ parties.

We were chatting and joking amongst ourselves when we suddenly heard the sound of someone singing further along the platform. In fact, it was two of our fellow conscripts who had only recently been posted to our camp after returning from duty at the nuclear test site on Christmas Island. On the way home they had a few days leave in the USA and had picked up a number of records, among which must have been the latest Everly Brothers’ hits.

Obviously we had all had more than a “sniff of the barmaid’s apron”, and so these two lads’ singing may have sounded better than it actually was, but it silenced our chatter.

OK, so they weren’t exactly Don and Phil, and it wasn’t quite one of those “Harmonies from Heaven”, but it did have a strangely ‘haunting’ quality about it as it echoed around that gloomy station.

That was 60 years ago and I’m still here: but I wonder if the same can be said of those two young airmen who had spent a year or more on a Pacific island living in “the shadow of those nuclear mushroom clouds”?

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(to be continued)

Chapter 8 .. “The Russians are coming !”.

The big question we all asked after completing training was .. “Where would we be posted ?”

There were three or four possible destinations .. A ‘home’ posting, somewhere within the British Isles.  Germany… This was the height of the ‘Cold War’.  Cyprus… A dangerous place to be at that time due to the fact that British troops were targets and ‘caught in the crossfire’ between Greeks and Turks, and .. Christmas Island where Britain was testing nuclear weapons.

I got a home posting to a radar station on the south coast of England, not too far from home and just a few  miles along the coast from the seaside resort of Eastbourne. My mates called me a “lucky bugger” as this RAF station was known as “Fighter Command’s Holiday Camp”.

Yes, I was lucky, but I must admit that at the time, I rather fancied seeing the white beaches and palm trees of a Pacific island, rather than the pebbles and seaweed of Pevensey Bay. Much later I realised just how lucky I was not to have lived in the shadow of those nuclear mushroom clouds.

When I arrived at RAF Wartling’s ‘domestic’ camp I was assigned to ‘A’ Watch GCI (ground controlled interception) and found myself in a billet overseen by a corporal named Dave who, unlike the corporals at the training camps, was “just one of the boys”.

I must say that the relaxed atmosphere came as quite a surprise after all the ‘bull’ of those same training camps and although there were one or two officers and senior NCO’s who it was wise to avoid, most were approachable and friendly. Many of these men were veterans of WW2 and wore wings, brevets and medal ribbons from that conflict.

Another big surprise was the radar station itself. It was a ‘secret’ Master Radar Station, equipped to defend most of the south of England and it was underground in the middle of the Pevensey marshes about three miles from the camp where we were billeted.

This radar station was so secret that everyone including the Russians, knew exactly where it was, for although the guardhouse and entrance to the underground bunker was cleverly disguised as a seaside bungalow, the surrounding area was covered in gigantic rotating radar antennae plus military vehicles and other gear, which rather gave the game away.

Now I don’t want you to tell anybody, but I did sign ‘The Official Secrets Act’, because only those who had done so were allowed to ‘go down the hole’ and along the long neon-lit passageway which led to the corridors of this ‘Cold War’ nerve centre: which meant that all jobs within the bunker had to be done by the likes of me. For example, we, the radar operators, and not the N.A.A.F.I. had to run our own canteen. We also had to man the PBX (telephone switchboard) and other communications equipment as the operators who would normally run this equipment were not required to sign this ‘awesome’ document.

Before we entered the bunker every officer and airman had to hand in his identity card to a ‘snowdrop’ (RAF policeman), who then issued each man with a numbered pass which was to be returned on leaving the complex. This meant that the guard knew exactly who was on duty below ground at any time as every man was accounted for.

After a few months at Wartling I passed a test (with the help of my mate ‘Corporal Dave’ who was one of the examiners) and was promoted to SAC (Senior Aircraftman) which meant that I was able to work ‘unsupervised’ when ‘down the hole’.

This may be hard to believe, but nothing much ever happened at night, so although this was the height of ‘The Cold War’ only a small crew of operators were on duty during the hours of darkness and most of them were asleep. Which meant that when my turn came to ‘keep watch’ I found myself all alone with an array of communications equipment including the ‘BIG RED TELEPHONE’, and I have to wonder what would have happened if those Soviet generals had known that all (well, almost all) that stood between them and southern Britain was a nineteen year old airman who was trying to stay awake by reading a movie magazine, drinking tea, eating a cheese sandwich, listening to the radio and using the military telephone lines to connect his fellow national servicemen, on duty at the edge of the ‘Iron Curtain’ in West Germany, to their girlfriends and families back home, whilst the other members of his ‘watch’ were catching up on their sleep or playing cards in the canteen: and as we all know now, the Russians never arrived and I never got to answer that big red telephone !

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(to be continued)

Chapter 6 …Made it ..”all in one piece!”

Every day at Wilmslow was much the same, the only entertainment being a game of snooker or darts at the NAAFI canteen, or a movie at ‘The Astra’ cinema. Oh! .. and before I forget, Wilmslow was also a training camp for, what was then, the Women’s Royal Air Force, who’s members were still known by their World War 2 name .. the “WAAFS”. We eager young men were warned by a ‘grizzled’ old flight sergeant to stay away from these young ladies, as “Wafs was only to be used as groundsheets by orfissers!”. Needless to say, we ignored his advice.

At about the half-way point in our training we were allowed to leave camp if we passed inspection, and we would head for Manchester: and I well remember how our ‘best blues’ attracted attention (and an empty bottle or two) from the local ‘Neanderthals’ as we wandered through Belle Vue or sipped our warm beer, with our backs to the wall, in some smoke filled dump of a pub. We were advised by ‘old hands’ to wear our heavy webbing belts, with their brass buckles, under our tunics, as they made handy weapons. Luckily we never needed them.

                (This picture shows Cpl. ‘Jaffa’ Orange, with me standing behind the officer)         

Attending a dance at Alderley Edge seemed like a good idea at the time, but looking back I remember that our dance partners were far from impressed as we were all wearing heavy boots complete with hobnailed soles. One advantage of being an airman and not a soldier was that you were issued with black leather shoes as well as boots. Unfortunately, ours had not yet arrived. I dread to think what condition the dance floor was in when we departed.

A very unpleasant event in our hut was an outbreak of what I imagined was some form of tonsillitis. It spread along each row of beds, so that you knew when your turn would come. I managed to recover without ‘reporting sick’.

Sick parade did not mean that you turned up at the sick quarters and said “Good morning doc. I’m not feeling too well” … It entailed …

• Getting up at dawn.
• Folding your bedding and cleaning your bed space.
• Packing all your clothing and equipment into your kitbag (in case you ended up in hospital).
• Washing and shaving.
• Packing your small kit (a sort of military overnight bag).
• Dressing in your best uniform.
• Polishing your boots and cleaning your ‘brass’.
• Missing breakfast (too early).
• Parading outside the sick quarters in all weathers.
• Being ‘gently‘ questioned and inspected by various NCOs to see just how close to ‘death’s door’ you really were.

At training camp, it also meant that if your illness made you unfit for duty, you would be “back flighted”. In other words, you would be reassigned to a later intake so that you did not ‘miss out’ on any of the training programme. ‘Back flighting’ was something to be avoided at all costs.

Whilst on the subject of health, I recall that just about everyone, including me, smoked. In fact, when we were drilling on the parade ground the order would be given every so often to .. “Fall out for a ten minute smoke break!”. My mother would send a pack of “Senior Service” to me hidden in a folded edition of our local newspaper. Sometimes she included a ten bob note, as an “AC Plonk” was paid just a few pence over £1 per week, which did not go very far; and you were expected to salute when collecting it at a ‘pay parade’.

Another parade came at the end of our eight weeks of ‘square bashing’. It was quite a grand affair with a band (complete with bagpipes), gleaming fixed bayonets and loads of ‘spit and polish’. This event was to celebrate our ‘passing out’ after completing basic training.

I experienced another form of ‘passing out’ at our celebration ‘hotpot’ supper after I was introduced to “Johnny Walker” for the first time !

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(to be continued)

Chapter 4 .. Just a number.

After a restless night we were awakend by a voice coming from the ‘Tannoy’ system wishing us “good morning” and telling us that it was “ 06.30 hours”. We washed, and some of us even shaved, in a cold and damp building known as the ‘ablutions’ before shuffling off for a fairly decent breakfast, although we were only allowed about fifteen minutes to eat it, and from then on, just like that breakfast everything was ‘at the double’ for it seemed that as we had reported for duty on the Tuesday after a public holiday weekend we only had four days to be kitted out etc. instead of five which was the normal amount of time recruits spent at the reception unit.

The following days all seem a bit of a blur to me now, but I do remember that we were given another medical and that one or two lads were sent home. The only other thing that I recall was a hearing test where we stood facing a wall and airmen medics whispered words into our ears which we had to repeat … “Bollocks” whispered the medic … “Bollocks” I replied … “Big tits” whispered the medic … “Big tits” … I replied, and so it went, and although some boys were shocked, most of us fell about laughing.

The storemen who issued our kit had great fun, because each piece of clothing and equipment had to be stamped with our service number before it was handed to us to pack in our new kitbags, except that they never “handed it” to us. What happened was that an NCO shouted out something like .. “Shirt blue, airmen for the use of !” and the storeman in front of the man receiving the shirt stamped the tail with large numbers in black ink and tossed it over the recruits head as did all the other storemen standing behind the long bench. The line of recruits then had to turn around and guess which was their shirt amongst the pile laying on the floor behind them. This happened with every piece of kit and we spent ages sorting through it all to identify the items marked with our numbers. Right up to the end of my service I still had one or two items with someone else’s number stamped on them.

Around this time volunteer recruits in the RAF were being issued with smart new uniforms made of far better quality material than the ‘surplus’ ones issued to national service conscripts. Which meant that I was issued with two uniforms which had probably been in storage since World War 2. The buttons and cap badges were of the king’s crown design and King George VI had been dead for six years by this time and Queen Elizabeth was now on the throne. Other items of equipment, such as boots, were equally of an outdated design: and, as for the shirts. Well, they were of the detached collar type, which led to hours of struggling with back and front collar studs.

I staggered out of the stores dragging a large kitbag, into which I had stuffed as much as was possible. A small pack was slung over my shoulder containing other strange items which I had ‘swept up’ from the storeroom floor. Everything else was carried, as best as I could, in my arms.

On return to our barrack room we were told to dress in our ‘best blues’ as we were to have a group photograph taken  …..

(1st day in uniform .. I’m the one standing in the centre)

As we were now in uniform we had to learn who to salute, and how to raise your arm when this was required. It had to be ‘snappy’ and “the longest way up and the shortest way down”: and when was the best time to learn this action ?  .. The answer .. on the same day that  your arms were extremely stiff and painful after they had been punctured with inoculations !

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(to be continued)

Chapter 3 … About to “Get some in” !

It was not until my nineteenth birthday that I at last received another brown envelope containing an enlistment notice and travel warrant with instructions to report to RAF Cardington on the Tuesday immediately after the Easter Holiday. The travel warrant was made out for Bedford and was to be exchanged for a railway ticket at my local station. I didn’t have a clue where Bedford was, for like many Londoners I thought of anywhere outside of it’s boundaries to be ‘the sticks’.

Now I was rather proud of my hair which was styled in a sort of ‘Tony Curtis’, and I was not prepared to suffer the humiliation of having it chopped about by some service barber, so I visited Jimmy’s barber shop in Atlantic Road, Brixton and he gave me a rather smart, but very short, ‘crew cut’, so that when I stepped off the train at Bedford station I stood out from the crowd in my black and white ‘houndstooth’ tweed overcoat, bright red tie and new ‘brush-cut’. I was soon to realise that standing out in a crowd was not such a good idea.

A mud splattered blue RAF bus stood outside the station and I and a number of other young men boarded it under the gaze of a bored looking scruffy airman driver.

I sat next to a very small pale faced lad who looked nervously out of the window. “Look at that !” he suddenly exclaimed, for there in the distance were two massive aircraft hangers, and floating in front of them was a large barrage balloon of the type seen in the skies over London during World War II.

As we watched the silver grey balloon rose hundreds of feet into the sky at the end of it’s steel tether.

“I wonder what that’s for ?” said the lad.

“Oh, don’t you know ?” I replied “You have to climb up the cable before breakfast every morning”, and as soon as my joke left my mouth I regretted it, for the face of the pale youth suddenly got even more pale and he began to shake all over. Shit! I thought. Is this poor little sod is in for a rough time.

The bus came to a halt and we disembarked to be met by the staff of No. 2 Reception Unit, RAF Cardington, who much to my surprise were not the screaming foulmouthed sergeants and corporals whom I had expected. In fact they seemed very polite and almost friendly. After a brief rollcall we were asked to pick up our bags, line up in threes and to the sound of a gentle “left, right, left” marched, with much shuffling of feet, to our billets.

A grey haired rotund sergeant told us to leave our bags in the hut and marched us off to the airmen’s mess for a meal. We were issued with a knife, a fork and a spoon, which I learned were called “yer eating irons” and a white china mug, and were led into the mess hall where a group of cooks stood behind a long counter which was covered with large metal trays and steaming cauldrons. We formed a line and each picked up a plate from the stack at one end of the counter. When my turn came I approached the first cook, or at least I thought he was a cook as he held a ladle in his hand.

He was wearing a greasy beret and had a dirty vest on under a food splattered apron. I held out my plate and in a practiced manner the ladle was dipped into a large container, it was then held in front of my eyes and tipped forward so that a large dollop of shepherd’s pie hit my plate with a splash. The next unshaven member of the kitchen crew poured a helping of watery cabbage on top of the shepherd’s pie, and so it went on down the line. I got the feeling that this was all done for the amusement of the catering staff and I was soon to learn that other personnel at the reception unit also enjoyed a laugh at the expense of the latest intake of ‘sprogs’.

After our meal, which many did not eat, the kindly sergeant led us back to our hut and counted us to make sure that we were all still there. He looked along the line and his gaze fell on me.

“You there” he said “Yes you, the one with the red tie and Yankee haircut. Do you remember the way to the mess hall ?”

“I think so sergeant” I replied.

“Good” he said “ .. Because from now on you’re senior man in this hut and you can march the rest to meals”.

Now I was getting the message about “not standing out in a crowd”.

The billet to which we were allocated housed about twenty men, and was sparsely furnished with iron beds and wooden lockers. A blackened iron stove stood in the centre of the room, in front of which was a coal bucket, but no coal.

After we had each ‘grabbed’ a bed and shoved our bags in the lockers, cigarettes were lit and we started to get to know each other before being marched away to begin our indoctrination. This began with a haircut of the ‘short back and sides variety’ given by the camp barber who would have been just as much at ease with a herd of sheep. A sergeant strutted up and down in front of us as we lined up outside the barber’s hut. Surely, I thought he won’t expect me to undergo this humiliation, as I barely had a quarter of an inch of hair covering my head due to my recent visit to ‘Jimmy’s’. The sergeant spotted me and walked towards me. Once again I stood out amongst the crowd.

“So who’s a clever little bleeder then?” he said with a scowl “Thought you could get away without this bit did you? Well you was wrong sonny, so get in there and GET YOUR BLOODY HAIR CUT !!!”.

As I entered the hut the barber grinned and proceeded to run his clippers through what ever hair I had remaining. He must have got a kick out of his job for he burst out laughing as I got out of the seat and the next lad entered, for he was a bit of a ‘teddy boy’ from London and sported an immaculate ‘Elvis’ style hairstyle with long black sideburns and greased back ‘DA’. When he left the hut he could only be recognised by his outlandish clothes.

After the haircuts we were marched to a large shed where air force clerks sat behind rows of tables. Each of us sat in front of a clerk and he noted down our personal details with such questions as .. “What’s yer f****ing name ?” and “What f****ing date were you f****ing born on?”. Now I had not exactly led a sheltered life, but I was quite surprised at the frequent use of this now common expletive, although a few weeks later I had to be careful, when on leave, not to say “pass the f****ing salt” to my mother.

We were issued with our service number and photographed for our identity card, from then on always to be known as a “twelve fifty”. Every piece of paper in the RAF had a form number and this card was “Form No. 1250”.

Now the photograph on our twelve fifties had to show us in a uniform which had not as yet been issued to us, but never fear, for the RAF had a solution in the form of a false collar, tie and tunic top which was hung around our necks as we sat before the camera.

After being given various bits of information about the rest of our indoctrination period by a rather posh young pilot officer we were returned to our billets where I realised that it was now my turn to march ‘my recruits’ to tea.

“All right lads” I said “Stop mucking about, and get into three ranks”. So far so good, although the three ranks were a bit uneven. “Left turn” I called out in a rather squeaky voice. After some twisting and turning the lads all decided to face in the same direction, and after a mumbled “Quick march” from me we set off at what I can only describe as a hopping shuffle. My attempts at a “Left! Right! Left!” only made things worse. I just hoped that no one in charge was watching. Tea turned out to be baked beans on toast and bread and jam with a horrible tasting tea being dispensed from a large metal urn. I remembered the rumours about bromide being put in the tea to calm our sexual urges, and from then on I hardly ever touched the stuff for the rest of my two years’ service.

That evening some of us visited the NAAFI canteen for a pint or two and a game of darts before getting our heads down for the night, but this was far from a comfortable experience as the hut was freezing cold. Remember “a coal bucket, but no coal”. Now as ‘senior man’ I took my responsibilities seriously, and so I led a small search party to find fuel for the stove. This turned out to be anything wooden that was not nailed down. Shelves, towel rails, cupboard doors and even a loose plank off the side of a hut were consumed in our old stove, and one lad even returned from his foray with a small sack of coke which he had ‘borrowed’ from outside one of the ‘staff’ billets. The stove glowed in the dark after ‘lights out’ as we hid under our thin blankets and overcoats.

“Mum ! Is that you Mum ? … Where’s the dog ?” … What the hell was that ? I sat up and looked towards where this shouting was coming from. Other people stirred in their beds. The shouting went on for several minutes. I had heard of people talking in their sleep, but this was ridiculous. Suddenly from the other end of the room came a shout … “Shut the f***k up arsehole !” and a heavy shoe flew through the air towards the shouting sleeper and the noise ceased.

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(to be continued)