Cockeyed Optimist

Having won the right, through a State Scholarship, to attend University, I still had to get into a particular one. My Dad, aiming high, as usual, wanted me to go to Cambridge, so I entered for what was called an Open Scholarship there; I travelled by train up to Cambridge and sat for several papers. I have suppressed most of the memory of these, except a rather tricky Physics question on friction, probably because I failed to clear this particular hurdle! However, we had found out (probably while I was in Cambridge for the Open Scholarship) about something called the Qualifying Examination for the Mechanical Sciences Tripos. So I sat for that and passed, and that got me into Cambridge to do Engineering (of course, Cambridge being Cambridge, it wasn’t called anything as menial as Engineering, oh no: Mechanical Sciences).

But then (1951) was the era when there was conscription for National Service - two years in one of the armed forces - and I would have to do that first. If I had scored an Open Scholarship I could have got deferment until after University; in retrospect, I’m glad now that I didn’t. About 80% of the boys (yes, it was boys only) finished up in the Army, with about 17% in the RAF, and 3% in the Navy. These proportions were a matter of supply and demand; there were no actual hostilities going on at the time. Anyway, I got into the Royal Air Force, and received a letter informing me when and where I had to present myself, together with a rail warrant to pay for my ticket (they took no chances).

So, on a bleak day in October 1951, I passed through the entrance of RAF Station, Padgate, near Warrington in Lancashire (the northwestern English county that includes Manchester and Liverpool). Here it is:

The induction of recruits is probably similar all over the world, for whatever service, in whatever country. Here are a few scenes I can recall.

Lining up along a series of trestle tables to be handed our kit, including

• beret, one
• badge (for beret), one
• battle-dress top, one
• dress tunic, one
• trousers, two pairs
• boots, Army pattern, one pair
• boots, RAF pattern, one pair
• braces (suspenders), one pair
• shirts, two
• collars, four
• singlets, two
• underpants, two pairs
• socks, two pairs
• tie, black, one
• knife, fork and spoon, one set
• enamel mug, one
• CherryBlossom polish, duster, brush, for boot-cleaning, one set
• Brasso, polishing cloth, button-stick, for button-cleaning, one set
• housewife, one.

Before you marvel at the last item, let me point out that, in RAF parlance, a housewife is a small wallet containing needles and thread, for sewing on buttons and the like.

Having collected our kit, we were waved into cubicles to change into it. Later we had to parcel up our civvies and send them home; we were not considered fit to be seen in public until we had finished basic training.

“And if I see any wisps of smoke coming from the tops of the cubicles, I shall assume you are on fire, and put the hose on you”, said the lance-corporal in charge.

Then we were marched to our billet blocks - our first instructional experience in the RAF.

Life in the billet

The barrack-blocks or billets were Nissen huts (like Quonset huts). This what our billet looked like inside:

There were 20 beds in each billet, plus a private room at one end for the corporal in charge. You will notice a heating stove in the foreground, which ran on coal. This was necessary to keep the cold out of the flimsy huts, and it was also handy for drying laundry and making toast.

We 20 stayed together as a squad, all through the 12 weeks of basic training, mostly drill practice (’square-bashing’), with rifles. We also practiced firing the rifles on a 200-yard range, as well as an occasional taste of Smith and Wesson revolvers, Sten guns (sub-machine guns) and Bren guns (machine guns fired from a prone position) on a 25-yard sand-pit range, just for fun.

I shall draw a veil over the balance of our basic training, also over the next stage of ground training, which got more technical, which we did in Lincolnshire, at RAF Kirton-in-Lindsey, at the time a non-flying training school.

Off to Flying School

It gets more interesting at the point when selected recruits were offered the chance of moving into flying activities. For some reason very few of us 18-year-olds refused this option if it was presented! So off some of us went, to find out whether we were more suited to be pilots or navigators, principally by seeing whether we could drive an aeroplane. This was done at the RAF Aircrew Grading School, at Digby in Lincolnshire.

Here we did 12 hours of training in open-cockpit Tiger Moth Biplanes, like this:

And here I am standing by one!

In that 12 hour course, some of my colleagues actually managed to become good enough to be sent up solo, but I wasn’t that good, to my disappointment. Nevertheless I passed as suitable for pilot training, so my next posting was to RAF Booker (near Marlow, on the River Thames), at No. 21 Elementary Flying Training School. This was, like Digby, run by civilians for the RAF. Here we trained in a much more modern aircraft, the De Havilland Canada Chipmunk, here:

We did 60 hours of training here; I went solo, practiced all sorts of skills, including formation flying, aerobatics, like loops and slow rolls and spins, and passed the course.

Students were now divided into two categories: to pilot single-engined or twin-engined planes (not fighters or bombers - there were twin-engined jet fighters already, the Gloster Meteor, as well as single-engined jets, de Havilland Vampires). In any case I followed the multi-engined route, and went to an Advanced Flying School at Holme-on-Spalding Moor in Yorkshire, to learn to fly on the Airspeed Oxford:

This was to be a longer course, of 120 hours’ flying, with many of the exercises that had been covered in the elementary course (but no aerobatics!). It was a lot different flying a twin, a bigger aircraft, too, but I did alright for a while. But, some way through the course, my instructor said, “I’ve booked you in for a Flight Commander’s test”, and my heart sank. In the event, the Flight Commander was perturbed enough to book a Squadron Commander’s test. I was getting more and more nervous, and during this final test I failed to observe another plane that was on an intersecting course. Nothing bad happened, but the Squadron Commander was not particularly impressed, and that was the end of my attempt to qualify as a pilot.

(I think I was privately a little relieved.)

An interesting statistic from about that era; to fly with the Fleet Air Arm, that is to be a Navy pilot, you couldn’t do it during National Service, you had to sign on for a four-year commission. It was said that only 70% of those who started these programs collected their leaving gratuities (not to say that they were all killed, some pulled out in time). And of the 20 boys who started flying training with me, 3 were killed in various ways associated with flying.

Enough of such negativity!

In the next episode I will tell about my successful pursuit of a Navigator’s qualification, and what I did with it.

If you liked this, why not treat me to a coffee (or a bone for Kafka)? Thanks, mate!

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