I Was a Cold War Penguin

I Was a Cold War Penguin

Dafydd Manton

I Was a Cold War Penguin

Dafydd Manton

Published by Dafydd Manton at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Dafydd Manton

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Produced by

Tony Rattigan

Cover Illustration by

Ann Manton

Now that you have got this thing in your sticky little mitts, you may well be wondering what it is all about. If you are expecting tales of derring-do, heroism in the air, climbing out on the wing to extinguish burning engines, and investitures at Buckingham Palace, where a grateful monarch pins another piece of Chest Cabbage to the best uniform, read on. You won’t find anything of the kind, of course, but that’s not the point. There have been any number of men, genuine heroes, who have written their memoirs, and they have had much to say. This volume is the antithesis of such things. So, if it is a history of peacetime, why bother? Because it’s still a part of History. Because I have got to That Age. Because my grandchildren ask me what I did when I was Daddy’s age, and increasingly, I can’t remember.

Indeed, that is a phrase that crops up more than once within these covers, but you’ll get used to it. People say things, and I answer with, Ah, yes! I remember when I was in Malta/Cyprus/Addis Ababa, and then ramble on for hours, with a story that has little beginning, quite a lot of middle and no end. The worst of it is, I’ve never even been to Addis Ababa, and I’ve recalled something that happened to my good mate Bill, who I haven’t seen since 1982, and anyway we didn’t really get on.

On other occasions I prop up the bar in the Golf Club, and bore everybody rigid for ages, which is irritating, in that firstly I don’t play Golf, and secondly, I’m not a member. Putting all this down on paper is in the hope that I will have got it all out of my system, and I can get on with life, without continually bleating on about the events of nearly 40 years ago. (My wife suggests that this is a vain hope!) That way, I will manage to retain those few friends who haven’t gone completely ga-ga, and never again will I have to put up with the rolled eyes and pained expressions from my family. It’s just that they don’t understand. Nor do they understand what a Penguin is. A Penguin is something that has wings, flaps a lot, but can’t fly. Which reminds me ... did I ever tell you about the time I was in Addis Ababa …?

Samuel Goldwyn once said that nobody should write their autobiography until after they are dead. I’m merely leaving it to the last minute.

In memory of Fyodor Fyodorovich Fyodorov - Fred. 1913 – 1990

and

The Inimitable Kerry Burke

Roll of Honour

The following personnel have laid their reputations and their good names on the line, for this book. They are to be commended, as well as pitied. Their families may never speak to them again.

Cacoethes Scribendi.

Sgt Larry Bawden

Chf Tech Keith Bell

W/O Kerry Burke

Cpl Marco Criscuolo

Cpl Ian Davie

Cpl Steve ‘Foggy’ Fox

Flt Sgt Jim Goodwin

Chf Tech Fiona Gwinnett

W/O Tim Hutchinson

Chf Tech Tom MacManiac McPherson

J/T (W) Karen Markwell

Chf Tech Pete Moore

Chf Tech Frank Morley

Sgt Jim Pembury

Sgt Chris Storey

Cpl Martin de Porres Taggart

Cpl Vicki Timings-Thompson

Cpl Phil Williams

Contents

In the Beginning

Square-Bashing at Swinderby

Dots and Dashes at Cosford

The Bawtry Experience

North Luffenhamski

The Big City

The Wyton Years

To Blazes with the RAF

54 Signals Unit, Celle

Nochmals North Luffenham

Berlin Revisited

Stalag Luft 399, Digby

Is it Just Me?

In the Beginning

Firstly, you can blame it all on Biggles. You remember him, the eponymous hero of such literary gems as Biggles of the Camel Squadron, Biggles Flies West, Biggles and The Plane That Disappeared and Biggles Flies Undone. He had, as I need hardly remind you, been a young fighter pilot in the First World War, a young fighter pilot in the Second World War, a young fighter pilot flying Hawker Hunters in the 1960s, and had saved the world single-handed, on several occasions, without any help from Audie Murphy or John Wayne. When I was still wearing short trousers, he was my hero, and I read every book I could get hold of. I was particularly keen on the idea of being a Spitfire pilot myself, which was one reason why I joined the RAF, once I’d got rid of the shorts.

I hadn’t really thought things through that well, though, because by 1972 the Spitfire wasn’t just obsolescent - it had gone out of service completely. Actually, to get that into perspective, the last operational flight by a Spitfire was almost exactly 6 months before I was born, but that didn’t change anything. What changed everything was that I was a complete dummy when it came to mathematics, and doing sums is apparently essential if you want to be an Aeroplane Driver, given that this was before SatNav and all the other modern gubbins. As a result, Her Majesty, or more probably her heirs and assigns, decided that they didn’t fancy letting me loose with a big chunk of ironmongery, since I would only add things up wrong and attack the wrong place, or worse yet, land in the wrong place and the enemy would know all that there was to know about the most secret aircraft I was flying. (They could have looked in Jane’s All the World’s Fighting Aircraft just as easily, but nothing produces paranoia more quickly than thinking your foe might be clued up about something.)

I was offered other exciting alternatives such as being a cook, or a storeman, which are worthy and necessary trades, but I couldn’t see myself in the role. Not quite dashing enough for me, there was insufficient swash with which to buckle, or so I sadly thought, but then inspiration came. I had once dabbled in local radio, for some project about Guide Dogs in Leamington Spa, so I fancied the idea of becoming a Radio Operator. I’d seen The Dam Busters, so I quite liked the idea of being the gallant, steely-eyed airman with the Morse key, who could tell the world that the mission had been accomplished, and against all the odds at that. Could I be a Wireless Operator? I asked.

Recruiting sergeants are clever men, who are probably absolute wizards when it comes to the Times crossword. They can most certainly twist words to the advantage of either themselves, the service that they represent, or the whims of successive grateful governments who will always require cannon fodder. I was told that there was a need for Telegraphists, which would involve radio, and that, of course, the natural progression was to flying, which is what I fancied. He presumably forgot to mention that airborne Wireless Ops were a thing of the past, because they were no longer needed.

Anyway, I signed on various dotted lines, and the ball started rolling. First thing was a medical, which was the usual indignity of being poked, prodded, asked (told) to bend over, cough, all the usual bits and pieces, and told that I needed to lose some weight. Fine, I’ll do that, I thought.

Strict diet, which wasn’t that hard, although since this was the start of the Rugby season, I was virtually useless in my normal position in the front row of the scrum. A ten stone prop forward is nigh on worthless, and I couldn’t move to any other position, because I’m only 5 foot six, and not especially fast. Suffice it to say, that I got down to the weight that they said, and went back to the careers office to fill in more forms.

One thing that dogged me throughout my career (a career being defined as a headlong rush, usually downhill) was the fact that my Dad had been born in India. Hardly one of the hotbeds of communism, but we’re back to the paranoia thing again. Why India? (Obvious answer; because that’s where his mother was at the time.) My grandparents had been missionaries, but every time I filled in another piece of paper, if it involved those things that happened in 1925 to my dear pater, I got the same questions. You would have thought that somebody could have written it down, made a note, that sort of thing, but this was obviously not the way. I answered all the questions, some of which seemed a bit pointless, and some totally obscure, and presumably somebody somewhere liked my answers, because I was told to report on 11th December 1972, where my life would cease to be my own. I reported.

It was a major moment in my life, so I wish I could tell you about my heart swelling with pride, the trumpets blasting their fanfare across the landscape, the salutes, pinning on of medals, being kissed on both cheeks, then marching off into the sunset to the strains of Tipperary, but I’m afraid the day remains an almost total blank.

I had to swear that I would do my best, and keep the Scout Law - oh, no, sorry wrong one. I had to testify that I would obey, behave in a manner concomitant with the uniform I would wear, and that I was to recognise that I would, for the next few weeks at least, be a liability. Oh, and that I would get my (something) haircut. I called in at the barber’s on the way home.

A couple of days later, and I was on yet another train, this time heading to darkest Lincolnshire, where the No1 School of Recruit Training, RAF Swinderby, was going to turn me from a grotty ‘orrible little civilian into a grotty ‘orrible little airman. It’s not a job I would have wanted!

Square-Bashing at Swinderby

The very first introduction to Service life was being herded aboard a blue-grey bus, and a charming gentleman by the name of Sergeant making himself known to us. We were to call him Sergeant, and he was going to call us anything he liked, for this was before the days of Political Correctness. His first words to us, words of encouragement and welcome were, Right, shut up, and the bloke that’s smoking at the back, put the ******* thing out! This turned out to be first of an awful lot of asterisks, one of the reasons why, when supposedly educated comedians insist on swearing every third word, it does not upset me, it merely bores me to tears because I’ve heard it all before, much, much louder, and probably from better men. Well, some of them, anyway. Back to our cheery welcome. It continued thus:

My name’s Bastable ... Bastable by name and Bastable by nature! Actually, tell it not in Gath, but Joe Bastable was a great character, an exceptional drill instructor, an outstanding NCO and, for the next six weeks, an object of hatred. He knew it, too, because he was enough of an old hand to know that if we were busy hating him, then we would gel together as a unit that much more quickly, and become what Her Majesty had figuratively bunged a shilling at us for. All of which plays the devil with your syntax. Syntax was not something to worry about unduly. Not during basic training, better known as ‘Square-Bashing’, it wasn’t. Staying alive was the main priority. Having said that, an older hand once said Don’t worry, they can’t kill you. Well, they can, actually, but look on the bright side, they can’t eat you! To which the reply was, They can do anything they like, mate, except make you pregnant, and some’ll have an asterisk good try at that!

I strongly suspect that the very first place they took us to was the Station Barber. To call him a Hairdresser was over-egging the pudding somewhat, and it’s a fair bet that most of his skills were learned on the fields of Lincolnshire, shearing sheep. One thing was for certain - you could have gone in and asked him for anything you wanted, you were going to get a short-back-and-sides. What you did with the stuff that the powers-that-be couldn’t see when you had a hat on was up to you, yet equally certainly, the longer your hair was when you sat in his chair, the shorter it was likely to be afterwards. There was one lad on the intake who had shoulder length blond hair, which was all the fashion then. Any woman would have been proud of it, but you could almost see the red mist settling over the eyes of the barber, and he took great delight in shearing vast chunks of it, letting it drop dramatically to the floor. Worse yet, the lad in question never even finished training, so he went back home, shorn, to try and pick up his life again. His desirability with the local lasses, given the change in his appearance, is not on record. Incidentally, the Station Barber on any Unit in Germany was always known as Herr Kutz, although at one time in Berlin, the barber was taken ill, and his replacement was one of the Turkish workers, whose job previously had been cutting the grass. (I wish I was making this up!) He was labelled Ali Barber.

***

Part of the problem, for many, was that this was their first time away from home, and Mum’s cooking. The Service had to break us away from that, although on the first few nights you could hear one or two crying themselves to sleep. It must have been a heck of a jolt for some. I was quite fortunate in that I had often been away on Scout camps, done some time on a training ship and fended for myself on some Youth Hostelling holidays. As a kid, you don’t appreciate what a difference they can make, and I don’t suppose I really cottoned on to it until very much later. I sincerely hope that Mum’s culinary skills were better than we had to live with, although more often than not you were in such a hurry that you shovelled something in, hoped you liked it and that it liked you, had a quick fag then ran off to do whatever it was you were supposed to be doing. I can’t help wondering if today’s RAF allows so many breaks for a smoke, although somehow I doubt it. I’ve given ‘em up now, but then, when you got 5 for a quick spit and a draw, that fag tasted like nectar. Sometimes, when there was a proper NAAFI break, you might get two in. NAAFI, for the effete civilians amongst you, stands for Navy, Army and Air Force Institute, a non-profit making organisation that kept us in fags, tea, sticky buns and cheapo trinkets to send home to mums or girl-friends. Inevitably, it also had a nickname, which you’re going to have to look up. It is far too vulgar for these august pages.

That six weeks was an eye opener, and I can’t pretend that I enjoyed it, although I have to admit that it did make a massive difference. You came out of it fitter, more confident, and feeling like a part of the Air Force, which soon got dispelled when you got to technical training. More of that later. You learned how to march, unless you were one of those poor unfortunates like me who have little or no co-ordination for such things. I’d been walking quite happily for about sixteen years, with few problems, yet the minute that somebody asked me to do it to order, with left foot and right hand going forward at the same time, I knew I was going to get it wrong. I could never remember which foot to start off on, then there was the problem of trying to swing the opposite arm to exactly shoulder height whilst making sure that the hand was held in the correct position, with the first two joints folded back, and the thumb exactly on a line with the rest of the arm.

That was bad enough, but when they gave me this dirty great chunk of wood and metal to hold, telling me that it was a rifle, things got unnecessarily complicated. Trying to hold the accursed thing was a headache, given that dropping a rifle was a cardinal offence, but to compound a felony, we had to wear grey, woolly gloves, with no grip whatsoever. Then you had to make sure the rifle (call it a gun at your peril) was at the correct angle, the hand in the proscribed position, (I’ve managed to forget where!), the strap to the correct side, and not impale the individual in front with your bayonet, and I had a whale of a time. In fact, during those six weeks, you never walked anywhere. Even if you were on your own, you were expected to march, which looks incredibly silly, one lone bloke going to the Medical centre with his arms swinging up to his shoulders, presumably mentally going Lef’, Lef’, Lef’, Ri’ Lef’! to himself. Obviously there were permanent staff on the station, people who had been in for years, and I always felt that they were laughing - I know that in later years I did. I was on the receiving end of a lot of asterisks, but I got there in the end. I must have, because there is still a photograph to prove it.

One PTI, or Physical Training Instructor to the uninitiated, who had to march a bunch of us somewhere, presumably to suffer under his sadistic hand, had a method that was awe-inspiring. Instead of the usual Left and Right, or even the slightly clipped version shown 101 words ago, he use Ep and Yip. At the command Ep Haaah!, some of us turned left, others went right, some stopped (just as well we weren’t carrying rifles with bayonets), and we finished up in tangled heap. More asterisks. All PTIs held the acting rank of Corporal, even though they might only be a Leading Aircraftman, the lowest trained form of animal life, but for some odd reason we were expected to stand to attention for them, and call them Staff.

Ah, those PT sessions. Press-ups, star-jumps, press-ups, bench-presses, press-ups, curls, press-ups. Running on the spot. Running with medicine balls, having medicine balls dropped on your midriff, generally getting fitter. They proved how fit we were, once, when it was demonstrated that if you lie on your back, with your head and feet raised, a full-grown man could stand on your stomach, in boots, and it didn’t hurt a bit. I was astounded; since it was me they demonstrated it on. Any misdemeanour was punished with the ubiquitous press-ups, which seemed to be the thread for the whole six weeks. The only thing I couldn’t understand was having to climb ropes. In the first place, it is a skill with limited value, and anyway, if I was going into battle, I rather hoped to do so with an aeroplane, not on board HMS Victory. The tactical value of climbing ropes, if there was no rigging to shin up, must be fairly slight. Mind you, we must have made a wonderful sight, in our issue shorts, (navy blue, knee length and very, very baggy) t-shirts (white and baggy or pale blue and baggy), black socks and old-fashioned plimsolls, which were identical to the ones the lads trained in for the Boer war. Any invading troops would have been defeated with ease - they’d have just laughed themselves to death.

***

All RAF Policemen were acting Corporal or above, and they were often called ... Anyway. I don’t think we bothered the RAF Police too much - we were far too tired. Too tired from such things as polishing the floors in the barrack rooms. Each man was responsible for the area around his own pit, known unimaginatively as his bed-space. The rest was a communal job. We had these massive great blocks of something heavy, on a pivoting pole, and once you’d applied some polish to the lino, you heaved this thing up and down, until it gleamed. The floor, that is, not the polisher. Walking on it in shoes or boots was a hanging offence, and we all learned the Swinderby Shuffle, whereby you walked without ever taking your feet off the ground, but with a duster under each foot. I understand that they have carpets now. Wimps!

***

Another interesting thing about basic training was sharing a room with 23 other recruits, yet a single mark on that highly polished floor was a sight guaranteed to make the Corporal go scarlet of countenance. Ours, a nasty little man whose name I have forgotten, and even if I hadn’t, I’d get done for libel, or slander, or something similar, was a singularly uncouth youth with a foul mouth and the inability to pronounce the letter H in the correct place. When he exploded with rage - several times a day - his earlobes glowed in the dark. Whilst I realise that it is important to have men who can mould a bunch of recalcitrant young lads into a unit, I still can’t imagine why it was thought that people who firmly belonged in the Victorian era were of any value. Candidly, he wasn’t. Unless he did an anger management course in later life, he will have snuffed it of apoplexy long before now, and if he did, I bet they either missed an H, or used one that shouldn’t ‘ave been there on ‘is ‘eadstone. Truly an ‘orrible little hindividual. In the words of the song, Why was he born so beautiful, why was he born at all ...? Those who have been there will be able to fill in the rest of the words. Ask them.

His anger manifested itself in ways many and varied. A duff bed-pack was a prime case in point. A bed-pack, believe it or not, was a method whereby both sheets and all the blankets bar one were folded into an exactly symmetrical cube, with the counterpane around the outside, like the marzipan on a slice of Battenberg.

The white blanket had to be in the centre, and it looked for all the world like a massive Liquorice Allsort sandwich. (When you got to be a Corporal, you got a second white blanket!) If the whole thing could not stand up to a visual spirit level, it would exit through the nearest window. I can vividly remember one occasion where somebody’s shoes had the tiniest speck of dirt on the bottom, and Cpl Nasty shouting and screaming about all that Filth, on the ******* bed what ‘e ******* sleeps in!, then throwing the lot out of the window, thus making both shoes and bedding considerably dirtier. It comes so clearly to mind because it was mine. You had to tell yourself that they were just weeding out the goons, but it seems with hindsight that some of them managed to stay in, Cpl Nasty being one of them.

***

Anybody who has ever served in the RAF, and I have no doubt the other Services as well, will know the phrase If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t, polish it. If you can’t, paint it! That was certainly the case at Swinderby. We must have got through tons of boot polish, since all footwear had to gleam till you could see your face in it. You kept one pair of shoes for your Passing Out Parade, and they had been polished so many times they almost screamed. They would have made a good substitute for a shaving mirror. Of course, the minute you walked in them - sorry, marched - the polish shattered, leaving little shiny black shards for everybody else to either tread into the floor, or slip and break their necks on.

How we laughed!

Every door handle was brass, as was every lock escutcheon and window catch. Brasso. Every window was glass. Windolene. Every piece of webbing had to be either pristine white or pale blue in those days. Blanco. Blanco is a powdery substance which you mix with JUST the right amount of water to make a paste, and it is then applied to your webbing. Webbing also had bits, brass, airmen for the polishing of. The biggest crime known to man was to get either blanco on your brass, or brass polish on your blancoed webbing. I have to be honest, I still enjoy polishing brass. It’s wonderfully mindless, and therapeutic. Mind you, I didn’t go as far as one type I knew, who used to polish the back of his cap badge. I wonder what he’s doing now.

***

That was a fun day, the day we got our kit. We got marched (actually, at that stage we probably shambled) to Clothing Stores, where kind gentlemen gave each of us a pile of uniform stuff. You didn’t try it on, because you had sent your measurements through ages before, so it all just got crammed into a massive hold-all, and we marched back to our barrack block, two men carrying two bags between them, one on top of the other, so that your arm went through the handle of the top one, and grasped the lower. We were issued with a piece of chalk, and instructed to write our name and the last three digits of our Service Number in a rectangle drawn between the four brass studs on the bottom, which, incidentally, was the only bit of brass that we were not required to polish. That number is still faintly visible today. Once empty, hold-alls were stored in a room with wooden slatted shelving, vertically, by the simple expedient of folding the bag and then jamming it vertically between two slats, number facing outwards. That way it was, at least theoretically, possible to find your bag quickly.

The actual uniform was a battledress, made of thick, blue serge, in those days. (Suddenly, I feel like a dinosaur). It had high-waisted trousers and a blouse, which had buttons to join the two together - it wouldn’t do for some civilian to catch sight of a military mid-riff. All the fastenings were buttons, on both blouse and trousers, with nary a zip in sight, although those with any sense had zips fitted after leaving training. All the buttons were black, and any button that could be seen had the Eagle and Crown on it, in case we forgot who we were. Many did. There were buttons on epaulettes and breast pockets. Obviously, we had no badges except the RAF eagles, both facing rearward, on the shoulders. They were called Night-Hawks, or a word very similar. The shirts were cotton, which took some serious ironing, as did the serge. Anyone who has tried to iron new serge will tell you that it is quite fluffy, in a scratchy kind of way - the Women’s RAF called them Hairy Marys - and it is extraordinarily difficult to get a crease into it. Even if you do, the first time that you put them on, the creases fall out, and if you haven’t got the proper creases in all the proper places, the wrath of Cpl Nasty would fall upon you like a ton of something rather less pleasant than bricks. We soon learned to shave the stuff, especially on the inside. If you had an electric razor, you were in dead trouble, because it wouldn’t work, but the safety razor with removable blades was all the rage then, so we used a blade or two on our kit. Some even rubbed the inside of the creases with soap, which is fine in the short run, but it brings you out in rashes, and if it rains, you’re sunk. We had to get creases vertically on trousers, but horizontally across the back of the jacket. The creases down the sleeves were expected to start either side of the eagle, and finish exactly on the two seams at the wrist. The more that you ironed your uniform, the better it got, but you try explaining that after only three days to an NCO who is foaming at the mouth, and spraying hasterisks all across Lincolnshire at a couple of ‘undred decibels. Somehow we survived.

Presumably, the Stores had a problem with moths, or some other infestation, because the smell of a serge uniform getting wet has to be experienced to be believed. Even a wet gun-dog with flatulence would have been better.

The hat was something else. For the normal, everyday grind, we were expected to wear the beret, a singularly ridiculous object, which had to be moulded to the individual. They were always a bit oversized when issued, so you had to dunk them in hot water, then cold, then hot, and put the thing on to shape it to your nut. It was meant to be worn with the badge over the left eye, and the right side of the beret smoothed down, so that it did not look like a helicopter landing pad. I can’t remember what a room full of sprogs with wet hats on must have looked like, I’m relieved to say, but it must have been interesting. As trainees, we were expected to wear a coloured plastic disc behind the cap-badge, to denote which Flight we were in. Ours, No. 12, was yellow. Once the beret, which I once saw on a hand-written notice spelt B.e.r.r.y., was properly shrunk, we had to carefully tie the two black ribbons at the back into a knot, cut off the extremities then bung it on a radiator overnight. There is not much in life that looks more ridiculous than an unshrunk beret, sticking out at right-angles, with two ribbons hanging down the back. Fine, no doubt for sailors, but not airmen.

A hat worn in such a style, and it sometimes was, was universally known as a Chiefy beret, since the most likely culprits were aged Chief Technicians. They were a law unto themselves. I have to confess, almost as soon as I left training, I took to wearing a specially battered peaked cap, to try and make it look like I had got some in, although I suspect it was fooling nobody. Eventually, I got a forage cap, or Field Service cap, known by a title unthinkable in these pages, which I wore right up to my last day in the RAF. I’ve still got it, somewhere. The back of the badge is not polished.

The dress uniform, or Best Blue was tailored, at least up to a point, so we got them later, all shiny buttons and barathea, which is a sight easier to press. That was worn with a cap, which had a peak that you had to get nice and shiny - furniture polish did a good job, but whatever you do, don’t get the stuff that smells of lavender. If it rains on parade, one or two of those around you are going to get the wrong idea. If you were wearing the peaked cap, not only did you have to have your little yellow circle, you also had a reflective, silver hatband instead of the more correct black one, so that everybody would know that you were a sprog. I’ll let you guess how long it took us to remove the disc and put the black band on, once we were elsewhere, and away from the eyes of authority. On our first leave, where nearly everybody went by train, I wouldn’t mind betting that before the train had even got out of the station, hatbands had been changed, and we could pretend that we were serious airmen.

To be fair, the Best Blue usually fitted very well indeed. Not so the battledress, although the one thing that sticks in the mind was the tightness of the sleeves the day we got all our inoculations.

Obviously, the RAF had a worldwide commitment, so you had to be inoculated for just about every disease known to man. At this point, we all stood there in a line, shirtless, each with both hands on our hips, which is not the most macho of poses. As the line shuffled forward, batteries of medics on either side shoved needles into you - memory tells me four, finishing up with some foul-tasting sugar-lump thingy they bunged into your cake-hole. It was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life, before or since, but again, we survived.

Immediately thereafter, our sister Flight, a Service word for a bunch of blokes, were given the rest of the afternoon off, to rest and recover from the ordeal. Not so with Joe Bastable. He had us doing weapons drill, marching around all over the place at the double (a posh phrase for organised running), and generally being terribly physical. The air was bluer than our shirts. However, the next day, we realised why. All of our little band were in discomfort, for sure, and sleeves seemed awfully tight, but we could function. The other lot were badly crocked, many of them having to report sick, but our biggest problem was merely the joker next to you knocking your arm, which made your eyes water. Lots.

Verily a Wise Man, Joe.

***

Would you be shocked if, after nearly forty years, I admitted to a heinous crime? Half way through the course coincided with Christmas, which even the atheists seemed quite happy about. We were free to go home for a few days. Admittedly looking a trifle strange with our unfashionably short hair, when the rest of the young male world had flowing, layered locks, or even the dreaded Afro.

However, when I got home, I bought my first car, which sounds a bit posher than it was. It cost me ten quid, from my Grandad, who had been in the RAF himself, and he wouldn’t give it away, even though he was dead chuffed that I had gone in. Admittedly a tenner was much less than it was worth. It was an Austin A35 van, with side windows, and I drove it for years, during which time it only ever let me down once, and that was a cracked battery, not the car. Once we got back for the final three weeks of training, on a couple of occasions I sneaked off to my car, and went off the station. It was Streng Verboten, but there were no checks at the gates or suchlike, so off I went. I’d drive for miles, well away from Swinderby, stop for a pint then drive back. That car was a little sanity saver, not only because I could get away, but the beer in the NAAFI, at least for trainees, was pretty dire. Just the fact that they called it The Newcomers Club tells you all you need to know. Incidentally, I sold the car in 1975, when I got posted to Germany. It nearly broke my heart.

On the other hand, I made two quid profit!

***

After that Christmas leave, the Air Force, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that all trainees would benefit from going camping in Sherwood Forest, for what reason I know not. We got taken, in the traditional rickety old bus, to the training grounds near Ollerton, which bristled with signs warning about tanks, live rounds, explosives and the like. No mention of a bunch of half-trained airmen who hadn’t got a clue what they were doing, but there was quite a holiday atmosphere. Tents were erected in a military fashion - bell-tents that had first seen the light of day some time during the Crimean War, I suspect. Guy-ropes were tightened here and there, a certain amount of lashing took place, though not with the cat o’ nine tails. We left that sort of thing to the Navy. It was something to do with - well, anyway, there was a lot of it going on.

Latrine trenches were dug, and dignity put on hold for a few days. Few things compare to a wet squatting pole on a winter’s morn, swapping anecdotes with your neighbour as nature took its course. I’m led to believe that we were one of the very last intakes to be subjected to this, the practice being superseded by chemical thunderboxes later. Softies.

***

Shock! Horror! Compo Rations! Until you have experienced the heady delights of sausages that were wrapped in steel some 25 years previously, bacon that only the most short-sighted would recognise as such, and similarly treated tinned tomatoes with crozzled eggs for breakfast, you haven’t lived. And Compo sausages, in the production of which no animal was harmed. Frightened, possibly, but never harmed. Breakfast was a good couple of hours after you had been woken from your slumbers by a delicate size 10 and a very loud, sadistic voice. Cpl Nasty strikes again. Pity that there were no bugles. I can’t quite remember what we did in that time, but I’ll have a little bet that it had something to do with cleaning things, or re-organising all the bits of the forest that God had got wrong.

Fast was duly broken, and cooking utensils had the vulcanised remains of the latest repast removed from it - then polished, I have no doubt. There were exercises, where we had to utilise logs, barrels, bits of rope and so on, to get you to use your initiative, and if necessary take command. Imaginary ravines were crossed, raging torrents that only Cpl Nasty could see claimed innumerable victims.

We went on long route marches, although by now we were so fit, it was a bit of a breeze - almost a stroll in the park. We laughed a lot, because if you don’t you go mad, and anyway, we were young and fairly stupid. We also groused, moaned, complained, bitched, mumbled, muttered, swore and then got on with it, because moaning is the only inalienable right of the British Airman, and if he gets the chance he will do so. Treat it