"What
did you do in the "Cold War" Dad?"
Part
1 - Royal Air Force Apprentice
(Apprentices
"wheel", RAF Locking crest & No.1 Radio School crest purloined
from RAF Apprentices and Boy Entrants home page: http://www.appbe.com/)
|
"Train up a child in the
way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it" |
I always had a fascination of the R.A.F. as a child, most likely because of my Dad's R.A.F. Service. As a kid in Sheffield in the late 1950's I wore an old R.A.F. battle dress jacket that sported sergeant's stripes as I flew my Spitfire through the skies in the remorseless search for "Jerry" (in reality my Spitfire was an old deep sea crate in the back garden, panted black and with a blue stripe painted diagonally across the sides. Round tobacco tin lids were my instruments and a bit of broom handle was the "stick"). Dad served his apprenticeship at R.A.F. Cranwell around 1947 and went on to work on radar and radio systems world wide. My education suffered terribly as a result (Dave Turner finally taught me how to do mathematical fractions when we worked together at Krupp Atlas-Elektronik in 1980 and my spelling only improved when PC spelling checkers came along to show me the errors of my ways!) but how many kids get to go to Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, Zambia as well as the length and breadth of England and Wales as a result of their father's career?
I started getting interested in radar when Dad was posted to R.A.F. Boulmer, Northumberland, in 1967. It was the first time I'd been close to any radar and the huge Type 85 radar was right next to a passing road, within easy reach of a lad on his bike. I started getting books about radar from the public library in Alnwick and I caught the radar bug. I was finally hooked for life when I got to tour the enormous Type 85 radar with my Dad during a families day. As I stood in the control room looking at the screens and that giant mimic display I knew in my heart what I wanted to do when I left school.
Dad got the forms for me and helped me fill them out. Eventually I was instructed to report to the R.A.F. Careers Information Office in Newcastle upon Tyne for "Selection". There were dozens of other boys there too, we sat at desks for most of the day completing tests of all kinds that I assume were to designed to find our capabilities. Then we were sent to an Army barracks for a medical - just me and one other boy whom I never saw again. There were some interviews too, an officer asked me why I wanted to be a radar fitter, I gave a lame answer to the effect that there would always be a need for them - I was nervous and inarticulate and I couldn't bring myself to tell him that I wanted to do this to the exclusion of everything else. Then came weeks of nerve wracking impatience, waiting to hear if I'd been successful - or not.
I
joined the Royal Air Force on the 27th of October 1970 as an apprentice, or
"Brat", and trained as a ground radar fitter (LFit GR) at the No.1
Radio School, RAF Locking near Weston-Super-Mare in Avon, England (aka Weston-Super-Mud;
if you've been there you'll know what I mean!). For the first few weeks our
uniform comprised of grey overalls, blue shirt (with detachable collar and collar
studs!), underwear, black socks, DMS boots and a beret. Once some of the wheat
had been sorted from the chaff we were issued with regular uniforms. Apprentices
could be identified by the coloured hat band on their No.1 uniform peaked cap
(green for Locking), a coloured disk behind the RAF hat badge (denoting the
"flight" the apprentice was in - blue for G flight when I was there)
and the propeller badge or "wheel" worn above the left elbow on the
uniform jacket sleeves. Yours truly is fourth from the left, centre row in this
picture of the R.A.F.'s finest; G flight, 219 Entry (Radar) Craft
Apprentices. If you look very carefully you might be able
to make out my moustache; I had to get permission to grow that! Check out the
shine on those boots too, it could take hours of spit and polish to get a shine
like that then someone would ruin your day by standing on your toes! Click on
the picture for a larger view with names.
The first couple of months of the two year apprenticeship
were taken up with "Bull" (cleaning and polishing everything!), parade
drill and 
marching
everywhere. Bull sessions were hard work. The Leading Apprentice would lay great
dollops of orange polish from a large tin on to the blue linoleum floor of the
billet with a broom handle. We then got onto our hands and knees and polished
the floor by hand with pieces of material torn from our bed blankets. Finally
the floor was buffed up to a mirror finish using a "bumper" (a lump
of cast iron with a hinged broom handle that rested on a pad of blanket material)
that was swung vigorously back and forth across the floor. After a few weeks
you found yourself sleeping under scraps of blanket the size of a small bath
towel and feeling very cold at night; fortunately we were issued with new blankets
just before terminal hypothermia set in. We next took a length of cord and stretched
it down the length of the billet using the door posts at each end as a guide.
We then carefully manoeuvred all the beds out from the wall (without marking
the floor!) until the ends were just touching the cord, thus forming a perfect
line of ten beds, a sight bound to please the eye of the most critical drill
sergeant - we hoped. We then repeated the procedure for the other side of the
room. Bed packs, where the sheets, blankets and pillows are formed up into a
square and wrapped around with a blanket, were the bane of my life. The blessed
things had to have perfectly square corners, a fraction out and you could be
treated to the site of your bed pack being thrown out of the window, into the
rain as often as not. We soon learned to make up cardboard formers that helped
to produce the desired result. I recall sleeping on the bed springs one night;
having formed the perfect bed pack I was not about to give it up!
Uniforms had to be bulled too; shoes and boots bulled to a mirror finish using spit and polish, brass buttons polished to a high shine using a device known as a "button stick" (a rectangular piece of brass sheet with a slot cut in it), the back of the button was fed through the slot and the button was polished without getting "Brasso" on the material; repeated polishing soon ensured that the devices pressed into the brass, eagles and so on, were soon worn away to mere bumps whilst small scratches and pits disappeared entirely. Uniforms were ironed, the creases perfect and seams straight. One evening the Station Adjutant, an attractive WRAF officer as I recall, came in to show us how to press our shirts properly. We would be inspected every morning; woe betied any boy who was sloppy in his appearance!
The hectic pace of the first few weeks of apprentice training left little time for out of hours socialising. The Flowerdown club, named after an early training school, contained the apprentices NAAFI, public telephones and several television rooms. Dances, known as "dicos" or "musical piss ups" were held weekly. Underage boys (the majority) had a large tabled area and a counter at which they could purchase sticky buns and soft drinks. The older boys had a small bar where alcohol could be consumed. One had to be careful though, for as often as not the Flight Sergeant Apprentice would be holding court with his entourage and the newly come of age could easily fall for their tricks! It was a right of passage to enter that bar and one felt so grown up standing there sipping a pint of beer. I was always amazed at how quickly the bar emptied when the "Tom & Jerry" cartoon music filtered through from a nearby TV room; I soon learned that this was common throughout the R.A.F.!
Life
was intense, if not hard, at RAF Locking; what with all the "bull",
the training, the parades and so on. It only left a little time for sampling
the delights of Weston-Super-Mare and letting off steam in places such as the
Winter Gardens, bingo halls, arcades, the Hole in the Wall, the Starlight
Room and other places of ill repute. Pranks were regular and helped to endear
us to the locals - soap suds in the fountain, the dummy display bomb stolen
from outside the station armoury and left under the pier with its fins in the
air, the running battle along the beach
between apprentices and the "skin heads"; such excitement! There were
occasional trips out to the country too, Wookie Hole, Cheddar Gorge, Wells cathedral
and the City of Bath are a few that spring to mind, and of course there was
the odd trip to a remote farm house to purchase small barrels of "Scrumpy",
the champagne of the west country! (and the only thing we could afford to drink
in large quantities!). Once a year we further endeared ourselves to the locals
as we got to stop all the traffic and march through the centre of Weston-Super-Mare
with "Bayonets fixed, flags unfurled and bands playing" in the annual
"Freedom of Weston-Super-Mare" parade. Yours truly, all bulled up,
is on the extreme right of the colour photograph of the 1974 parade. The black
and white photograph shows the flight I trained with, G flight, 219 entry, passing
the dais taking part in the 1971 parade.
There was something of a dark side too; it has to be said that early in the apprentice's training some bullying went on, mostly "public school" stuff but bullying nonetheless. One or two individuals were less than particular about their personal hygiene; if their body odour became unbearable they soon found themselves being thrown into a bath full of cold water, covered with "Vim" (a powder based scourer) and orange floor polish and rubbed down with scrubbing brushes and bass brooms. Late night raids on the barrack blocks of junior entries were not uncommon, the occupants being tipped out of their beds and their room trashed being the usual consequences though occasionally someone got hurt. More seriously, I recall one individual in our entry named Bamford who struck terror into many and was who best avoided if possible. On one occasion he was picking on one of the slighter built boys in the washroom early one morning as we were carrying out our ablutions. I made some comment along the lines of "leave him alone" and in moments ended up on the floor with a bloodied nose and eyes that soon gave me a panda-like appearance. I've never seen a room empty so quickly. In fairness to the adult NCO's I have to say that the incident was somehow brought to their attention and Sergeant Greaney asked me some very searching questions regarding the state of my face. He had a good idea of what had happened and I think that all he needed was a complaint to make it all official. I kept quiet though, for several conflicting reasons. Firstly, I didn't want any more to do with Bamford if I could help it and I certainly did not need another hiding but secondly, and more importantly to my way of thinking, if I complained I was "squealing" and admitting that not only could I not take care of myself but that the entry could not take care of its own dirty business. Not long after this incident Bamford became just another boy sent home deemed unsuitable for apprentice training; a small part of the general training attrition that over the ensuing two years reduced our entry's numbers from somewhere over 100 boys to 35 or less.
Then
it was back to school. The range of skills taught to Royal Air Force craft apprentices
was very impressive, for as well as the traditional class room subjects of English,
Science and Mathematics we were also taught Electronics and Electrical Engineering
theory and Mechanics. In the workshops and labs we learned to apply our theory
to practical problems and built small projects. Later in the course we gained
practical experience in the maintenance and repair of ground radar equipment.
I recall that we had practical training on radar displays, the radar office,
an AN/FPS-6 height finder, AR1, ACR7 and Cossor 787 airfield radars, a
Precision Approach Radar (PAR), IFF Mk.X, British and American TACAN and a Type
80 search radar (minus the aerial!). There might well have been others but the
memory fades.
We were taught to fault find on radar systems right down to component level, something we rarely get to do in these days of modular equipment and multi layer printed circuit boards that are thick with surface mounted components. Faults were simulated by inserting faulty components into the circuits, un-soldering wires or by "frigging" relays by inserting small pieces of paper between the contacts. To get some idea of the scope of the training check out my Apprenticeship Certificate by clicking on it. I am particularly and unashamedly proud of the certificate and the comments that appear at the bottom. The quality of the training was second to none and I firmly believe that there has been no other training scheme, before or since, that comes anywhere near a Royal Air Force Craft Apprenticeship.
We took part in two "camps" whilst I was at Locking, where we learned about living under canvas, hill walking, climbing, canoeing, radio operating, map reading, how to use a magnetic compass and how apprentices can survive on the hills without doing too much damage to either themselves or the hills. The first camp was a few days in the Quantock hills in Somerset, the second was two weeks (I think) in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. Naturally, the RAF chose locations that were remote from civilization, more to protect the locals than to teach us self reliance. However the apprentice's ability to quaff large quantities of alcoholic beverages coupled with our new found map reading skills meant that we could navigate an unerring course to the nearest pub (usually in the nearby village of Llanfrynach) in the foulest of weather. Many of the things we do in our youth are known as "rights of passage"; one result of these camps was that our new found climbing and rope skills were soon put to use accessing a vertical slab of rock in Cheddar Gorge where we proudly painted "219", our entry number, in large numerals alongside those of our predecessors. I think "Wally" Waldren had a hand in this escapade. Can anyone tell me if all those entry numbers are still there?
One
of the inevitable facts of life about being a "Brat" was sports; every
Thursday afternoon was given over to the healthy pursuit of various shapes of
ball over varying grades of terrain. Not long after our arrival Sergeant Greaney
took us to the ring to see if we had any boxers amongst us. I was matched
against Steve Smart, a young man from the Ground Radio side of our entry who
seemed to have very long arms as he immediately got inside my guard and knocked
the senses out of me. Within thirty seconds I was climbing out of the ring with
the tears streaming down my face, vowing never to enter the boxing ring ever again.
In general I don't get over excited about sports, which goes a long way towards
explaining why my broad mind and narrow waistline are now changing places at
an alarming rate. The one exception to this rule was gliding and powered flying
and I used to nip off down to the airfield at Weston-Super-Mare at every opportunity.
Powered flying is much less demanding than gliding. This is because powered
aircraft have an engine and a propeller to pull them along which makes staying
up almost too easy; in a glider you have to work at it! Here you see our hero,
resplendent in his aviator sun glasses, getting ready to launch Mr. Peter Britain
(one of the nicest men I have ever met, a true Gentleman) in a Ka8 at the Mendips
Gliding Club at Weston-Super-Mare airfield in the summer of 1974 (no longer
a "Brat", I'd gone back on a training course). The red and blue glider
in the background is a Slingsby T21, a wonderfully forgiving trainer and this
particular example is the aircraft in which I first flew solo.
Apprentices
also received air experience flights from Weston-Super-Mare in a twin engined
Vickers Varsity. Towards the end of my apprenticeship I was able to take the
co-pilot's controls shortly after take off and flew the aircraft over to Portland
Bill. After the crew had practiced a few passes over the Precision Approach
Radar (there was no runway, only a helicopter landing pad) I was able to take
the controls again and flew back to Weston, finally relinquishing the controls
as we flew the down wind leg.
Earlier in my apprenticeship a ride in a Varsity cured a migraine attack. I had suffered these debilitating attacks throughout my teenage years, successfully hiding the ailment from the authorities by carrying Anadin tablets with me at all times (I knew of an apprentice who had received a medical discharge due to migraine attacks). On the day in question I was having a particularly bad attack and was given the option of either attending the obligatory sports afternoon or going on an air experience flight. I felt I had been offered a terrible choice; a game of football or a couple of hours in the noisy confines of a twin piston engined aircraft! I opted for the flight as at least I could feign airsickness if the attack got worse. The start of the flight was every bit as bad as I feared; the noise and motion soon conspired against me and I must have looked a wretched sight huddled in the back of the aircraft with my face deep inside a sick bag. The pilot took the aircraft up to 10,000 feet, about as high as one can safely fly without oxygen and as we climbed I started to feel better. I soon felt well enough to get up and move about and I began to enjoy the flight, joining another apprentice in the slipper beneath the fuselage where a bomb aimer's window gave one a fabulous view of the countryside below. By the time we landed I was feeling euphoric and I never suffered another migraine attack from that day on.
When
I passed out from apprentice training in October 1972 I was one of the very
fortunate few to be awarded the Philip Sassoon Flying Award . I went on to learn
to fly and gained my private pilots license (PPL) with the Northamptonshire
Aero Club at Sywell aerodrome. This was a wonderful, unique experience and I
spent a very pleasant few weeks learning to fly Beagle Pup 100's in the company
of three other former apprentices from the other training establishments at
RAF Halton and RAF Cosford. It is difficult for me to choose which certificate
I am more proud of, The Philip Sassoon Flying Award or my Apprenticeship Certificate!
Our
passing out parade took place before our invited guests and families on a damp,
grey day on 13th October 1972. I still have my copy of the parade
programme and I plan to put it on to this site when I get around to it. After
the parade there was a small reception for the prize winners and their families
in the Flowerdown Club, the apprentices Naafi. The day was rounded off with
an evening function in Cheddar attended by the apprentices, their families and
the NCO's and officer commanding the flight. Successful completion of our training
meant that we could remove the coloured discs and bands from our hats and the
apprentice "wheel" from our uniform sleeve. In place of the "wheel"
we sewed on the four bladed propeller badge denoting our new rank of "Junior
Technician" and the "Sparks" badge that showed we were in the
telecommunications trade group (see below) was proudly sewn on above the elbow
on the right hand sleeve of our uniform jackets.
The
"Sparks" badge is unique in the R.A.F. and it held a special place
in our hearts. In the early days of the R.A.F. an airman was not allowed to
speak directly to an officer, only an NCO was permitted to do so. As wireless
was introduced it was often necessary for airmen to approach an officer directly
with an important signal. The "Sparks" badge was the airman's authority
to approach an officer. This badge is unique as it was the first and only trade
badge to be authorised by the Royal Air Force (19th September 1918 - AMO
1066) and to this day the signals trade group is the only trade group in the
R.A.F. that has been granted the privilege of wearing a trade badge.
Detailed descriptions of Royal Air Force uniforms and badges can be found in Malcolm Hobart's definitive and well illustrated book, Badges and Uniforms of the Royal Air Force, published by Leo Cooper, an imprint of Pen and Sword Books Ltd., Barnsley, year 2000
