Growing up in Lee-on-the-Solent Page 11

  I’d been rumbled: I hadn’t thought it through properly. I then realised that probably dozens had tried this way before. I hadn’t been as clever as I thought I was. Now it was time for plan B. The problem was, I didn’t have a plan B.

  In June 1951, it was the turn of 2M6 Entry to go to the Summer Camp at Northcoates. The weekend just before the Entry was due to leave, I went with a small group roller-skating at a rink in Sleaford. Once again showing off was to be my downfall, and once again, downfall is an appropriate word. Not content with being able to do reverse-turns, I decided that I would try to do one foot reverse-turns. On the move, swinging right foot forward, then left foot wheels on the rink briskly rotated through 180 degrees, right foot back to the rink, job done. After doing it a couple of times I thought I would show my companions how good I was. Well it went OK up to the brisk 180-degree rotation. After pride cometh, and didn’t it cometh! I hit the rink with a good old thump, landing on my outstretched left arm. Oh boy, was it painful. As I sat on the rink I could feel the cold sweat on my forehead. It was only a dislocated elbow, but by the next morning I couldn’t straighten my arm so it was sick parade for me. As a consequence of the dislocated elbow I was not able to go to the Summer Camp.

  When the rest of the entry left for the Camp, administration didn’t know what to do with me. First of all I was made-up to an acting Leading Apprentice, with no duties. I had been attending the Sick Bay for heat treatment on my arm twice a day for a week before the Entry left, and continued to do so for a few days afterwards. Then I was sent on sick leave for a week. Because I could not bend my arm, I could not put on my collar and tie. I had to wear a reversed pullover under my tunic. On the journey home, as I was making my way across London, I was stopped by a couple of Snowdrops (RAF military police who had a white top on their hats), because I was improperly dressed. Rumour had it that they liked to intimidate RAF Apprentices and Boy Entrants: whether that was true or not, I don’t know, but it took me a long time to convince them, even with the documentation that I was carrying, that I was going on sick leave and I could not put on a collar and tie. Eventually they allowed me to continue on my journey, after I had missed at least one train.

  Whenever on leave I would try to see Jean as often as possible, but this was not as often as I would have liked. When she came to see me at Anglesea Road and it was time to return to where she worked and lived, I would put her on the bus to Gosport so that she could catch the ferry and then another bus or trolleybus on the Portsmouth side. In general there were no bus shelters. It was common practice, for intending bus passengers to take shelter in nearby shop doorways, especially if it was raining. When doing this it was important to keep a good lookout for the bus, because they were only too easy to miss. On the corner of Ryde Place and Portsmouth Road was ‘Rebecca’s, a ladies hairdresser’s, and the bus-stop was immediately in front of it. I have fond memories of this doorway, as it was where I would kiss Jean goodnight just before she caught the bus.

  You may think that it was not very chivalrous of me not to take her home, but because the buses and ferries stopped running quite early at night, if I had taken her home it would have meant less time together, as I would have had to leave in time for me to catch the last ferry. Invariably when I visited Jean in Southsea and caught the last ferry, I would have to walk from the ferry on the Gosport side to Anglesea Road. The journey would be in almost total darkness - although there were some gas lights along the way, they were very few and far between. There weren’t any from near Western Way in Gosport until I reached York Crescent in Lee-on-the-Solent. The route home on these long treks was rather tortuous: it was from Privett corner, along Gomer Lane, then along the Browndown Road, in front of the Small Arms School to Portsmouth Road, and finally into Wootton Road to eventually reach home. This trek would take about an hour.

  After my all-too-brief convalescence leave I was able to put on a collar and tie for the return journey. When I arrived back at Cranwell, a few days before the Entry returned, I removed the Leading Apprentice stripe, because the promotion was only temporary. My resolve to try to part company with the RAF had not diminished, and it was only a few weeks later that fate intervened in a tragic and unpleasant way. Although it gave me a possible route to achieving my aim, I was not happy about using it because the plan seemed to be a bit too callous and uncaring. Nevertheless I decided to try to follow it through.

  During one weekend two apprentices in a senior entry committed suicide together, in one of the huts between the Flights of one of the other squadrons. This set alarm bells ringing throughout our part of Cranwell. The military police were all over the place for a short while and it became obvious that those in charge were very concerned that the apprentices may have been pushed a bit too far. Among other things they became anxious about our mental welfare. This is how I came up with an improvised plan B.

  One group of the many involved with checking on our states of mind were the chaplains. Within one of the spaces of our H block accommodation was a Club hut that was used by Catholic apprentices. I made a point of keeping a lookout for the RC chaplain, and when I saw him coming I would nip into the hut before he arrived and start tunelessly tinkering on an old piano that was there. When he came in I stood to attention as customary. ‘Stand easy,’ he said. ‘Let’s sit and have a chat.’ I always found it difficult talking to the chaplain because addressing him as Father did not sit easy with me because of the uniform. We sat for a while; he asked me my name and where I came from etc, and then he said ‘Are you happy in the air force? Is everything OK? Are you sure that you are all right?’ ‘Yes Sir, er Father ..., I think so.’ Throughout the conversation I maintained a monotone level with my answers and avoided putting any enthusiasm in my responses, although I took care not to overdo it. ‘Well let’s meet here again in a couple of days time, say Wednesday at about this time,’ said the padre. ‘Yes Father,’ I replied and stood to attention as he left. Although it sounded like an invitation, it was of course an order. I was early for that meeting, and back on the piano-tinkling routine. This time the conversation ran along similar lines, with one significant difference. Towards the end the chaplain said ‘How would you feel about leaving the air force?’ Inside my head it was YES! YES! But I said ‘I’m not sure about that.’ (That was one for the confessional box). ‘Well think about it, John.’ The first name nearly threw me, especially as I had become accustomed to being called Jimmy. The next meeting was about a week later and when we met again his first question was ‘have you thought about it?’ ‘Yes Father,’ I replied but not too quickly. ‘Maybe you are right and maybe I should.’ ‘Then I will arrange it for you.’ It was that quick. This turned out to be a very short meeting, and I had managed to maintain the monotone responses throughout.

  Within a month, the RAF and I parted company. During that last month, although I knew I was leaving, I still had to continue attending the extra evening classes. On the last of these sessions, we were dealing with the circuit diagram of a piece of equipment that involved over two dozen individual components. Towards the end of the evening the civilian instructor, who didn’t know that I was leaving, asked me to go to the blackboard to draw and explain to the class the function of a part which involved three or four of these components. I went up to the board and drew from memory the complete circuit diagram and explained the function of the pieces that he had asked. When I returned to my seat he said to me ‘You’ve been having me on, haven’t you?’ ‘Yes sir. Sorry,’ I replied and then added ‘I’m being discharged tomorrow.’ The pretence was over.

  When I had decided to ‘work my ticket’, I hadn’t realised that it was going to be such hard work. I often said afterwards that if I had worked as hard at staying in the RAF as I did in getting out, I would have ended up as an Air Marshal. But now I had made it.

  On that last day I learnt more about the geography of the base than I had during the whole of my service there. Before you could leave, yo
u had to be signed-off by every section from Armoury to Uniform stores. It was a most peculiar feeling walking out through the gates for the last time; suddenly I was on my own, an outsider, no longer in the care of a big institution. Although I was pleased to have managed it, there was a slight tinge of regret, because I had enjoyed my time at Cranwell, and I had hoped that it would have turned out better.

  4 www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Bowlly

  5 www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_Brewer

  Back in Civvy-Street

  In October 1951 when I left the RAF, despite what I had said to the commanding officer at Cranwell I really enjoyed radar and wanted to continue working in that field, and I applied for a job in the Portsmouth dockyard. This proved to be quite difficult as it was a case of being a member of the union before you could get a job, and you couldn’t join the union if you didn’t have a job there.

  The only job I could find with any scientific basis was in the Royal Navy Scientific Service, as an Assistant Scientific in the Metallurgical laboratory in the RNARY (Royal Navy Aircraft Repair Yard) Fleetlands. I was accepted and within a month of leaving the RAF, I started work in Fleetlands. As part of my being accepted for the post, it was a condition that, on three evenings a week, I had to attend an Intermediate degree course in Chemistry at the Municipal College.

  The work in Fleetlands was different, interesting and varied. I had to do jobs such as preparing samples by mounting them in Bakelite moulds, polishing them and then taking micrographs (microscopic photographs), taking x-rays of metal welds and assisting the senior staff as required (general dogsbody).

  On the day of what was to be my first evening class, one of the Assistant Experimental Officers in Fleetlands told me to go to the office at the ‘Muni’ (he even told me where the office was) and they would give me all of the information if I just asked directions to the Inter Course. Well you would have thought that by now I would have been a bit wiser, but oh no! That evening, when I went to the ‘Muni’, I went into the main building which was situated just behind the Guildhall. Incidentally it was the same building where I had taken my School Certificate re-sit exams. I had arrived nice and early and went to the office that the AEO had directed me to, and I knocked on the opaque glass sliding window. After a brief wait, a matron-like lady slid back the window ‘Yes?’ ‘Could you tell me where I go for the Inter Course?’ Well the words were hardly out of my mouth when I realised what I had said and that I had been ‘suckered’. I immediately coloured up. The very straight-faced lady said ‘What subject?’ ‘Chemistry,’ I managed to get out. She gave me directions and I made a quick exit, but I did notice that behind her in the office the younger ladies at their typewriters seemed to find it quite amusing; it was probably a standing joke in the office. When I went into work the next day the AEO, who had given me the direction, said to me ‘Did you find the course OK?’ ‘Yes,’ I lied. I wasn’t going to give them - they were all in on it - the satisfaction of enjoying their send-up.

  In fact, the Chemistry course turned out to be an absolute disaster. At school I had taken Physics for my science subject and had no knowledge of chemistry whatsoever. I didn’t even know the Periodic Table. I suppose it is part of my psyche, but I was never happy unless I was up there performing with the best, and it did not sit well with me to have to take on the role of the ‘dummy’ in the class. Even though I was doing my very best, I was struggling. The only redeeming part of being on this course was that Jean would come to meet me after the lectures, when she could get time off from the doctor’s, and we would go to Verrecchia’s, a coffee and ice-cream parlour in the Guildhall square, for our ‘Knickerbocker Glories’. There were romantic cubicles which were very popular with courting couples, including us. I stuck the course for four months but I was lost and decided that metallurgy was not for me.

  My lack of knowledge of chemistry manifested itself when I was assisting AEOs and EOs in the laboratory. One day one of them who had been working with some Potassium Cyanide said to me ‘would you get rid of this down the drain?’ He handed me a glass dish and I took it outside and poured the contents into a drain. When I got back, the one who had asked me to get rid of the chemicals said ‘You put it in the poison drain OK then?’ ‘Poison drain?’ I had no idea what or where the poison drain was. When I showed him where I had poured the contents of the glass dish he said, ‘You have probably poisoned all the fish in the upper reaches of the harbour - there was enough in that dish to kill everyone in Gosport. Don’t tell anyone about this.’ I didn’t. That morning I spent a great deal of time washing my hands in the washroom. Fortunately I wasn’t a ‘Dumbo’ in everything I did. Although I was not to blame for the incident with the poison drain, because no-one had told me about it, I did feel guilty. In the next unfortunate occurrence I was completely innocent, and didn’t feel guilty at all. One of my duties was to take x-rays of pictures of test welds and fractures in metal components, using an x-ray machine which I was told had been removed from a German U-boat. As this machine was used for x-raying metals, it produced very hard (hazardous) radiations.

  At the business-end of the machine there was a rod-like protrusion, I was shown how to focus the apparatus, and how to place a lead shield which had to be moulded over the ‘rod’. When I carried out the required x-ray procedures I was instructed how to set the level of the exposure, and how to switch on the timer and delay together with a light on the door, to show that the x-ray machine was in operation. After switching on, I had to go to the opposite end of the hut in which the laboratories were situated.

  I had been carrying out these tests for a couple of months when one day, one of the scientists said to me that he wanted to check the radiation pattern, to make sure that it was safe for everyone in the lab. I set up a typical run and he said ‘Good, well done, that’s exactly right, Jimmy,’ then he took out a Geiger-counter from its box and said ‘right let’s do a live run while I check the radiation pattern.’ This time, after I had switched on we stayed in the room. The EO who was conducting the test walked round the apparatus with the Geiger-counter. All was going well until near the end of the test - in one small corner near the x-ray machine, the counter went berserk. It transpired that although I had done everything correctly, as I had been told, on every occasion that I had taken any x-ray pictures, I was sending a narrow beam of high intensity hard x-rays straight through the canteen which was about thirty yards from the laboratory. We also kept quiet about that.

  One of the tasks that I was delegated to do was to check aluminium aero engine castings in the workshop. Not a job I relished, but it was not difficult or dirty or dangerous. All I had to do was to treat with an acid certain areas near the holes in which the piston sleeves were fitted, and then inspect the area for any sign of porosity. The problem was that the person who was working on a particular block would already have done quite a bit of work on it; by the time I got to do the test, and if the engine block failed, that work counted for nothing, and the block would be returned to the manufacturer. I had to make a note of the engine number and state ‘porous’ or ‘non-porous’. When I came across a porous one, it was always a case of blaming the messenger, because wasted work was lost bonus for whoever was working on that casting, and they always blamed me and questioned my findings. I really hated porous engine blocks. One day there was a very bad batch, and by lunch-time I had had to condemn seven castings. On the last one I was so fed up with the flack that I was receiving that instead of writing ‘porous’ I wrote ‘poor as’. Unfortunately the typist in the typing pool didn’t recognise my sarcastic cynicism, and typed ‘poor as’ into the official report as I had written it. That report, in a bound form, ended up somewhere in the Admiralty in London. A copy came back to the SSO (Senior Scientific Officer) or boss ... he was not best pleased.

  My career in the Royal Navy Scientific Service was coming to an end anyway, but thankfully not because of that report.

  Marc
oni Man

  I am not sure whether it was stories that Ken had told me about his life on board the Union Castle ships, or the glossy brochure advertising the course in which I was interested, that had an artist’s impression on the front cover showing a sandy beach with dusky maidens wearing just hula-hula skirts and happy smiles. Whatever the reason, I saved up enough money to take a Merchant Navy Radio Officer’s course, and in the April of 1952 I enrolled and started the course at Southampton University College, which became a University soon after.

  Showing off my new uniforms

  After a year I took the PMG (Postmaster General) certificate exam, passed, and in March 1953 joined the Merchant Navy as a Marconi Radio Officer. The Marconi Company had a credit arrangement with Baker’s, a uniform outfitters in Southampton which enabled newly qualified personnel joining the company to buy their uniform. Marconi gave us each a list of what we needed, and we were free to go to the outfitters at our leisure. This was a completely different experience to that when I joined the RAF - this time we were carefully measured and the trousers actually fitted. Taking the uniforms home and showing them off to the family and friends made me realise that very soon I really was about to go back out into a much bigger, wider world.

  Within a few days of my peacock act, a telegram arrived telling me to report to the air training base at Hamble for a pre-sea course. It lasted two weeks, after which it was back home for what turned out to be a very brief stay. Within 48 hours I received a telegram telling me to join the P&O ship Corfu in the King George V docks in London. That day I made my way to the big city. The Union Jack Club near Waterloo, which I had used when I was in the RAF, was not an option because it was only for members of HM armed forces, and the hotel in Waterloo station was full. Consequently I had to spend a night in a shabby back-street hotel near the station. However, the problem that Dad had warned me about didn’t occur.