Growing up in Lee-on-the-Solent Read online

  Another job that I had in 1948 and 1949 was as an errand boy in Beaney’s grocery shop. It was more like a delicatessen, and later it changed ownership and became Hearn’s. The shop was a few doors along from the Hove-To tearooms. I got on very well with Mr and Mrs Beaney. Among the things that I was allowed to do, when not out delivering groceries, was to stack the shelves behind the counter and along one wall, and I was also permitted to grind the coffee. One day they both asked if I would like to learn the business if I didn‘t go in the RAF. They also said that, if I came to work for them full-time, they would teach me the business and how to drive the shop’s van. This was not really a feasible option for me, because I was aware that I would have to do my National Service if I chose not to sign up. In addition, the grocery trade was not for me: I couldn’t see myself as a budding Sir Thomas Lipton.

  In the winter on Sunday mornings after early church, I worked in the Browning’s crumpet factory as a ‘ring greaser’. The factory was just off Grove Road. Although it involved working with bare arms, it was a good job to have in the winter because it was in a very warm environment. In fact it was very hot work. In the bakery-cum-factory there were a series of large hotplates in a line. Each hotplate measured about five feet by two-and-a-half feet, and they were about three feet from the floor. My job consisted of setting out in rows onto the hotplate a series of pre-greased metal rings. They were about three-inches in diameter and three-quarter-of-an-inch deep. To grease them I first slid about half a dozen of the rings up my bare left arm (the task could only be performed by someone with slim arms) then - taking care to keep the rings on my arm - I’d pick up a piece of sacking which looked rather like a dirty old tea-towel. Holding it by each end with both hands, with an up-and-down movement I’d dunk it in a bucket on the floor held between my feet, which contained some mucky-looking translucent cooking oil/grease. Where I went, that bucket went. Then, with circular twirling movements of the sacking in front of me I’d transfer the rings from my left arm to my right, in the process coating the rings with the lubricant. Next I would drop the sacking into the bucket and set the rings out on the hotplate in neat rows, using my left hand. The first batch was the easiest because the rings were taken (cold) from a box. Starting on the left, I laid out rows across the hotplate. When I reached the end of the series of hotplates, I went back to the beginning with my bucket and piece of sacking. And this is where it got tricky, because the baker followed behind me and poured the crumpet mixture into the rings as soon as I’d set them out and when he considered the crumpets to be correctly cooked, he went along the hotplate and turned the crumpets out, leaving the rings on the hot surface in irregular piles. Now it was ooch-ouch time as I started the process all over again, but this time with rings that varied from being very warm to ruddy hot.

  As my schooldays were coming to an end, I thought it would be a good idea if I was able to get some understanding of radios, as I had decided that was the kind of thing that I would like to be involved with in the RAF. To this end I approached the owner of a radio shop on the corner of Elmore Road and Gosport Road. He said that I could help out at the back of the shop on Saturdays, but it would be unpaid work.

  Although the shop sold radios, it was mainly a place where people took their radios for repair, or their accumulators for charging. I helped out in the shop for a few months, and I learnt the names of a few of the pieces inside the magical boxes

  Many of the radios at that time were powered by batteries. Typically a radio would require a high-tension battery which measured about 12” x 6” x 4’’, and an accumulator (rechargeable battery) which had a rectangular glass case and which measured about 4” x 4” x 8”. These two items made the radios very bulky. The accumulator was needed to provide the low-tension supply (low voltage) for the filaments of the valves, and these accumulators had to be charged-up every few weeks or so. The large battery was needed for the rest of the functions of the apparatus. All wirelesses needed to be connected to a substantial aerial: a small piece of wire hanging out the back of the apparatus would have been as much use as the proverbial ‘back pocket in a vest’. Although I was not paid for working in the shop, the owner occasionally gave me bits and pieces of broken equipment to take home to tinker about with. Of the pieces of broken equipment that I was given, the one that I remember most vividly was a defunct high tension supply. People bought these pieces of equipment so that they would not have to keep replacing the large HT batteries, which were not rechargeable and had to be replaced at fairly regular intervals.

  Anyhow, I proudly took home my HT supply, even if it didn’t work, and that evening, in my bedroom I plugged it in. It glowed as its valves warmed up, then the glow changed to an eerie blue, as if a scene from a Frankenstein film were about to be re-enacted. Even with my brief acquaintance with radios and their valves, I knew that they were not supposed to do that. Unfortunately my recently acquired treasure, as it sat on my tallboy, glowing with its eerie blue light, was creating havoc with local radio reception. It caused all of the wirelesses in the area to whistle and howl, and what was particularly unfortunate was that it happened just at the time when the football results were being read out. This was when dreams of becoming rich were based on winning the football pools. Visualise what the reaction today would be, if during the programme when the numbered Lotto balls were rolling out of the machine, all TV screens suddenly went blank. Well on that day, as a result of me switching on my HT supply, there were a number of very irate men in the houses roundabout , including my Dad. I said nothing. Fortunately they didn’t know that I was the culprit.

  Following My Dear Old Dad

  So here I was, not exactly fully appraised of the ‘facts of life’, but I had survived the ‘man to man talk’ and was about to set out on that journey where quite a few had gone before. I was eager and ready to go. I was about to start living apart from the bosom of my family.

  Just about to set out

  Because, unlike most applicants, I had passed the School Certificate Exam and had not been required to take the apprentice entrance exam, I was what was known as a Direct Entry. When all us aspiring apprentices had attended the assessment session at RAF Hornchurch a couple of days previously, the Selection Board had decided that I would be suitable material to train as a Radio Fitter at the RAF Apprentice School at Cranwell.

  On 8 June 1949, I was among the accepted candidates who swore the oath of allegiance. In unison, with each saying their name at the appropriate time, we all said:

  ‘I, .........., swear by almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George the Sixth, his Heirs and Successors, and that I will, in duty bound, honestly and faithfully defend His Majesty His Heirs and Successors, in Person, Crown and Dignity against all enemies and will observe and obey all orders of His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors and of All the Air Officers and Officers set over me. SO HELP ME GOD.’

  I had ‘taken the King’s shilling’ and agreed to serve ‘the Crown’ for the next twelve years after reaching my eighteenth birthday. This was the day on which I considered that I had finished with being a teenager, although technically I still had a couple of years to go. I was now Jimmy Green - no longer John or Johnny (I didn’t like being called Johnny as it had another meaning). Jimmy suited me fine.

  Later it transpired that I was the oldest, and shortest (just managing to scrape over the five foot two inch mark) of the group of the 62nd entry of RAF Apprentice that went to Cranwell. It was designated as the 2M6 entry. The ‘2’ signified that we would complete our training and ‘pass out’ in 1952 and the ‘6’ indicated that it would be in the June of that year. (Later I believe that it was to become the 2M5 entry when the passing-out date was brought forward).

  At Hornchurch we had each been given travel warrants (tickets) for the train journeys from our homes to the railway station at Wendover.

  As new entrants were travelling from all part
s of the UK, not everyone turned up at Wendover at the same time. Lorries were sent to collect batches of recruits from the trains as they arrived. We were met, gathered up and piled into a lorries, and transported the short distances to RAF Halton Apprentice School.

  When we reached Halton and disembarked, we were assembled to march (I use that term in a very loose sense as we had yet to be introduced to the niceties of the parade ground) to a barrack-room. As we were ‘marched’ past the barracks, or ‘flights’, quite a few of the ‘old hand’ apprentices were leaning out of the windows, calling out ‘You’ll be sorry.’ Once we had been deposited at what was to be our temporary barracks and had chosen a bed, we were told to ‘fall in’ outside. We were a very varied group, bound for different RAF Apprentice Schools. Some would be staying at Halton for all of their training, while the rest of us would eventually be despatched to other RAF bases, depending upon the trade for which we were to be trained.

  Not only were we a disparate bunch, to say that we were shambolic only goes halfway to describing us as we made our way to the stores to be ‘kitted out’. At a long counter we stepped forward, three or four at a time, to be issued with our uniforms and other items by a small army of RAF storemen, who bombarded us with items of uniform together with a litany of phrases such as ‘underpants cellular three, airman for the use of’’, as they thrust the items across the counter at us bewildered recipients. We were all kept very busy trying to assemble the assortment of items into manageable bundles so that we could carry them. Perhaps the most humorous item issued that afternoon was ‘housemaid one, airman for the use of’, which turned out to be what could best be described as a sewing kit. Then we made our way back to the temporary barracks, where we were told to quickly get changed into our uniforms and fall in outside. Being vertically challenged, I thought that my trousers were never going to fit me, and on reflection they never did.

  As soon as we had lined up we were told to go back into the ‘flight’ and change into our PT kit and then fall in outside ‘double quick’. Again, as soon as we had ‘fallen in’ we were told (or to be more accurate because the tone had changed) we were ‘ordered’ to go back and change into our uniforms, and this time to be quick about it. ‘Move!’ This was our first introduction to service discipline.

  The next few days were a bit of a blur as we became accustomed to our new uniforms, communal living routines and procedures, and the basics of drill. Unfortunately on the second day I, together with several others, had to report to see the Medical Officer (MO); that is, we went ‘on sick parade’. Although as a youngster I had been able to run across stony shingle barefoot without any trouble, it had not prepared me for the hazards of new RAF boots and ‘socks airman for the use of’. I had acquired serious blisters on both of my heels. I was suitably plastered up and declared fit to resume drill training in the afternoon. My heels remained quite painful for two more days, but strangely enough I quite enjoyed the ‘square-bashing’, although I am sure that this could not have been the case for one of the new entrants, who somehow had incurred the wrath of the NCO who was putting us through our paces. With a rifle held above his head in both hands, the unfortunate entrant was ordered to double round the parade ground, while the NCO shouted commands at him: ‘Get those knees up’, ‘look up’, ‘I didn’t tell you to stop’, and one comment that has stuck with me ever since, and was in the true style of film depictions of sergeants majors that were to follow some time later: ‘I’ll break your mother’s heart before you break mine!’

  Just over a week later, those of us who were to be trained elsewhere were transported by lorry and train to our new destinations. As I disembarked from the lorry I was aware that I had arrived at Cranwell, and although it was just down the road from the college that had been my original target when I had first applied to become an officer cadet, as far as I was concerned, it was a million miles away.

  My first impression of the barracks at Cranwell was that they were a vast improvement on those at Halton; they had a ‘friendlier face’. Inside they were lighter, brighter and cleaner - much cleaner. Things were looking up. Shortly after we arrived the group had been divided into two parts, and about a dozen of us were shown into one of the occupied Flights, but its residents were not ‘at home’ - they would have been elsewhere on the camp involved with their training. The Flight was clean with a sparkling shiny floor and everything was extremely ordered. As we made our way in we were told to use the floor pads. These were torn-up pieces of blanket folded into pads of several layers. We shuffled across the shiny floor as if we were ice-skating and it then became clear why the floor was in such a pristine state.

  There were about two dozen beds in the Flight, arranged along both sides, and two beds at the opposite end to the entrance door. The Leading Apprentice who was showing us round had one stripe on his arm to signify his rank, and he was to be one of the two Leading Apprentices who would be in charge of our Flight. He told us to gather round the first bed on the right-hand side. Looking around, it could have been any of the beds, because they all had identical arrangements. At the foot of the bed was a wooden grey trunk. The mattress was folded in three, and placed at the head of the bed, with the bedding neatly folded, with a folded blanket keeping it all together in a box shape, and it was set on top of the mattress. Alongside the bed there was a wooden open-fronted two-shelved locker with a mug and cutlery arranged on the top of it, together with other items neatly arranged on the two shelves. Mounted on the wall above the bed there was a metal locker which was about three feet wide and two feet high and two feet deep. The two doors of the locker were opened at precisely ninety degrees to the wall. In the wall locker, we were told, was where the clothes such as shirts, vests and pants etc had to be placed (for display). There appeared to be piles of small rectangular boxes of white and air-force blue stacked in small neat piles on the shelves in the metal wall locker. There is always one in a crowd that asks the daft question. OK, it was me. ‘Where do we get those boxes to put the clothes in?’ The withering look told me that I had seriously erred, and the tone of the reply confirmed it: ‘Those are not boxes - they are the underpants, vests and shirts. You make cardboard formers and fold your clothes carefully. And you address me as ‘Leading Apprentice’ when you speak to me.’ He paused and then added: ‘Are there any more stupid questions?’ Where do we get the cardboard didn’t seem to be the question to ask at that time, so I didn‘t.

  Eventually we were taken to the barrack room that was to be our home and Flight for the next three years. We were Flight B in Squadron B. We were informed that there were three squadrons, and each was situated in its own two-storey H block. Members of a squadron were identified by the colours of the chequers on their hatband. Ours were green and black.

  A typical Flight. Photograph taken by Brian Tichener 65th (3M5) Entry

  We were soon to discover how and why the Flight was so clean neat and tidy. By today’s standards, the way the lockers and beds were laid out and lined up would indicate that whoever set up this system was seriously suffering from an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but that was the standard which we would have to live by for the next three years.

  It turned out that Friday night was dedicated to cleaning, or ‘bull night’ as it was known, and this how it proceeded. The first task was to clean the Flight, and that started with the floor. All the wooden trunks and wooden lockers with contents were placed on the beds. The beds on one half of the Flight were carried, not pushed, to the other side, so that all of the beds were on one side. One of the two leading apprentices, whose beds were at the end of the Flight furthest from the entrance, using a spatula-like tool, splatted dollops of floor polish on the floor from a large tin. We were instructed to form a line along part of the length of the newly created space, and to place our hands on the waist of the apprentice in front of us, just as if we were about to do the conga. Instead of a dance, we were set to shuffling, from side to side and in step, at
intervals gradually moving down the Flight so that the whole length became polished. It seemed to go on forever but in reality it was only for about half an hour. Then, not daring to venture off the floor pads, we carefully moved all the beds onto the now polished half of the Flight, and repeated the process for the other half.

  Once the floor had been buffed up and the beds were back in place, it was time to clean up our own bed spaces. This involved carefully dusting the metal locker inside and out, first having removed the display contents, that is the clothing, now mounted on formers, to make them look like little boxes (not to be used for wearing). This was followed by the dusting of the heating pipes behind the beds, and the nearest window-sills; next it was the bed frames. Every nook and cranny had to be dusted. With this all done we turned to our personal kit cleaning. Throughout most of the first year, trousers and jackets were ironed nearly every day so this would also be done on ‘bull nights’. The same applied to the polishing of buttons and cap badges and - most important of all - the polishing of boots, which were polished every day. The method used to produce an acceptable shine was the time-honoured one in which you gently rubbed a little polish into a small area of the boot using a duster and an index finger in small circular movements and then spat on to the area being polished while continuing with the small circular movements. The process had to be repeated for small areas at a time until the toe and heel of each boot was completed. Initially this was very slow, but after a few weeks it would take less time as the boots built up a nice shiny surface.