by Brian Carlin
Practising marshalling in a classroom was easy, but was more difficult when I was faced with an aircraft taxiing straight towards me, its propeller whizzing around menacingly. On my first occasion, just being able to stay in place and do the job took a tremendous amount of self control. Inwardly, I felt terror-stricken and mentally struggled with the knot in my stomach to prevent it from travelling up to my brain, where it would almost certainly have flared up into a full-blown panic attack. That’s what happened to some. I remember seeing one boy suddenly throw the bats down in the face of the advancing Piston Provost and run like hell across the airfield, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the threatening aircraft. It was even more intimidating when the person taxiing the aircraft needed to rev up the engine whilst making a turn. But while a strong primal instinct somewhere in the background was constantly telling me to make a run for it, I still had to focus my upper consciousness on the correct marshalling signals. Holding both bats upwards at 45 degree angles, giving me the appearance of a giant letter “Y”, meant “come towards me, ‘cos I’m your marshaller”.
A turn was indicated by pointing in the direction that aircraft needed to turn with a bat held at horizontal arm’s length, whilst repeatedly waving the other bat by moving only the forearm and keeping the upper arm in a horizontal position.
Extending the bats vertically upwards at arms-length in the air signalled “Stop” and an “emergency stop” was indicated by rapidly waving the bats above the head in a criss-crossing motion—the more frantic the motion, the more urgent the need to stop.
Marshalling was a heart-in-the-mouth experience, but after going through it a few times, it started to get exciting and by the time I had completed the Airfields Phase, there was a distinct feeling of having really earned my spurs. I just wonder what my thoughts might have been in those moments if only I could have seen several years into the future, when I would be routinely putting this particular training into practice while marshalling huge four-engined jet bombers, often at night and along dark taxiways, whilst being blinded by the intense beams of light directed straight at me from the Vulcan’s twin taxiing lights.
There were many other activities involved in the Airfields Phase, most of which involved the excitement of working as ground-crew during aircraft movements, but there was a boring side to it as well. It came in the form of aircraft documentation that we needed to know about and learning how the various levels of servicing were organized. There would be no more certain cure for insomnia than to discuss these activities now, but learning how to make entries in the Form 700 did allow us some room for a little humour.
Each aircraft in service had its own Form 700 servicing record book that minutely recorded its daily state of readiness. Every maintenance activity performed on the aircraft was logged in this book. It also served as a means for aircrew, or anyone for that matter, to report a fault or “snag” affecting the aircraft’s serviceability. Anyone who serviced the aircraft in any way was obliged to sign for the deed in the Form 700.
One section of the “700” was reserved exclusively for snags. In real life, someone, usually an aircrew member, would make an entry to log a specific fault encountered during a flight. The corresponding line on the opposing page was reserved for the servicing personnel to “clear the snag” by entering a brief description of the action taken to rectify the fault. We, of course, were given dummy Forms 700 on which to practise making and clearing invented entries. Intense competition existed between us and the other classes as to who could come up with the most creative entries. One supposed fault that I remember stated: “Engine missing”—referring to a misfiring of one or more cylinders on a piston engine. On the Rectification page, someone had cleared the snag with: “Engine cowling opened and engine found to be still there.” Maybe it doesn’t seem very amusing now, but at the time it seemed hilarious to a bored classroom of teenage boys.
* * *
During the final term of training, we were subjected to a steep increase in the amount of physical training we received. This may have been to toughen us up before unleashing us into the regular RAF, so that we would have enough stamina to run around an airfield, marshalling aircraft from dawn to dusk. But there could have been another reason—perhaps it was because during the short time we’d been at St. Athan we had physically transformed from boys into young men (my 17th birthday occurred during this final term) and were in need of more intense conditioning, to keep pace with our changing physiques. Whatever the reason, however, we were subjected to a five-mile route march, in boots and at the double, every day for several of the final weeks. And when we weren’t out on route marches, the PTIs filled an hour of every day with a rigorous circuit-training regime. This consisted of step-ups on benches, weight-lifting, push-ups and chin-ups, for timed periods—all at different stations in the gym. When the PTI blew his whistle, we were expected to move to the next station in the circuit and begin the new activity. There was no escape. Apparently, we were going to have muscles whether we wanted them or not.
It wasn’t just the RAF that acknowledged this change. There was a world of difference between now and just a year ago, in how members of the opposite sex seemed to behave towards me. There were less giggles now—replaced by more meaningful looks. Gaynor was a good example of this. She was one of the girls who served behind the counter in the NAAFI canteen and was perhaps older than me by a year or two. Gaynor was nice-looking and what might be described as pleasantly plump in the areas that tended to catch a young man’s eye—and she knew it. Somewhere around the time that the 29th became Senior Entry, she began to get friendly towards me. At first it started with a special little smile that was always there to greet me when I came to buy something. Then, before long, she wanted to know my name—that sort of thing. After telling her, she always called me Bri-yan, in a sing-songy way, with the heaviest emphasis on the second syllable, in typical Welsh fashion.
There was a jukebox in the NAAFI and Gaynor really liked it when someone played the record that was currently number one on her personal hit parade. On one particular evening, I came up to the counter to buy a snack.
“Hello Bri-yan,” she said from the other side of the counter, flashing me a big smile.
I placed my order and we chatted for a few moments. Then she asked if I would put some money in the jukebox and play the record she was longing to hear. I don’t think I liked the particular artiste and must have hesitated because she suddenly took hold of my hand and squeezed it gently, pleading, with a sweet smile on her lips. It wasn’t working, although I appreciated the hand-holding. Next thing I knew, she put my hand on her breast and squashed it deeply into the yielding softness, pleading once again as she did so. Let me tell you, Gaynor’s action was shrewdly calculated to have an immediate and electrifying effect on the 17-year-old male libido and it certainly worked—yes, she got to hear her favourite record.
That same jukebox very nearly killed me—quite literally. It was one of those squat, curvaceous chest-high Fifties affairs, all aglow with multicoloured lights, that no self-respecting “caff” would be caught open without. The mechanism that manipulated the black 45-rpm vinyl records was clearly visible through the transparent plastic half-dome that enclosed most of the upper part of the jukebox. Watching the mechanism move along the library of records and then select the disc that you had just paid to hear was all part of the experience. Once the mechanism arrived at the selected record, it paused. Then an arm plucked the disc out of the stack and swung it out into a clear area, swivelling it into a horizontal position in the process. The turntable rose up on a long shaft, lifting the disc up with it as it passed through the circular holder in which it reposed. The turntable continued onwards and upwards in its travel, beginning to rotate just before the disc made contact with the stylus. Then the music began to play, but only after a short introductory hissing noise as the needle followed the lead-in groove that took it to where the music was recorded.
The rever
se occurred when the music had finished. On reaching the end of the recording, some mechanism triggered by the stylus arm caused the turntable to cease revolving and begin sinking. The disc was neatly deposited back into its holder as the turntable passed through on its downward journey, as it continued on to its resting place. The mechanical arm that had first swung the disc holder out into the path of the turntable now cranked in the opposite direction, returning the disc back into stack from whence it had originally emerged, to become just another anonymous black vinyl platter in the line-up. And that was it, until another coin in the slot launched the sequence all over again.
It was my fascination with the mechanism that nearly had me checking in at the pearly gates several decades too soon. It was one of those weekends—perhaps a 96-hour pass weekend—when few people were on camp. I was sitting on a chair near the jukebox, whilst nestled up against the central heating pipes that ran around the wall of the NAAFI, clutching one of them in an effort to keep warm because it was a cold wintry day. Except for me, the entire NAAFI was deserted.
Normally, the rear of the jukebox was protected from tampering fingers by a solid-looking cover that was locked in place. But on this particular day, the cover was unlocked and open. In fact it had been like that for several days. And boys being boys, someone had discovered that a small pushbutton inside the jukebox would launch the mechanism, neatly sidestepping the usual tiresome protocol of having to deposit a coin in the slot. The discoverer of this interesting, but little-known quirk had unselfishly passed instructions around on how a person could easily avail himself of the free service, with the net result that not a soul had paid to have a record played in many days.
Having the free-play jukebox all to myself and while enjoying all my favourites—not to mention Gaynor’s—I allowed my attention to wander to the mechanism, marvelling at the clever yet simple operations it performed whilst plucking the selected record out of the stack and presenting it to the stylus for playing. After watching the arm swinging the record holders out into the path of the turntable for the umpteenth time, I wondered what might happen if I tried to impede its motion. With that idle intent in mind, I reached into the jukebox with the extended forefinger of my left hand, moving it forward to push against the arm as it swung yet another record out of the stack. My other hand still grasped the central heating pipe for the welcome warmth it provided.
I never really discovered whether or not the force of my finger impeded the arm’s motion, because the next thing I remember was groggily coming awake and wondering where I was, as though from a long dreamless night’s sleep. But instead of being snugly tucked-up in bed, I found that I was lying on the polished linoleum floor of the NAAFI, quite some distance from the jukebox (which was happily belting out some popular song or other) wondering what the hell I was doing there. There was a sense of some kind of discontinuity and I had no idea how long I’d lain there, but it must just have been seconds because the record was still playing. The NAAFI counter was closed and the shutters pulled down, so there was no one else around. I sat up, taking a few moments to try to remember the last thing I’d done before “going to sleep”. Then I saw the jukebox and recalled that my last thought was to wonder what would happen as I reached out to touch the mechanism. It then dawned on me that I had just been dealt a powerful electric shock from what was apparently the unearthed metal frame of the machine. The current from the jukebox must have travelled right across my chest on its path to earth, by way of the central heating pipes and the shock was powerful enough to hurl me several feet across the NAAFI floor. God must have felt merciful towards me that day, because the shock could so easily have been fatal. But I survived and other than feeling a little shaken at the time, there seem to have been no ill effects, except for the nuisance of having knives, forks and spoons sticking to my hands when I try to lay the table for dinner—just joking, of course.
* * *
During the month of January, the 32nd Entry graduated from ITS and came over to the Wings. It was from this crop of sprogs that we, the high and mighty Senior Entry, selected our bull boys. I must confess to taking advantage of the unwritten tradition that enabled Senior Entry boys to have someone else clean their kit, without reward. After all, I’d served my time when I too was a sprog and therefore felt every bit entitled to this very unofficial perk. But not everyone did. Richard Butterworth, to his everlasting credit, refused to have anyone else clean his stuff. His point of view, being somewhat different from mine, was that he didn’t like it when he had to do it, so he wasn’t going to inflict the same indignity on someone else. At the time, I thought he was making a very foolish choice, but with the passage of years I’ve come to believe that he was the better man for taking such a principled stand. That’s not to say that I was harsh to Adam, my bull boy. In fact, we became friends in the same way that Mick and I had been friends when I was his bull boy.
* * *
Although I had so far managed to remain in the 29th Entry, having narrowly missed relegation to the 30th (thanks to Mr. Dimbleby’s invitation for “coffee and biscuits”), I certainly didn’t feel secure in the belief that graduation with the Entry was a foregone conclusion. Occasionally, however, these feelings of insecurity were forced to take a back-seat by morale-boosting incidents that strongly encouraged me to make the grade at the first attempt. One such experience occurred early in the term, when Corporal Longfellow called all of us to the common room and then handed out forms on which we were invited to indicate our first, second and third choices of the RAF stations to which we would like to be posted on completion of our training. We were advised that there was no guarantee of ending up at any of our three choices and that this exercise was simply like buying a ticket in a raffle for three prizes, in which the ticket-buyer was not assured of a win. My first choice was RAF Ballykelly, near my home town and the second was RAF Aldergrove, near Belfast. I don’t recall my third choice, but, as events turned out, it was of little consequence anyway. Nevertheless, participating in this particular ritual boosted my morale and made me determined to pass the Final Trade Test as I visualized myself arriving at my new station, ready to reap the rewards earned after the rigours of Boy Entrant training.
* * *
A few weeks later, when we were about halfway through the term, it became time for the Final Trade Test—the focal point of our entire training. I had looked forward to this event ever since coming to the Wings, but also dreaded it. For weeks, most of us had been burying our noses in notebooks day and night, yet even on the morning of the Final Paper itself, not one of us could resist a frantic eleventh-hour flick through pages of notes, seeking to reconfirm some difficult-to-remember information that “just might come up”.
There was a solemn sense of occasion associated with sitting for the Final Paper that did nothing to settle the swarm of butterflies in the pit of my stomach. After being marched to the Education Centre at the appointed hour, we were assigned by name to specific classrooms. Seating in the classrooms was arranged in such a way that no two people of the same trade sat anywhere near each other. Education officers, who had taken on the role of the invigilators, ceremoniously handed out new, freshly-sharpened pencils.
The Final Paper, as I’ve already mentioned, was a multiple-choice type of question paper. The answer sheet consisted of 100 numbered rows, each containing four blank boxes. Each row represented a question on the paper. The columns formed by the quarter-inch square boxes were labelled A, B, C and D. This sheet of paper was placed in front of us after we’d taken our seats. The classroom invigilator then came around and placed a question paper face down on each desk. We were ordered not to turn the question paper over until told to do so, but were permitted to read the instructions at the top of the answer sheet. We already knew them by heart at this late stage in our training—“Select one of the options, A, B, C or D as the correct answer from the four alternative answers given for each question, then place two diagonal lines from corner to corner to form an “X”
in the box represented by the column-letter and question-number coordinates unique to that answer”.
We were allowed one opportunity to correct a wrong answer for each question by drawing a circle in the box in which we had mistakenly placed the “X” and then putting another “X” in what we now thought was the correct box. The invigilator also advised that we should periodically check that the row number on the answer sheet agreed with the question number we were working on, since it wasn’t uncommon for someone to skip a line as they worked through the test, making the likelihood of correct answers from that point onward little better than if they were pure guesses, with failure a very strong likelihood.
The invigilating officer kept a watchful eye on the clock as it approached the fateful hour and then, as soon as the minute and second hands lined up exactly on 1000 hours, he pronounced that we should turn our papers over and begin the test. There was a quiet rustle of paper, immediately followed by an unearthly silence that would last for up to two hours. It was only interrupted by an occasional small sound, like a dropped pencil, that sounded like a thunderclap in the otherwise deathly quiet room. Heads were bowed as those of us taking the exam urged every available neuron to leap heroically across impossibly wide synapses and create the necessary flow of information needed to achieve, at the very least, the magic 60% mark that would spell the difference between pass or fail. At stake was the difference between a triumphant transition to the regular service, or a humiliating relegation to the 30th entry.
