Celtic Illumination, part 121, Left hand down a bit.

Any new person, on any unit, or squadron, was going to get stitched up.  There were the standard ploys of sending someone for a glass hammer, or a bubble for a spirit level, or for a long stand.   You would always telephone ahead and say ‘I’ve just sent such and such over for a long stand.’  Some people could be left standing in a corner for half an hour without realising that they in fact had been set up.  We had a special one for drivers in air traffic.  For those of you not familiar with military land rovers, they are simple, straight forward, machines.  Normally they would have two petrol tanks, one under the driver’s seat and one under the passenger seat.

On the front of the driver’s seat, at the base, was a lever.  It leaned toward whichever petrol tank you were using, or diesel if you were a tree hugging freak.  By placing the lever in the dead centre, the land rover would run for twenty or thirty yards and then cough itself to a stop.  The new drivers would be radioing for help and panicking in case they had broken the thing, whereas the hairy arses would just reach down and switch it to the tank with the least fuel.  We were lucky in a way that if we broke a land rover you just took it back to MT and got another one.  MT were not impressed, but as Winston Churchill once said to the house of commons, tough titties.

We had two land rovers at Valley, one for air traffic and one for bird scaring duties.  Now as I‘ve said before, this was not creeping up behind a pretty young lady at the electric piss up and shouting ‘Boo!’  This was scaring the feathered variety off the airfield.  But there was a third land rover that was used for the daily, Mona airfield, detachment.  This would be left at Valley overnight.  Sometimes we would take the Mona land rover and disappear into the sand dunes.

There was a young fellow at Valley who was so full of life, and enjoyed living it to the full, in fact he made a point of it. I am surprised that he is still with us.  We have met him before, Tim Lort.  Tim was a lovely fellow; he was very tall, about six feet six.  He was physically a standard build, but his hands were like shovels, and his knuckles like golf balls.  He always wore a wide smile and was great fun.  Tim and I had a game we played which we called chicken.  Now I’ve explained about the bird scaring so don’t make me explain about ‘Chicken’, you should already know what that implies.

The pair of us would go into the sand dunes in one land rover.  The passenger would have to sit, without seat belt, and place his hands on his knees.  The driver would have to catch a rabbit or a hare.  Now I don’t mean that the driver would leap out of the land rover and try to entice a rabbit, or a hare, with a juicy carrot and pounce on the thing when it got close enough.  No, the driver would try to catch a bunny with the land rover.  He would try to run the fecking thing over.  If the passenger flinched, he was a chicken.

Rabbits, and hares, are quite fast little creatures, so speed was off the essence.  And sand dunes are not known for their straight and level features so as you can imagine, there was always lots of revving, and swerving, and sliding, and crashing, and swearing, mustn’t forget the swearing.  I do remember coming out of the dunes one evening, it was just getting dark and Tim was driving the Mona land rover.  I got in to the Valley air traffic land rover and we were driving back to air traffic when Tim called me up on the radio, saying that his headlights were not working.

A list of suitable excuses began shooting through my head for MT, if we couldn’t fix the problem ourselves.  I turned to go back to Tim and almost fell out of my vehicle with laughter.  Tim was sitting there, checking his switches and controls but I could see that his head lights were on.  We had given the land rover such a hammering, that the two head lamp units had popped out of their casings and were dangling in front of the land rover, swinging away like the lenses on a pair of joke spectacles.  Thankfully it was something we could fix ourselves, so MT didn’t have to know anything about it.  However not all our escapades went unnoticed.

Tim was driving, I was the passenger.  I hope all you members of the Illuminati have read enough of my words to understand exactly what I mean.  I know there’s this awful tendency to say one thing and mean another.  When I say Tim was full of life and lived it to the full, this was a polite way of saying that he was a raging lunatic. I can’t really say that, because he does read this blog, is very rich and successful and could afford nasty lawyers, but let’s just say I can’t call him a lunatic because he wasn’t certified.  Although he probably should have been; well; if I'm being truthful I suppose I should have been as well.

Take for example a long night shift.  A night shift would run from five o clock one evening until eight o clock the following morning.  By the time you finish you have probably been awake for twenty four hours.  You come out of air traffic as Tim and I did.  The Heavens have opened and the rain is lashing down.  What do you do?  Okay, let me rephrase that, what does a sensible person do?  Correct, they go to their accommodation, get into a nice warm bed and get some sleep.  Okay what would we do?   ‘Fancy some skateboarding?’ asks Tim, and me being the sensible young fellow I was, agreed that this would be an excellent idea.  Tim had found this remote road with a perfect hill, so in thunderous rain, Tim and I spent an enjoyable morning skateboarding up and down a very wet hill.  Told you we were lunatics, but happy with it. And do you know, I think those four hours skateboarding, were far better for us than four hours of sleep.

So here’s the two of us in the sand dunes.  The beautiful little bunnies are scattering everywhere, as we rearrange the ecosystem in the sand dunes, and at speed may I add.  One little fecker executed a wonderful side step, but I don’t think it knew that Tim was an accomplished rugby player who pre-empted the bunnie and aimed the land rover at a spot where he knew the furry little fecker would end up.

Now to see skilled sportsmen execute a calculated play is wonderful.  To actually be involved in it, was something else, however I felt that I saw a slight chink in Tim’s armour, for although all his side stepping rugby calculations were correct, they would have been correct on a flat rugby pitch and not on a sand dune with a forty five degree slope.  The land rover now sat perilously balanced, for a second or two, and in slow motion, honest, ask Tim if you don’t believe me, in slow motion it began to sink onto its drivers side.

Being alert young airmen we recognised the implications of this action and reacted accordingly.  Tim jumped out, closed the driver’s door and put his shoulder under the land rover in an attempt to stop it falling all the way over.  I however was creased up with laughter.  Tim saw the funny side as well but the firemen didn’t.  I have never heard anyone moan so much.  Oh no, it’s Jonah.  What are you doing in the sand dunes?  We lied; we couldn’t say that we were chasing bunny rabbits.  We probably came out with some horse shit that a faulty bird scaring cartridge had fallen in to the dunes so we went to find it and make sure that it wouldn’t cause a fire.

Tim and I left the dunes that evening with sore faces.  I hadn’t laughed so much in a long time. And yes, we did learn our lesson.  We wouldn’t be rolling any more land drovers in the sand dunes.  Oh no, we now knew not to employ so much left hand down on the steering wheel in the future, when traversing a sand dune at speed.

Celtic Illumination, part 120, Beaten with the stupid stick

There was a group of us from Valley who, thanks to John Wilkinson, were always visiting Warrington.  It wasn’t party central but there were quite a number of female flavoured ladies there, which is enough of a reason for any red blooded, young, single, male to visit.  I do remember being on my way to visit one young lady, Karen, when my car broke down.  When I say broke down, what happened was, is that I had left the motorway and was navigating along some country roads.  There was a clunk, and although the car was still making motor car noises, there didn’t seem to be any power.

As luck would have it I was still freewheeling along the road when I saw a garage.  I pulled in and was welcomed by the standard hand wiping mechanic.  “We don’t sell petrol here,” he said, as he walked towards me.  “I don’t need any,” I replied, adding.  “My car has broken down.”  As he inspected the vehicle, Paddy’s old Vauxhall Victor, I telephoned Karen who said she would come and collect me.  Seems that the gear box had fallen off, which I understand from the mechanic, was quite important for the machine to work properly.

Karen arrived and it was agreed that rather than try and source a replacement gear box, the mechanic would weld the old one back together and back on to the car.  This allowed me to continue with my short break and the important task of enjoying myself.  I promise you I tried my hardest to enjoy myself and you know, I probably had a very good time, but as with all good times they have to come to an end.

I was at Warrington train station and calculated that I would be late back to Valley and therefore late for work.  The days of scrubbing the white lines outside the guardroom, with a toothbrush while getting screamed at, were far behind me and I didn’t want to get Jankers again so I telephoned air traffic to warn them.  Luckily Paddy Reardon answered the telephone so I thought I would explain that it was the car he had sold me that had broken down, therefore theoretically it was his fault that I would be late for work.  “Hello Paddy,” I yelled, down the phone as the train was pulling in.  “I’m…”   “I’m very busy!” shouted Paddy, although why he was shouting I have no idea.  “I’ll call you back!”   After which he hung up.

I didn’t think that he was telepathic so he wouldn’t have known that I was at Warrington train station and therefore couldn’t call me back.  I couldn’t call him back, as the conductor chappie was waving his flag and blowing his whistle to indicate that the train was about to pull out, either that or he was desperate for a pee.  I had no choice but to get on board and head for North Welsh Wales.

Luckily for me Paddy remembered that I had telephoned him and accepted that I had tried to warn him that I would be late for work, so no charges were laid against me.  I didn’t have long to go with my six months of impressing the boss so I didn’t want to ruin that.  Thankfully with the constant to and froing from Warrington, it was easy enough for me to get a lift back to Warrington and collect my repaired car.

I don’t know why but I enjoyed driving all sorts of vehicles, just to get a feel of the vehicle.  If I was on duty over a weekend I would always pop over to the fire station and see if they would allow me to race one of their fire engines along the runway.  Great fun.  And every time they got a new flavour of vehicle I would be there asking permission to give it a blast on the airfield.  One day they got a sort of range rover type rescue truck, Crash One.  Something about red machines, that went very fast, always brought out the good ol boy in me.  Having put it through its paces on the airfield, I returned to the fire section to see that they had taken delivery of a new Gemini rescue craft and were about to head for the beach and take it out on its maiden voyage.

Hanging on to the steering wheel of a fire truck as it hammers along a runway is great fun, but to give a rescue boat some wellie was something I was up for.  I helped the firemen attach the Gemini on its trailer to the new Crash One and informed air traffic that the fire section had asked me to help them out with this exercise.  We went off to the beach, which was just the far side of the airfield.  I parked up as I cleared the sand dunes and hit the beach, I didn’t want to find any soft sand.

I walked down to the water’s edge where everyone was giving their opinion as to how the craft should be launched.  This is what happens when you ask civilians to do something.  Had they been military flavoured then there would have been a man in charge and there would have been written instructions, in triplicate, to follow.  We got the Gemini into the water and were reversing back into the waves to float it off, when Crash One began to sink in the soft sand.  Could have been something to do with the five hundred gallons of water on its back, although I'm no expert.

As this was a new vehicle no one was exactly sure how to get it into four wheel drive, which we all believed was the proper way to free the vehicle.  I was confused that a six wheeled vehicle would have four wheel drive, but then what did I know?  Although it may already have been in four wheel drive, we weren’t sure.  My land rover was too light to be of any assistance, so another crash vehicle was sent for.  With the new and much larger crash vehicle on the beach and tow rope attached, an attempt was made to extricate the range rover and the Gemini.  Being much larger meant that the rescue vehicle was much heavier than the range rover so it too began to sink.  The tow rope was disconnected and the large crash vehicle was removed from the beach.  What happened next I found quite amusing.

Because Crash One was not available for duty, as it was stuck in the sand, Valley had to downgrade its operational status until Crash One was recovered.  Specialist equipment would have to be brought out.  A report would have to be made.  Forms would have to be filled out, despite the fact that they were civilians they were employed by the ministry of defence so would have as much paperwork, in triplicate, as we would.  Why were heavy vehicles sinking in soft sand?  Why had no research been carried out to find a suitable and safe place to launch the craft?  I suggested that a good excuse would have been to claim that as a rescue craft, you couldn’t pick and choose where accidents would occur.  Therefore to make your training as realistic as possible you should launch in as many different places as possible and actually experience various different setbacks which you would have to learn to overcome. 

No, the firemen decided that it was my entire fault, that I was a Jonah.  I had brought them bad luck.  Needless to say I wasn’t invited to join in with any fun and games at the fire section any more.  And as for the range rover and the Gemini.  I don’t know what happened there.  I left them to it as they all seemed to have been beaten with the stupid stick, as far as I know they could still be there arguing about the best way to free the vehicle.

Celtic Illumination, part 119, You scratch my back….

I know that I have often said that the local control position was the best place to work in air traffic control.  However another fantastic position was to be duty driver.   This allowed you a certain amount of freedom and flexibility.  That is of course once you had got past all the NATO standard bullshit.  Every morning the mileage had to be recorded on each vehicle in use, and then you had to complete a daily inspection.  This involved checking the oil, and water and engine coolant.  The weekly inspection included counting the tyres.  I know almost as difficult as answering a telephone and writing stuff down.

Most people would pull in to the Mechanical Transport flight (MT) park up and go to the office to collect the paperwork.  Old hands, or hairy arses as we were known, would park somewhere that was hidden from the view of the MT controllers.  We would collect the paperwork and return to the vehicle to complete the required checks.  When I say that you had to count the tyres, you also had to check that all the wheel nuts were present and correct and each was tightened sufficiently to do its job.  If the MT controller was in a foul mood you could be told to wash the vehicle before you could leave the MT yard.

One air traffic fellow, John McBride, sauntered in to MT control, one wet Welsh morning, collected the paperwork and was about to return to his vehicle when he was engaged in conversation.  I know, engaged in conversation is not how many people would describe talking to a driver.  How would you describe single syllable utterances delivered at maximum volume?  John was detained for a number of minutes, John by the way was a very pleasant fellow, and afterwards he did say that he thought the conversation, or at least the premise for the conversation, to be a little strange.  John returned to the vehicle and completed the paperwork.  He took his time, like any decent hairy arse would.  He then returned the paperwork and went back to the vehicle. 

I understand that MT control were apoplectic.  The fellow in charge had a feeling in his water that the air traffic lads were not completing the inspection properly, so the reason that John was delayed in MT control was to enable the fellow in charge to run out and take all the wheel nuts off the land rover.  John of course hadn’t noticed.  Well come on, would you?  However he had signed the paperwork, to say that he had checked the vehicle, and that all the required wheel nuts were in place and in working order.

Unfortunately MT control spent too long celebrating and were quite dismayed to see John drive the land rover out of the yard and then stop, well; when the wheels fell off he didn’t have much of a choice.  Who would you blame for that?

Having a land rover also helped you return favours, like giving people lifts or moving stuff about.  The SWO would often use me for little errands.  Once he sent me off to collect a fifty gallon drum of Racasan.  Racasan is a chemical used in portable toilets.  It’s a blue, foul smelling, liquid.  I know this because it was leaking and by the time I got to the SWO with his Racasan I could hardly see, as the tears were running down my face.  I was glad that they all thought it very funny but I did receive some smartie points for my effort.

One of the ruses we used to employ needed you to be the duty driver.  It required cunning, bravado and timing.  Timing would perhaps be the most important element for this.  Let me explain.  As with most jobs each person, depending on their rank and time served, were entitled to a certain number of   days off, or holidays, each year   Luckily the system was geared for abuse, as it ran from the date you joined up, or in my case my eighteenth birthday.  So no two people would have the same annual renewable date.

The process for applying for leave was simple.  You filled out a leave application form with the dates and days you wanted off.  This was then presented to the admin sergeant who would check on his wall planner that no more than three people were away at the same time.  If he approved then your name and the appropriate days would be marked on his year planner.  Of course if something went wrong, or the dates had to be changed, so did the year planner, which is why only non-permanent pens were used.  Next the form went in to the SATCO who, knowing it has been sanctioned by the admin sergeant, approves your leave.  Now the form comes back to the admin sergeant who places it in the ‘mail out’ tray.

Can you guess what one of the duties of the duty driver was?  Well done, yes, it was to take the ‘mail out’ over to SHQ and collect any incoming mail for air traffic.  Of course your leave pass would now disappear between air traffic and station headquarters.  A week or two after you had taken your leave you would nip in to the admin sergeant’s office and remove your leave from his planning board.  This only went wrong for me once, when my sister sent me a registered parcel that I had to go to SHQ and sign for.  Everyone involved was terrified that it may have been their department responsible for losing my leave application so a new one was produced, which I signed, on my return, and everyone went back to being as they were.

But perhaps the best reward I got for being duty driver was when my helicopter instructor friend rang me up.  He told me that a Wessex was coming in from Odiham and he asked if I could collect the aircrew and bring them over to 22 squadron.  No problem.  I waited for the helicopter then drove over to the chopper, collected the crew and headed off to 22 squadron.  This was back scratching to the extreme.  The crew said that they couldn’t stay long as they had to get over to air traffic and operations and submit their flight plans.  I suggested that they remain at 22 squadron and enjoy themselves.  “Give me the details for your flight, and I will submit the flight plans.”

I was paying my friend back for the lessons he had given me over the previous months.  When I returned to 22 squadron the aircrew were preparing to leave when my friend said, “They’re on their way to Aldergrove, should have asked them for a lift home.”  I smiled but the pilot turned and said, “Sure why not?”  A map was produced and I was asked to point out where I lived.  Initially there was a sharp intake of breath as Warrenpoint was very much in a republican area.  “Sod it!” says the pilot.  “I’ll drop you in the field next to your house and pick you up in two days’ time, on our way back.  How’s about that?”

Celtic Illumination, part 118, How now brown cow

I have to admit that it is only the unfettered support that I receive from you, the Illuminati, that I can find the strength to admit certain things that before now I wouldn’t have dared mention.  Take for example answering a telephone and writing things down.  I have made a mockery, I hope, of this activity yet I found it to be one of the most difficult tasks the air force could throw at me.  The air force, being the air force, demanded that everything was written in triplicate which would mean using carbon paper.  Quite a clever invention when you look at it, in the cold light of day, but unfortunately to use carbon paper, to repeatedly fill out the barrage of forms that you were presented with, you had to use a biro, or as some of you may know it, a ballpoint pen.

I was always taught that handwriting was a very important form of communication.  If you wrote a letter to someone they could, or might, make certain assumptions about you from your handwriting.  This is probably why I was forced to do an hour’s handwriting every evening with my father, the retired headmaster, breathing down my neck.  I could really only write with a fountain pen so I may as well have used a four inch paint brush as a biro.

I hear a voice in the corner saying that the same distinction could be used to explain why someone like myself, with a strong regional accent, could never become a leader of men.  That speech is a very important form of communication and a clear defined accent, easily understood by all, is what is required.  This of course is absolute hogwash and reminds me of the bad old days of world war one, when our illustrious leaders, all posh sounding, public schooled, chinless wonders, who formed the back bone of the officer corps were described as donkeys and the basic private foot soldier as a lion, resulting in the term, lions led by donkeys.

It was an event that changed the class system in the UK; unfortunately it never gained enough momentum to rid the country of these inbred leeches.  It’s one of the reasons that the British joke about the French, calling them cowards and smelly.  The French showed the world that the only way to deal with aristocrats was to chop their fecking heads off.  The British establishment were terrified that the great British public might be reminded of this, and realise what a good idea it was.  If you may think I jest, well why not have a look at the little certificate I was given for arranging a treasure hunt.  A very telling piece of paper.  I explained to you that officers had ladies, non-commissioned officers had wives and other ranks, the hoi polloi, had women.  So can you draw any parallel with the Knight, the Freemen and the Peasants?  There are other telling indicators in that certificate, but I shall not dwell on them as I am sure most of the Illumanati will already have dissected the language used.

Which probably leads me into explain to you how the air force actually works.  You may have been slightly confused when I explained that there are only two positions in the air force, fast jet pilot and failed fast jet pilot.  I hope I have given sufficient evidence to prove my point, so now I shall dissect another myth.  Yes the air force was a military body and yes, there were rules and regulations however you only got things done, important things, by using a barter system, or back scratching, as in, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours.

I have explained that I often flirted with the idea of buying myself out of the air force but only to come back in again at a different level.  I was approached by a fellow from air traffic; let’s just call him Kev at the moment.  Kev was a nice chap but sick to death of answering telephones and writing stuff down.  I don’t think he was a fountain pen loving aficionado like myself, I think he thought the job stupid and had had enough.  His girlfriend was a student at Bangor University and they lived together in a flat in Bangor.  Kev wanted out of the air force, but he wanted out in double quick time and didn’t want to pay any money for the privilege.

Drugs, in any form, unless it is alcohol, are frowned on in the forces.  At that time anyone caught with drugs would be locked away in the glasshouse and the key thrown away.  We were constantly reminded that at the glasshouse, the military prison at Colchester, you would have to empty the dustbins and then wash and polish the inside of the bin.  Kev believed that he had found a loophole in the air forces logic towards drugs.  If you were a drug user, or pusher, then you would be given the maximum prison sentence.  If you were associated with drug use they would quickly ‘let you go’ as they couldn’t prove anything, but rather than have doubts, it was quicker and better to sweep it under the carpet, so to speak.

Kev asked me if I would telephone the civilian police in Bangor, he gave me the number.  He said that he and his girlfriend were arranging a party in her flat.  Drugs would be present, marijuana to be precise.  The police would raid the flat, he would be arrested, but with no proof of his direct involvement and no evidence of drugs in his blood stream, it would be enough of an association for him to be thrown out of the air force.  We were always threatened with getting a dishonourable discharge, another bit of paper that would follow us around for the remainder of our lives and which would mean we would never get decent employment on the outside.  More military bullshit.  I have never been asked for my discharge papers, which I wouldn’t have shown to anyone anyway, as they were incorrectly completed. However that’s a different story.

As for Kev?  Well he took a few weeks to think about his plan and then came to me one day and gave me a piece of paper, on it was the address of the flat, the name of his girlfriend and the time he wanted me to call the police.   I did give it a lot of thought, for if the civilian police contacted the military police and it was reported that a fellow with an Irish accent had initiated the call then the finger could start to point at me, especially if the call was traced to a telephone at RAF Valley.  I went into Holyhead and to the train station.  Hundreds of Irishmen would pass through that station every day, moving between Dublin and Holyhead.  It was perhaps the one and only time that my accent ever bothered me, although I wasn’t to know then, that my accent bothered an awful lot of people.     

Celtic Illumination, part 117, The Angel Of The Lord

I volunteered to join the entertainment committee, which was responsible for organising various functions, throughout the year, for air traffic control.  It was interesting to find that I was the only person on the committee, however, if you remember people like me, people with a heavy regional accent, could not organise things, couldn’t really have any original thought, or ideas, so an officer, a failed fast jet pilot, was detailed to be in charge of the committee.  I managed to persuade a couple of the other guys to join the committee and soon we had a quorum.  

This wasn’t the only activity I was engaged in to help get me promoted and back to aircrew.  I was attending Llangefni College for night classes studying A Level Mathematics, Physics and English.  Don’t tell anyone, for I wasn’t exactly known for my study skills.  I was known for having a party.  Well, I was probably known as being a complete party animal.  In fact the six man room that Docker and I shared was party central.  We invited Mervyn, Dereck and Willie up from London for an away match.  Louis even managed to find a saucepan for us to use, should have asked him for a stomach pump as well.   

It was a fantastic party and the three boys loved Valley so much that Dereck went off and joined the RAF.  In fact Dereck joined the RAF as sergeant aircrew air electronics.  That really got to me and I was tempted to buy myself out and re-apply for aircrew through Biggen Hill, but I was warned that there would be a file.  A big collection of reports and statements, mainly from the police, that would follow me around for the remainder of my career.  I wasn’t really sure if this was an old wives tale, or fact, so I had to play it safe, however I can confirm that everyone in the air force has a file, some containing more paperwork than others, and these files do follow you around for the remainder of your career.

As for Dereck I was pleased for him unfortunately during his training they found that he had a hole in his heart so he was chucked out.  Catherine too was a regular visitor at party central and actually used her close friendship with Louis to get him to provide various bits and bobs like curtains and rugs to make the room more homely.  Docker and I would of course go to Rochdale to visit Catherine and those nurses couldn’t half drink.

At one party in Rochdale, in the old people’s home, Docker was so drunk they put him to bed in a spare room in the hospital.  The duty nurse called in to check on him, Docker woke, saw this white clad figure and thought The Angel Of The Lord had come to visit him.  It was so funny poor old Docker couldn’t remember a thing.  I thought it my duty to remind him about it as often as I could.

So it would be fair to say that I had a little bit of experience of parties, whether I could actually organise one was a different matter altogether.  I didn’t really consider the fact that I might not be able to do it, that whatever function I organised might flop, and they didn’t just record successes on your record.  But I was young and stupid and failure was something that happened to older people, not me.

I did the usual party thing, lots of booze and some finger food but I wanted to do something different, so I came up with the idea of a treasure hunt. This would be in vehicles and would be around Anglesey Island.  On their return we would have a barbeque with loads of charred meat products and lunatic soup.  I plotted out the course and got some reference material on each point they would have to discover and planned the whole route out.  Docker was my guinea pig and we travelled the course on a couple of occasions to calculate timings and distances.  Then I wrote a story.  It was biblical.  I don’t mean it was huge, with hundreds of millions of pages with people begetting each other, I wrote the story like a chapter in the bible.  I had the SATCO as Moses leading his people through the Desert of Anglesey Island.  So not only did they have to move from point A to point B and so on, answering questions at each point, they had to interpret the story first of all. 

They had to work out who al the characters were in the story before they could made head or tail of the whole thing.  I believe it was quite an event and I was given my own little certificate as a thank you, which I have attached to this blog.    What it actually meant is that my efforts were being recognised and recorded and entered into that file that was following me around, so unlike my other, failed, attempts at getting back to aircrew, this time I was making sure that my six o clock was covered.

There were other parties I remember at Valley one was Norma’s wedding.  We thought it strange that she would invite us to her wedding but never the ones to turn down some drink and some finger food Docker, John Boy and myself went off into Holyhead for the reception.  We didn’t attend the ceremony as we were afraid that the religious icons in the church might melt in our presence.

I knew some of Norma’s relatives and briefly exchanged pleasantries with them.  We three settled ourselves in a corner and began the serious job of drinking.  Norma appeared in her bridal gown and we all congratulated her and gave her a hug.  Docker even went so far as to buy a gin and tonic then, writing 'congratulations' on one of John Boys cigarette papers, stuck it to the glass before presenting it to Norma, as a wedding gift, from the three of us.  I tell you, we certainly were the old romantics at heart.

The evening progressed as evenings do.  There was no jiving, so we all maintained a dignified silence and concentrated on the beer.  Norma’s new husband had quite a few friends there who eyed us suspiciously from the bar.  They might very well have been members of the local Viet Taff, so we kept our distance, as we didn’t want our holiday homes burning down, not that we had any.  We kept telling each other that we would leave after the next drink.  At a given signal we stood and prepared to leave.  Norma saw this and came running across to throw her arms around my neck proclaiming her love for me, which I have to tell you was quite embarrassing not just for me, but for her new husband, who along with his friends, were swinging punches at Docker and John Boy.

Hindsight is a great thing, especially when beer bottles are being lobbed at your car as you are driving away, but to tell you the truth I was more worried for poor old Norma.  If I was continually reminding Docker about his visitation from The Angel Of The Lord, I hoped that poor Norma wouldn’t be reminded as often about her slight faux pas at her wedding.

Celtic Illumination, part 116, an obligate ectoparasite

Either Valley had changed or I had changed, or perhaps both of us had changed.  The job was still the same, answering a telephone and writing things down.  The best position to work in, local control, seemed to have a thicko sitting there permanently, requiring extra training.  I was still drawn to the night flying shed, where the bullshit levels remained close to zero.  Unfortunately I had a plan, a simple plan, get back to being sergeant aircrew air electronics, throwing stones at submarines from Nimrods, then switch on the dazzle button, take a commission, and zoom up into the high level officer’s ranks.

Had I known then that I would never be allowed to get a commission, I would have walked there and then.  It would appear that people with strong accents, like myself, would never be able to lead people, make decisions or even do their job properly.  Sort of reminds you of the sign that used to hang in the windows of English boarding houses stating ‘No blacks, no dogs, no Irish.  Always pissed me off that they rated me lower than a dog.  Anyway at that time I still had hope and wasn’t aware of ‘the rules.’  If you remember what I said before, one function of the British armed forces is to sustain the class system, so you would never find one of the good ol boys sitting at top table. Talk about glass ceilings.

The old hands, the warrant officers and flight sergeants were always friendly and helpful so I was able to access their experience and find out exactly what I should do to get ahead.  I learned that it didn’t matter how good you were at your job, you could only get promoted by taking on secondary duties.  These duties would be engaged outside working hours.  You could play sports or join entertainment committees, charity committees or join one of the many club committees each camp would host, such as a drama club or a families club.

I was rubbish at sports, except hurling, but the air force didn’t play that one.  It was quite strange that we would complain about people who were good at sport.  They would get every Wednesday afternoon off and for away matches and training would have even more time off.  If the individual was really good at sport then they could progress from representing the station to playing for  a command team or even representing the air force itself.  Had I any sense at all, rather than complain about the footballers and cricketers, I should have taken up a sport myself.

One such fellow at Valley was John Lewis.  John was a lovely, pleasant, average, English guy.  I think he came from somewhere in middle England.  John was brilliant at football and cricket and we hated him because he was always away playing sport.  When I say hate him, I don’t mean that we actually hated John, he was a lovely fellow, but we were perhaps jealous of the skills he possessed that got him so much time off.

John actually organised a cricket match once for air traffic control.  It was supposed to be an evening event with beer and a barbeque but the assistants would be against the controllers, so there was a competitive edge to the match.  I remember standing at the wicket.   I mean come on; I was the original big, ruffie tuffie.  The bowler lined up and then began to run towards the crease.  He unleashed the ball, which up until now, I was convinced that I would just swipe away into the middle distance.

I think this is where my dancing skills came into play, for I found myself side stepping out of the way as the ball whizzed past to be expertly caught by the wicket keeper.  I am not sure how fast the cricket ball had been travelling at but I was sure that if I had remained where I was, my head would have come clean off.  I dropped the cricket bat and left the pitch never to play cricket again.  I couldn’t care less what they said about me, they could call me what they wanted, but the one thing I could safely say I wasn’t, was daft.  Cricketers have my full respect.  It is a very dangerous game however it could bore the buttons of a shirt.   John Boy did try to get me to attend a cricket match once explaining that the bar was open throughout the match, even that wasn’t enough of a temptation to get me through the turnstile.

As for John Lewis, he married a local girl and we were all invited to the wedding.  John cornered me a couple of days before the event and asked if I would do a favour for him.  As I said before John was a lovely fellow so I agreed.  He explained that he had certain friends and family attending the wedding and would like me to escort his cousin, an RAF nurse, female flavoured of course, for the evening.  This would mean picking her up from her hotel and returning her there at the end of the evening.

It was a fantastic evening and I do remember that the young nurse and myself decided that Docker would be sleeping in the bath that night.  I do remember this because we came back to the domestic site on the bonnet of a car.  Don’t worry we didn’t look out of place on the bonnet, as there were three of four others on the roof.  I made sure that the young lady was returned to her hotel the following morning, bright and early, so that no one would suspect that she had been out all night viewing my etchings.

John was very happy with my behaviour and declared that his cousin had had a fantastic time.  The incident was forgotten about.  Well; when I say forgotten about, I had accepted the evening as a brief encounter, ships that pass in the night and all that.  Which is probably the best way to describe it, as there was a sort of nautical edge to what happened next.  You’ll know exactly what I mean if you’ve ever been stood standing in front of a medic with your trousers and shreddies around your ankles.  With the medic inspecting your bits and pieces, moving your John Thomas around with a wooden spatula.  Your heart sort of sinks when he announces that you must shave from your nipples to your knees, burn all your sheets and blankets and apply some foul smelling ointment to your torso twice a day.  The humiliation is only complete when he says ‘Oh and by the way you must inform the other person.’  I had no contact details for the young lady so had to ask John to pass the information on.  I don’t know who was the more embarrassed me or John.  But true to form, he was a dammed good sport about it all.

Celtic Illumination, part 115, Banged to rights.

Docker and I were like a newly married couple, apart from the obvious.  We set about decorating our room.  One of us remembered seeing a huge, brown, leather settee in a communal area, in an accommodation block, on the other side of the car park.  The pair of us were working strange shifts so we waited till we both had the same afternoon off.  We walked, as bold as you like, over to the block in question, went in, saw the settee, realised how marvellous it would be in our room and took it.  If anyone were to stop us we were going to say that we worked for the SWO and were taking it for repair.

There was nothing wrong with the settee, as with all domestic furniture in the air force this settee was able to withstand a direct thermo nuclear attack.  We were sneaking across the car park, carrying this six foot long brown leather settee.  We were in Ninja mode so we knew no one would be able to see us; however we hadn’t counted on the SWO who had twenty, twenty, anti-Ninja vision.  So the pair of us were stood standing there, holding this settee, and the SWO began to pace up and down.

“What’s going on here then?” He asked.

I knew that I was in this fellow’s good books so I chanced my arm.

“Well sir,” I began.  “We were walking across this here car park when we noticed this settee fall out the back of a passing aircraft.  So, not wishing to see any item belonging to the air force destroyed, we caught it sir.  We saved the settee sir and were about to take it to our room for safe keeping.”

I think The SWO detected the humour in my voice, for if he thought I was in any way treating him as stupid, my feet, as they say, wouldn’t have touched the ground on my way to the cells.

“On you go,” says the SWO, and on we went.  Believe it or not Docker was caught in the same position on the Falkland Islands and gave the exact same reply, however this time he ended up in the clink for two days.  We had an agreement that if one of us was entertaining a young lady the other would go and sleep in a bath.  Bloody uncomfortable and you wouldn’t half get some strange looks going into a bath room with a blanket and a pillow.

One night young Docker and myself were lying on our pits when we heard a smashing sound.  We leapt to the window and could see nothing, but we could hear crashing sounds coming from inside the mess.  We decided to investigate.  We snuck inside and found a chap destroying whatever he came across.  He was obviously drunk and appeared to be intent on destroying everything in the mess.  Docker went to call for the police and I kept watch on the fellow.

One military policeman arrived in a Ford Escort estate.  He came in to the mess with Docker and came up to me.  I indicated where the fellow was, which there was no need for, as the sound of the vandalism would draw anyone’s attention.  The copper flashed on his torch and began to approach the maniac.  Then the copper had a good idea and told Docker and me that we were to accompany him.  This is the point where you wish you had not got involved.

The three of us approached the fellow who was facing us and growling.  Luckily the beam of light from the torch, that was fixed on his face, kept him occupied.  The copper wasted no time in taking the fellow to the ground and handcuffing him.  Docker and I were then invited to guide him from the building. We got him outside and stood waiting by the passenger door of the Ford Escort.

The copper came out asking. “Can either one of you two drive?”  I said that I could, so the copper entered the vehicle and lowered the rear seat.  He came back out, opened the rear tailgate and indicated that the prisoner, as the fellow was now being referred to, was to be put inside.  I was to drive.  With the prisoner face down in the rear of the car, Docker in the passenger seat and me driving, the copper sat on the prisoners back and began to give him a slap.  Now when I say gave him a slap I don’t mean that the policeman slapped the prisoners arse and called him naughty, he was punching him.

It was quite disgusting and although we were military, and the guy deserved to be punished for what he had done, there was no call for the violence that the policeman was inflicting on the restrained prisoner.  Unfortunately worse was to come.  When we got to the guardroom and the rear tailgate was opened, the copper came out and dragged the prisoner out.  The prisoner was handcuffed and face down so as you can imagine, on leaving the car, he went face first into the concrete.  He was dragged, and pushed, and kicked into a cell and the door was slammed shut.

I think both Docker and myself were disgusted with the copper.  The orderly officer arrived and Docker and I found ourselves getting dragged deeper into his wicked scheme.  Everything that the copper said had happened, he would claim that both Docker and myself had witnessed, which of course had the Orderly Officer believe that the copper was telling the truth.  All we could do was nod.    We realised that we couldn’t say what actually happened as we were now guilty of omission.  I think most of the people involved with that incident knew exactly what had happened, yet accepted it as a sort of immediate and righteous reckoning.  It was very unpleasant and I think caused me to be wary of military policemen after that.

The medical officer was called and agreed with the coppers statement that the injuries sustained were probably the result of the prisoner trying to break free from his cell and the minor bruising would be associated with the restraint the three of us had to put him under to calm him down.  Never saw the fellow again, thankfully, but we did see the copper, mind you we gave him a wide berth.  We wouldn’t dream of breaking the law around him.

Celtic Illumination, part 114, Welcome home

Many of you will probably be sensible people who, when planning for a long train journey, will find yourself a decent book, a selection of various refreshments and have some sort of idea or plan for your trip.   My plan for the long train journey from London to Holyhead in North Welsh Wales was simple.  I had been drinking solid for three days and so the moment I had stowed my bags, I sat myself down and fell asleep.  The only good thing about the London to Holyhead train was that it stopped at Holyhead, which allowed you to sink into a deep sleep and not worry about missing your station.

I woke in Holyhead refreshed and took my time getting off the train, rather than join in with the melee that was aiming for the single exit slot.  I could see Norma waiting and was pleased that I had nipped into a top of the range, dead posh, designer shop in London to buy her some perfume.  That’s a little bit of a lie, well; a complete porky if you must know.  I bought a bag full of supposedly knock off perfume on Oxford Street.  You know the guys who sell stuff from a suitcase.  Well muggins here bought a bag of perfume, smelled all right to me, and had all the proper names on the bottles.

I had a lot to do that evening, as in, get back to Valley and get a bed somewhere, however as Norma had turned up I wondered what the evening would now have in store.  Norma was very pleased with her present although even that didn’t seem to cheer her up.  I asked her what was worrying her, because I was a caring sort of chap.  Norma explained to me that she had come to the train station that evening to meet her boyfriend.

I was intrigued to discover that this was not my good self and I put my lack of observation, or alertness, down to the session I had just endured in Cricklewood.  It occurred to me that I hadn’t told Norma what train I would be coming in on, I hadn’t even told her what day I was coming back.  With me away helping the Prince of Wales learn how to drive a fast jet, Norma’s parents encouraged her to find a nice Welsh chap, which she had done, and was now engaged to.

As I was returning from a detachment I was theoretically on duty and therefore entitled to some transport.   I telephoned Valley and they sent some transport to collect me.  The guard commander was not chuffed as he would have to miss his favourite television programme if he had to find me a bed somewhere, would I not rather spend the night in a cell and start fresh the next morning?  I declined his sweet offer and was given a bed, in what I can only describe as a store room.  I got my head down straight away as I needed to be fresh for the following day as I knew I was facing a lot of running about.

Once again I had to arrive at Valley and go around each section getting my chitty signed.  By lunchtime I arrived at air traffic control and waited for my arrival interview with the SATCO.  I knew that I was getting a splendid report from Cranwell and I also knew that he would have had this by telephone.  The report was crawling its way across country in a brown envelope so this was standard practise.

I was surprised that getting dumped by Norma didn’t really cause me much concern, well any concern at all, if I was to tell the truth.  I still had Catherine and then there was that girl in Warrington, but for the moment I needed to see the SATCO and ensure that my aircrew application was active and its progress hadn’t been affected by any incident at Cranwell.  Some fellow poked his head in and said “I’ll see you now.”  It was only when the admin sergeant said that’s the new SATCO that I realised Norma wasn’t the only lump of my life that had changed.

He was very nice and welcomed me back.  He explained that he had spoken to the SATCO at Cranwell and was pleased that I had been so well received there and gave a good impression of the high standards at Valley.  When it was my turn to speak I asked him if he was aware of my aircrew application.  He said no.

I explained that the previous SATCO had told me that I had to act as a young gentleman would for six months, stay out of trouble and be a good boy.  If I managed that, then he was going to submit my application for aircrew selection.  The new SATCO explained that this was not a standard way of assessing potential aircrew candidates and was a personal decision by the previous SATCO.  However it was a good idea so, as he didn’t know me, he would implement the same process.  I could conduct myself as a proper young fellow for six months and if I did so he would consider submitting my aircrew application.

If I had been able to take myself out and punch myself in the face I would have.  Cranwell had offered to put me forward for aircrew, if I had stayed there, and now I was back with no girlfriend, well one less girlfriend, and having to start all over again because of the whim of a failed fast jet pilot.  I explained that I had to go and find myself a bedroom on camp as I knew that if I hung around much longer, there’s a good chance I would explode.  Then it hit me, I would just volunteer for dangerous duties again and get away from them all.

I told the SATCO that I would want to volunteer for dangerous duties and he smiled at me.  How could he observe me if I was away running about mountains?  No I would have to stay at air traffic control and impress him if I was serious about this aircrew thing.  Now you’ve probably heard the expression about the bottom falling out of your world however, after my three day session in Cricklewood, I think the world was falling out of my bottom.  I wandered away from air traffic control in a daze.

I found the bedding store and admittedly had forgotten all about Louis.  Louis hadn’t forgotten about me and had saved a special room for me on my return.  At the end of each corridor of single man rooms would be a sitting room.  These, because of a single accommodation shortage were now being used as six man rooms.  Louis had managed to keep one of these rooms under the radar and had allocated two people to it. One was no other than myself and I have to say I was pleased to hear my roommate was none other than Docker himself.   I hoped that he would have no surprises in store for me.

Celtic Illumination, part 113, War Dance

I understand that some of you Illuminati may not know what, or where, Cricklewood is.  Cricklewood is an area in North West London that used to have quite a high Irish population.  Another Irish area in London was Kilburn but this time I was heading for Cricklewood.  Mervyn, an old friend from Warrenpoint, yes he of the travel agent, was now living in Cricklewood, along with two other fellows from Newry, Willie and Dereck.  Thankfully all three met me at the train station and helped carry my bags back to Cricklewood, which would have been a nightmare if I had to fight my way over on the London Underground on my own.

They had the ground floor of a house which had been spilt into three bedrooms; there was a living room area, a kitchen and a bathroom.  Luxury really compared to what I was used to.  As Cricklewood was full of Irish people I was certain that there would be a party going on somewhere.  However a quick flick through the local newspaper showed me that I had struck gold.  In Cricklewood was the Galtymore night club, famous throughout Irish circles as the best place in London to go for a party.  Secondly, and here’s where you have to hold on to your hats, the Indians were performing there that night.

What do you mean you’ve never heard of the Indians?  Dear God, next you’ll be telling me that you’ve never even heard of Big Tom and the Mainliners.  Heathens!  The lot of you.  In Ireland the music scene was driven by the show bands.  These were large seven, eight or nine, piece bands that would belt out tunes for three or four hours in the dance hall or hotel in your wee town, every weekend of the year.  Mainly they would play country and western music but would also cover the current popular hits.  They were fantastic; the energy that they put into their performances was legendary.

The Indians had been going for some time and were on their third or fourth front man.  Each of them gave themselves an Indian name and the lead man would have a huge feather headdress, with all of the band members sporting war paint.  I know it was ridiculous but as the band freely admits it was a gimmick.  I am confused that the band is still active today but there is a movement to have them closed down.  Some people believe that the wearing of Indian headdress and war paint is a degeneration of the Red Indian culture and is actually helping people degrade and eventually wipe out their culture.

I can see their point, but my only plans for that night was for a feed of drink and three or four hours jiving with a pretty young lady, with whom later on I might  become a little degenerate myself.  Mervyn and the boys surprised me as they had never been to the Galtymore.  They were Orangemen and felt that they wouldn’t be welcome in such an environment.  I couldn’t believe that they held such views so I made sure they had a few stiffeners and then led them off to the Galtymore.

It was a shithole.  Well; when I say shithole I mean that there was brown Formica everywhere, the carpets were threadbare and the tables and chairs were not a very high quality and didn’t match.  But I knew that these things didn’t make the place, it was the people, and if the dance hall doors had opened at eight o clock in the evening then by five past eight, the place was heaving with people, all smiling, all drinking, all Irish, and all planning to have a fierce good time that evening.

The Indians took to the stage and started as they meant to go on.  I can remember the lead singer with his white headdress that hung all the way down on either side of his body to his ankles.  I was in my element jiving away with anyone that would have me; I know, I’ve terribly low standards when it comes to jiving and young ladies.  I was ruining my liver by pouring as much alcohol as I could down my throat.  I was ruining my hearing, for you had to stand near the speakers to hear the band that bit better, all of whom, as in Spinal Tap, had turned their amplifiers up to eleven.  I was having a great time.

All four of us had a fantastic evening and it was nice to see Mervyn, Wille and Dereck accept the fact that they were Irishmen, something to be proud of.  In fact all four of us pulled, which for those of the Illuminati who do not understand that phrase it means that each of the four of us young gentlemen escorted a young lady back to the flat, to finish the evening with some tea or coffee and perhaps a sweet biscuit.

Most, well; all of us were far too drunk to operate a kettle so we had beer, wine and vodka and we did offer some to the young ladies.  The three fellows who lived there, I was going to say permanent staff; they slid off to their rooms probably to show their escort their sketches or etchings, which left me alone in the front room with my young lady.  She was sitting on my knee telling me that her brother was a tank commander in the army.  Whether this was code for ‘If you touch me my brother will kill you,’ or whether she was off her head on the drink, I wasn’t sure, so I was quite content to sit and chat and have a few more drinks.

At one point she snapped up straight and realised that she should be going home.  She asked if I would take her down to the main road where she could get a mini cab home.  Now I promise you.  You probably think that I was a pretty switched on sort of fellow who knew his way about.  I was and still am however, a part of me was still a simple little Irish country boy.  I actually thought that a mini cab was a min van and even when I saw the minicabs, or taxis, I still didn’t really understand the term.  However you will probably understand that the line between madness and genius is not a fixed line.  The needle does waver and I’m sure that on many occasions I crossed over into madness.

I was very happy.  I had had a fantastic evening; I really did feel that my whole body had been recharged with dancing in the Galtymore.  I got back to the flat and sat myself back down and opened another beer.  I could sleep the next day away on the train back to North Welsh Wales.   It was six o clock in the morning when someone began knocking at the front door.  I hadn’t laid a finger on the young lady so I wasn’t expecting a visit from her tank driving brother.  Instead the young lady herself was stood standing there.

In she came and presented me with a cherry pie.  She had gone home, thought it would be a good idea to cook me a cherry pie.  And did so.  The breakfast of champions, cherry pie and a can of beer.  By mid-morning, all the young ladies had gone, probably off to church, leaving just us four fine fellows.  The drinking continued and at about midnight Mervyn decided that the dregs from all the bottles and cans would be put into a saucepan and we would drink the resulting mixture.  We called this ‘The Saucepan’ for unfortunately Mervyn had started something that we would practise every time we met from then on.  A saucepan is not something you should attempt to drink, especially when you’ve got to spend the most of the following day on a boat train to Holyhead.  However I suppose, somebody’s got to do it.

Celtic Illumination, part 112, The craic was good in Cricklewood

I had hoped that the, incident laden, first twenty four hours at Cranwell would be a one off.  So it was with great dismay that I was told to be in the SATCO’s office at twelve o clock on the Tuesday.  I arrived at his door to be waved in and sat down on the seat that was indicated to me.  There was a Flight Sergeant sitting opposite me.   He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.  The SATCO, a Squadron Leader, was talking to someone on the telephone.

As the SACTO, still on the telephone, shot straight up to stand at attention, the Flight Sergeant and I turned and then executed a similar reaction.  An Air Commodore was closing the door to the office and offered his hand first of all to the Flight Sergeant and then myself.  By now the SATCO has finished, or most probably ended, his telephone conversation and came around to shake hands with the Air Commodore.

This, we now learned, was the head of trade group nine, which meant that he was the top man for air traffic control. He was the fellow who had arranged for the Flight Sergeant and I to be detached to Cranwell.  He then went on to explain his plan.  Every time Prince Charles got airborne it would be the Flight Sergeant and myself who would be running the local control.  There was no argument, no discussion, this was the plan and this is what was going to happen.

I had been chatting with some of the air traffickers and some of them already had their own cunning little plans as to who would have the honour of telling Prince Charles where to go.  The Air Commodore then left and the SATCO followed him, escorting him out of the building.  The Flight Sergeant and I sat down; shook hands and introduced ourselves, to each other, then waited for the SATCO to return.  I didn’t want to say anything to anybody; I would let the SATCO do that.

At Valley I had found the local control, the greenhouse at the top of every air traffic control tower, was the most exciting place to work.  However everyone wanted to work there and most of the time it was manned by the duty thicko who needed extra training.  I wasn’t worried that we would be directly responsible for Prince Charles, after all he was in training to be a future king, but then so was I, I just didn’t know it at the time.

Needless to say the air traffickers were not amused, an outsider had been brought in to do their job and most of them wanted to be involved, in some way, with Prince Charles.  I of course couldn’t have cared less but it certainly placed me in a very favourable position for my detachment.  Every morning the Flight Sergeant and I would be given the details of Prince Charles’ flying for that day and we would take over local control, fifteen minutes before he was due to taxi and leave fifteen minutes after he landed.

Normally on a flying training unit there would be three people in the greenhouse.  The local controller, the Flight Sergeant, the local assistant, moi, and the QFI, Qualified Flying Instructor.  If a student pilot experienced any sort of problem the QFI was on hand to help them out and give advice.  Because you really had to concentrate in the greenhouse, extra people were not encouraged to be there. 

Normally all three people in the greenhouse would be quite relaxed and would get on with their jobs.  The moment Prince Charles began to taxi, the visitors arrived.  First of all the station commander, a Group Captain, arrived, then the head of the flying school, then the Air Commodore and finally another Air Commodore who was the head of the staff college.  I wondered if they were going to attempt to use Vulcan mind control to bring Prince Charles down safely if he had a problem.  As Prince Charles wasn’t the only student flying, and everything else on the airfield was progressing as normal, we had to continue to perform our jobs but with an added extra edge.

For the rubberneckers out there I am sure you would like to know, if you didn’t already, that Prince Charles had his very own aircraft.  The Jet Provost XW322 was chosen to be his main aircraft and had the royal cypher painted on the air intakes.  A second Jet Provost was chosen to be his back up aircraft but didn’t have the royal cypher painted on.  The aircraft ended up in America where it was owned by a syndicate.  Unfortunately it was destroyed during a crash landing at Bay City in Texas on June 12^th 2008.  The crew escaped unhurt.

With Prince Charles landed the senior brass melted away as did the Flight Sergeant and myself, until the next time.  The guys at Cranwell did not have a ‘can do’ attitude, so I found that I was proving to be quite valuable to air traffic.  Jobs that had sat on the side lines that had been considered too difficult or were considered to be in someone else’s area of responsibility were now getting completed in double quick time.

There was an added element of stupidity to life at Cranwell of which I will give you an example.  The blackout blinds in the radar control room had to be replaced.  The Flight Sergeant and I set about this task.  We installed new blackout blinds but noticed that the draw stings were missing so went to stores.  “Have you got any draw string for blinds please?”  “Yes.”   “Great I need enough for ten blinds.”  “I can’t give you any.”    “What?”

All the blinds, curtains, carpets and fixtures in Prince Charles’ rooms had been changed so that everything in his rooms was brand new.  Stores would not issue anything in case it was needed for Prince Charles.  The Flight Sergeant and I were stumped at such a ridiculous attitude.  This was happening all over the unit, but as I said before I had a certain set of skills.  I even managed to impress the Flight Sergeant the following day when I returned from one of my trips with enough draw string to keep Cranwell air traffic going well into the next century.

The three months passed peacefully.  There were no more scrapes or incidents in fact it was quite good fun.

I was preparing to return to Valley and hoped that the incidents from my first twenty four hours were not lurking in some dark corner waiting to pounce.  A farewell party was organised and it was to be held at a local country pub.  At eight o clock I was on duty at the bar, couldn’t miss my own farewell party.  The SATCO and the Air Commodore came in and came straight up to me.  “How many pints of beer can you drink before you fall over?” asked the Air Commodore.  “Ten,” I said, hoping I was close to the correct answer.

“Ten pints of bitter for this fellow,” said the Air Commodore to the bar maid who then shook my hand and went over to do the same to the Flight Sergeant.  The SATCO too was pleased with me and even detailed two chaps to carry me back to my billet that evening, for he knew that I wouldn’t let the Air Commodore down and that not only would I try to drink the ten pints, but I would probably try to exceed that figure. 

I was repeatedly asked to stay.  Even at my final interview with the SATCO he was asking me to stay.  I explained that I did like Cranwell and the job, however I had an application in at Valley for aircrew and I wanted to get back and pursue that.  He offered to submit an application himself if I would stay, but I knew I couldn’t, so I found myself at the gates of Cranwell with all my worldly possessions handing off my arms.  I had a couple of days before I had to report back to Valley, so I did the only thing one should do in situations like that, and went to Cricklewood for a session.

Celtic Illumination, part 111, School’s out.

I entered the staff area in the tower at Cranwell having just had my welcome interview with the SATCO.  A number of comments were made about me doing the laundry or being the new laundry boy.  It was all in good humour and I shouldn’t have expected any less.  One fellow, who was actually answering the telephone and writing things down, had a chess set out and was informing any who would listen that he had bought this while stationed in Cyprus.  I could tell from the look on the faces of the other chaps that this fellow was most probably the station bore.

He then begins to address me, asking how long I was to be there for.  “Three months.” I explained.  “Ah well,” he said.  “There’s no point in trying to train you up for anything you can make the tea and coffee for the next three months.”  Now if you remember making tea and coffee was considered a task far too hazardous a task for me to carry out at Valley, although if the truth be told I wasn’t the one facing the hazard.  In fact I had been banned from making tea and coffee at Valley.  I decided not to tell him this but instead gave him an expletive laden mouthful that hopefully conveyed my opinion of him, what I thought of his proposal and what I now suggested he should go and do to himself, which of course I knew was a physical impossibility.

He immediately left the area and I thought that perhaps he wasn't such a bad chap after all if he had gone off to find a private spot and try what I had suggested he do.  However, once again, I was wrong and a nervous sergeant came in and asked me to accompany him to the SATCO’s office.  Luckily the SATCO must have completed a course in conflict management, however he then explained to the duty bore why I was at Cranwell and the new status I enjoyed as a high intensity air trafficker.   If I needed any training at all it would be minimal.

The duty bore didn’t put up any argument. It was suggested that perhaps I should go and start afresh the following day; it was close to four o clock anyway, so I was only getting away about an hour early.  It didn’t really mean that much as it was a good half hour walk back to my room.  I went and had my tea and as with breakfast, knew I should be telling myself off, but what for?  All I had done this time was stand up for myself, admittedly I may have been a tish forceful and used colourful language, that you wouldn’t use in front of your vicar, but for God’s sake, this was the military.  Why do you think they say that someone swore like a trooper?

I promised myself to be a good boy and wandered off to my room.  The other three chaps were there, two were fiddling about with their clothes while the third was stretched out on his bed with a magazine over his face.  I noticed that my bags had been removed from the bed and placed on the floor.  The clothes from the table had been replaced on my bed.  This time I just grabbed them and threw them onto the table.  I then lifted my bags and dumped them on my bed.   At a rough glance I estimated that the two chaps fiddling with their clothes were geeks, how I always ended up with the geeks I don’t know.  The one stretched out on the bed didn’t move.

“I suggest you lift my clothes off the floor and put them back where you found them,” said the fellow on the bed, still with the magazine over his face.

It was so obvious from the look on the face of the two geeks that this was the daddy.  Well; he had probably told them that he was the daddy.  I could smell a bully from fifty paces, but unlike the geeks, I wouldn’t stand for them.

“As the senior man in this room you should always ask me before you touch anything,” he said.  I wondered what comic book he had been reading to maintain such an attitude, for this was the armed forces and school was out.  It was his birthday, or something, for there were all sorts of cards around his bed and over his locker.  One long string of cards hung above his bed like a sort of mobile you would find above a child’s cot.  I went over and was impressed that the fellow hadn’t moved.  He must have heard my footsteps come across the room but yet he still lay there.

I took out my cigarette lighter and lit the bottom card, on the string, hanging from the ceiling. 

“Don’t ever talk to me like that again,” I said, as I walked away.

 I couldn’t believe that the guy still lay there, but one of the geeks warned him that he should move before the blazing cards tumbled down on him and set him on fire. 

With the warning issued he moved the magazine, saw what was happening, and leapt off his bed.  Like the duty bore in air traffic he immediately reverted to a six year old and having extinguished the fire, ran out of the room to tell someone.

With him gone the two geeks came over and offered me their hands.  I can’t remember their names, but they did seem to be relieved that the tyrant would appear to have been disposed.  I had unbuttoned my jacket and was taking garments from my kit bags and hanging them up in my wardrobe.   The two geeks were filling me on on the standard social life at Cranwell as in when the cinema was open, where the television rooms were, when the disco were held and the best and worst places to avoid and attend.

Although I was exuding a cool exterior I was quite worried in case the senior man would actually try to get me into trouble.  My first full day at Cranwell was almost over and I had escaped numerous major bollockings by the skin of my teeth.  My senior man came back in and luckily for me he hadn’t sought out a senior rank to mediate, he had brought his friend along.  The friend was not a qualified mediator he was tall.

They came into the centre of the room and it was so obvious that they were intent on having a confrontation.  I reached into my bag and pulled out another garment.  It was my turn now to be nonchalant.  The tall friend stepped forward, and then stopped.

“Is that a mountain rescue badge?”  he asked, pointing at my sleeve.

I nodded.

“Sorry mate,” he said, holding both hands up.  “I thought he said you were somebody else.” at which he left the room.  The senior man didn’t know what to do.  I thanked my lucky starts that nothing had happened, for if I had been involved in another incident that day I don’t think I could have handled it, never mind Cranwell.