Well; as you have already figured out life at Locking was
pretty exciting, practising standing still, shouting at fires, sleeping in
classrooms. Ah yes, the classrooms. There were a series of tests that you had to
pass, in order to qualify and pass out.
Now I don’t mean faint. Pass out
is a military expression indicating that you have been successful; you have
passed out of training and are now trained.
Our tests were something along the lines of 1A1 followed by 1A2 then 1B1
and guess what is next, yes 1B2. Are you
sure you haven’t been in the military.
As I explained before, the first couple of months were spent going
over the basics so that everyone was brought up to speed. I of course had switched off. I loved learning the new stuff, the hands on,
practical, learning, but the old mathematics and physics bored me. So I failed my first test, the 1A1. I failed my second test too, the 1A2 however
I passed the third test the 1B1. I was
told that I would have to retake the first two tests. I wasn’t given an
ultimatum, it was sort of, you will take these tests until you pass them.
I agreed that I would knuckle down and study for my basic maths and physics tests, but I never said when.
Sort of had the old fingers crossed behind my back if you know what I
mean. How on earth could I study when
one of the most important events in the universe was about to happen? My birthday, and not just any old birthday, my
eighteenth birthday.
Without a doubt the major celebration would be held in Weston
Super Mare and without any doubt whatsoever would involve a huge amount of
alcohol. First of all I wanted a bit of
craic. There was a fellow in Weston who
challenged anybody to a drinking competition.
He had a two pint glass and offered to race anybody willing, in downing
beer. You would have a single pint of
beer and he would have his large two pint glass.
I decided that a group of us should enter the pub, at
intervals, and challenge the fellow so that eventually one of us would beat
him. We went to the pub he frequented
and he wasn’t there so we started drinking heavily anyway. We had a normal sort of evening; we would go
to a dance, dance, drink then get asked to leave. I think it was somewhere around midnight; I
had just been asked to leave an establishment and was outside holding some
railings up in case they caught a bad case of rust and fell over.
It was my birthday, I had a pocket full of money, and it was
a lovely evening so I decided to stroll back to camp. Stroll, as you may imagine, may be the wrong
term to describe my method of walking.
It wasn’t so much as one foot in front of the other, but one foot to the
left then one foot to the right, four or five back and one forward. Sometimes I would have one foot go both left
and right at the same time! A very
complicated form of movement, and one which takes years of training and practise,
much like the old standing still.
I do remember that I was wearing a pair of black, zip-up,
platform boots and as I mentioned before it was rather a warm night so I had
taken them off. I’m not a heathen and
wouldn’t be seen dead walking along a road in a pair of socks, no matter what
time of the day or night it was, so I had my socks of too. I found myself in a sort of housing
development. I didn’t know where I was
but was using my internal navigation system and was steering by the stars, or
was it street lights?
Anyway I saw a telephone box and knew that I should speak to
my old girlfriend, Pat, in Ireland. In
those days if you wanted to talk to someone in Ireland by telephone you had to
be connected by the operator and it was thirty six pence for three
minutes. I managed to find the side of
the telephone box which opened and went in.
I contacted the operator and asked her to connect me to Pat. I didn’t say Pat I gave her the number in Warrenpoint.
I can now hear Pat on the other end of the telephone but we
couldn’t speak because the operator was asking me to put my thirty six pence
into the box, via the coin slots. I
apologised to the operator explaining that I didn’t have any change, I only had
notes, but if I could get the pound note into the slot she could keep the change. Now I don’t know about you but I think I was
being quite generous.
Unfortunately the operator didn’t and she ended the call. I left the phone box and with my boots in my
left hand and my socks in my right, both held out before me like divining rods,
I began to navigate my way back to camp.
I hadn’t got very far when I noticed a jam sandwich pull up alongside
me. A jam sandwich is a nick name we
used for police patrol cars that were white with a fluorescent coloured stripe
running around the middle.
Two police men got out and came across to speak to me. First of all they wanted to know if I was
Irish. The moment I spoke they would
know that, so I admitted being guilty to being Irish. They then asked if I had just used the telephone
box and I said yes and pointed out that I had only used it for the purpose of
making a telephone call. They wondered
if I wouldn’t mind accompanying them to the police station in Weston Super Mare
and answer some questions.
It was as if everyone wanted me to take some form of
test. I asked permission and they
allowed me to pull on my socks and boots and then we all drove off to the
police station in the jam sandwich. We
had an interview room all to ourselves and the younger of the pair began asking
me questions while the older of the two went off to get coffee. I found the questions to be quite easy, like what’s
your name, date of birth etc. I think I
was doing pretty well in their test.
I knew that as an Irishman I would probably get locked up for
something I didn’t do so, I began admitting to various crimes that they had
never solved. I explained that the Second
World War was my fault, I had nailed a fellow called Jesus to a cross, and it
was me who killed Cock Robin. It was the
elder of the two police men who came back in, with the coffees who asked if I
had any identification. I knew that once
they had this I would be ‘banged to rights’ as they say in all the best
criminal communities.
I gave them my RAF identity card. The older police man looked at it and wanted
to know why I hadn’t told them this in the beginning. I explained that they had never asked me if I
was in the air force. The older copper suggested
that we drink up and they would run me back to Locking. Nice to see the system working and no funny handshakes
involved.
It was a pleasant drive back to Locking, again only three or
four miles away. I alighted from the jam
sandwich at the main gate at Locking and waved a fond farewell to my two new
best friends. I knew that I would never
ever have a bad word to say about British coppers when I heard a growling noise
behind me. I turned to find the orderly
sergeant and the eight or nine members of the guard bearing down on me with the
sergeant shouting something like get this drunken Irish git into a cell!!
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