There I was, at fifty thousand feet, with nothing on the
clock but the maker’s name. Well;
actually I wasn’t, Peter Browne and myself were in a small room with two female
flavoured ladies. Now before any of you
preverts start getting ideas, let me explain. The room we were in was the guard room at
Swanton Morley. One of those fine ladies
was Sergeant Lillywhite, a policeman woman and the other fine lady was Sergeant
Avril Gough, who was in charge of the WRAF block.
Neither Peter nor I had told anyone that we had actually
carried out the knicker raid, so I have always wondered how we had ended up in
the frame. At Watton we had collected as
many of the knickers as we could and stuffed them into a large brown envelope. We had two envelopes if I remember correctly,
but many of the garments had been destroyed by being cut away from the flag
pole or from the Sergeant in the Lodge going ballistic.
It was all good natured, we thought. We came in, sat down, handed over the knickers
and waited to hear our fate. Lillywhite
and Gough wanted to know how we had managed to get in to the WRAF block. Peter and I both refused to give full details
of how we actually arranged entry, so we just said that we had happened upon an
open window. Then Sergeant Lillywhite
began to outline our position. She informed
us that we now faced a court-martial for a list of offences. Breaking and entering, theft and trespass were
three of the charges that I can remember but she read out a list of half a
dozen or more.
She had of course said the magical words that would stop a
charging bison at fifty feet, which was ‘court-martial.’ This was serious stuff and could very well
see both Peter and myself end up in the military prison at Colchester. We tried to negotiate and explained that we
had returned a good number of garments.
I didn’t really understand when she said that none of the girls wanted
the underwear back, because they didn’t know what we had been doing with
it. It took a wee while for that to sink
in. The moment I understood that they
were suggesting that I had some sort of perversion saw me starting to
panic. By all means send me to a military
prison, but don’t call me a pervert.
A compromise was then offered. A list would be put on the notice board in the
WRAF block. Any WRAF could put their
name on the list and how much it would cost to replace their knickers. If Peter and I agreed to pay the complete
amount, no official charges would be brought against us. We agreed, and if you think it took me a
while to understand that I was accused of being a pervert think how long it
took me to understand that this list could be open to abuse. There was no way of knowing who had knickers
stolen, or how many, and of what quality, and if young ladies decided to wear
the finest silk available who were we to argue.
We were allowed to leave Swanton Morley with a police receipt
for the kickers we had returned, a copy of which is attached to the previous
blog. We were then told that we were
banned, for life, from Swanton Morley. This
was a bit of a blow as both Peter and I played rugby occasionally for Swanton
and I would go gliding with Jed from Swanton.
However such was our fate so we returned to Watton to find out that we
had been invited to Swanton rugby club that evening as they were holding a
dance in our honour.
Even a ban from the RAF police couldn’t stop neither Peter
nor myself from missing a good party. I do
remember when we entered Swanton rugby club that they made us stand in the middle
of the dance floor and played the song by Saint Cecilia, ‘Leap up and down with
your knickers in the air.’
“I didn’t know you worked here,” he said, smiling and looking
about.
“Just helping out,” I lied, while wiping my hands on the duty
oily rag. “Aren’t you supposed to ask me
permission to have a part time job?” asked the Wing Commander, which of course
said far much more than the actual words he had spoken. Yes I should have filled out a general application
and have had the pleasure of being his obedient servant, requesting his
permission to have a part time job. I
realised that this fellow was never going to approve any application I
made. He was the senior failed fast jet
pilot with the personality of a dressing table.
At least his name fitted him, Brown.
Wing Commander Brown.
I never did formally ask for permission to have a part time
job. As far as I was concerned Brown
wasn’t playing by the rules, he was making them up as he went along, what he didn’t
expect, was that I could play that game just as well as he. It wasn’t the money or the experience that kept
me at John Fellingham’s. I learned that a
group of second hand car dealers throughout Norfolk had an ‘understanding’. Once a week, John would take three cars, that
hadn’t sold or had any customer interest or attention, and move them to another
dealer twenty miles away. We would bring
three different cars back to Watton.
This meant that every week I would be driving various cars
all over the place and it was fun.
Sometimes white knuckle fun, as I remember driving a Mini Cooper that was
stuck in second gear, from Coltishall to Watton, going through Norwich at rush hour. As I had stated before, John Fellingham was a
Jaguar freak. He actually owned and
raced a D type Jaguar. This was beautiful
machine and although initially I was only allowed to wash and polish it I
eventually managed to get him to let me take it around Snetterton race track
and ever since that day I can confirm that I too am now a Jaguar addict.
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