I hadn’t really thought about the world of air traffic
control much. Now and again they would
contact me, usually about promotion exams.
I had a bit of a dilemma with the promotion exams, I could never pass
them. It’s a bit strange or foolish, me
claiming that these exams were so simple a monkey could pass them, yet I never
could. I did try, but for some reason it
was not to happen. The information we
had to learn was never used on a daily basis. It was as if someone had collected
as much information as they could and used it to create a syllabus from which
they could concoct an exam. Then one
day a Sergeant from air traffic came over and told me that if I would sit down
and pass the exam I would be promoted. This
time I decided to give it my best shot.
I realised that my time on the squadron would eventually come
to an end. It was highly unlikely that I
would get posted back to mountain rescue, seriously unlikely that I would go to
another squadron and unfortunately more than likely that I would be sent back
to air traffic. It was not a thought that
appealed to me. I knew I would have to
do something about it when that decision was taken for me. I got a phone call one day from Andy Swetman. If you remember while at Watton Andy Swetman,
Tim Lort and myself all applied to undergo aircrew selection. Andy was told to lose weight, which he
did. Tim was told to go away which he
did, but further than the air force expected as he bought himself out. I was given the usual air traffic run around
from the failed fast jet pilots.
Andy was at Wildenrath and asked if he could come over and
have a coffee with me. I really didn’t think
much more about it and sent the aircrew driver off to collect Andy. J R and myself were running ops and I explained
to the Boss that a friend of mine was coming over. Andy came in and to my surprise was wearing a
flying suit. He had gone off from Watton,
been selected for aircrew and was now happily employed as a load master. It was
lovely to see Andy but I have to admit that my heart sank when I thought about
the hoops the air traffickers had made me jump through to get me absolutely
nowhere.
We had a coffee and a chat and came back into the ops room
where I introduced Andy to J R. “How
long are you going to let him hide here then?” asked Andy. J R looked puzzled. Andy then explained that we had both applied
for aircrew on the same day back in Watton and that, in his opinion; I should be
trying to get my application in again.
Andy left with a big smile on his face and J R told me that we were to
sit down and have a chat. I told J R all
about the useless air traffickers and how they were always making me prove to
them that I had the qualities required for aircrew. J R called the aircrew crew room and asked
Tony Bown to come down.
Tony came in a little worried that the boss had summoned
him. “I want his aircrew application on
my desk by Friday,” said J R and Tony nodded.
“I’ll drum up the paperwork,” says Tony, who wanders off to the admin
wallaghs. I couldn’t believe it, within
thirty seconds of being told that I was interested in applying for aircrew J R
was not just on my side but making sure my application went in. There was no proving anything to him, no good behaviour,
no fecking essays to write, no six month trial.
I knew I would have to start preparing myself but I also knew that I
would have to buy Andy Swetman a couple of beers.
Most of the aircrew on the squadron were like that apart from
one person who let me down. He was a
navigator. One night we were running the
ops room and he had gone off to do something or other. The ops desk was covered with clear perspex sheets
under which we carried various sheets with information that was constantly used,
one of these would have been telephone numbers.
If anyone called for this fellow while he was out I drew a circle around
the number so that he would know who had called. When he came back into the ops room I explained
that a couple of people had called for him.
I then said, while moving over to point at the sheet of phone numbers, that
I had ringed the numbers, at which point he stopped me. “No,” he said, in his most patronising
voice. “It’s not ringed, it’s called or
telephoned. You called these people or
you telephoned them.”
I had wanted to say that I had ringed, with a pen mark, the names and numbers of the people who had called for him. I immediately wished that I had said circled and not ringed
but even so, it certainly was not what I was expecting as he then went on to
explain that he considered it part of his duty to educate people like me. I was quite angry and waited for him to
finish. I smiled at him for I would have
spent six months inside had I really done what I wanted to. “Certain people telephoned, wishing to speak
to you while you were out. I ringed their
names and number with a felt pen on the desk so you can see who they were.” “Very good,” he said, probably thinking that
his determination to educate people like me was on course.
Apart from that one fellow I had an excellent working
relationship with everyone else on the squadron. The Boss had his own little air force mini
and we also had another mini for battle flight.
One of my duties was to look after these vehicles, to make sure they
were serviced regularly and full of fuel.
The Boss had a little blue name plate attached to the front bumper of
his mini. It was a little blue metal
plate, about six inches square, which said OC 92 SQN in bold white letters. When being used by someone other than J R,
the blue name plate had to be covered with a little canvas bag. Once, when he was away on leave, I had an
idea and cut the cobra and maple leaves out of one of the squadron zaps. I then placed it on the name plate and considered
it quite a work of art.
The red and yellow of the cobra and maple leaves really stood
out and I hoped J R would like it. It
would certainly make his mini stand out against all the others. J R telephoned ops and asked if I would come and
pick him up from his house. I uncovered
the name plate knowing that J R would be standing at the end of his drive and
hoped he would see and appreciate my little work of art. I zipped across the airfield and onto the
main drag. As I was speeding along I
noticed someone walking towards me and as I drew nearer saw that it was a Squadron
Leader from the education section.
Unfortunately he saw me, well; he saw the mini and the name
plate and thinking that a Wing Commander was driving, as the name plate was
uncovered, gave me one of the smartest salutes I had ever seen. I didn’t return his salute but did notice the
smile drain from his face as he realised it wasn’t J R but that fecking Irishman
from 92. J R was indeed waiting for me
at the end of his drive. “Budge over,”
he says, as J R liked to drive himself.
I got into the passenger seat and J R sets off for the squadron. “I like the badge,” he says. I hope he’s in a good and forgiving mood as I
say. “You might be getting a phone call from
a Squadron Leader educator Boss.” “Really,”
he says. “And why's that?” “I wanted you to see your new badge and left
the canvas cover off. The Squadron Leader
saluted me as I drove past him and when he saw it was me, and not you, he didn’t
look too happy. J R was smiling away and
happily puffing on his pipe. “So a Squadron
Leader’s been saluting you?” “Yes Boss,”
I admit. “Good,” says J R. “And so he should Paddy, so he should.”
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