R.A.F. 1953 to 1955. By Geoffrey Adams Geoffrey Adams © 2006 www.wabbrown.co.uk/ Geoffrey Adams 1 R.A.F. 1953 to 1955. CHAPTER ONE Joy was her name and she certainly lived up to it that evening, being quite unconfined. When she finally made her way home to Married Quarters, she left, much to our delight, an exciting imprint of her bare bottom on the red plastic bar stool seat. Married to an older Flying Officer, she seemed rather to enjoy the company of us young National Service officers. As in all the recently built radar stations, the bar in the Officers' Mess of R.A.F. Seaton Snook, where I was to spend the last year of my service, had a pre- fabricated air to it. Two fluorescent tubes, only partially hidden by a hardboard frieze, cast a hard, bright glare that did little to add to the atmosphere. The few bottles that stood on the glass shelves behind the steward's back were reflected in the mirror that covered that entire wall, as were our own youthful, red-cheeked, grinning faces. Leaving the smoky bar and pretty much the worse for wear on Merrydown cider – the cheapest way to get spifflicated – we finally staggered off to our separate, sparsely furnished, rooms. I lost my balance several times as I undressed and when I finally pulled on my striped Wincyette pyjamas and clambered onto the thin mattress and slipped between the cold sheets, the way the bed looped the loop, as I tried to keep my eyes focussed on the ceiling, reminded me of my very short flying career in the Royal Air Force. My National Service had begun a year before. Going straight from school, after a fortnight's gliding course at R.A.F. Detling in Kent, I'd become Geoffrey Adams 2 R.A.F. 1953 to 1955. 2590671 Aircraftsman 2nd Class (AC2) Adams. Prior to my call-up, I'd been graded A1 at my medical and passed an aptitude test at Adastral House in Kingsway, London and been considered worth training to become a pilot. The powers-that-be soon realised that two years was insufficient time to train a pilot from scratch to the necessary standard to become operational and ready for squadron service. However, along with a few hundred other young men, I was fortunate that there was this brief window of opportunity and I was more than happy to grab the chance it offered. After passing through R.A.F. Cardington so quickly that my feet hardly touched the ground, within a fortnight I was posted to Number One Initial Training School at R.A.F. Kirton-in-Lindsey in North Lincolnshire, as an Officer Cadet. Only six or seven miles south of Scunthorpe, the landscape surrounding the station was pretty bleak. In our four months there we were to be changed from civilians into fully trained R.A.F. personnel, before we continued on to a Flying Training School. Our time at Kirton was perhaps less rigorous than it would have been at a normal square-bashing camp, but nonetheless the discipline was strict. We had to keep a daily diary intended, and I quote, to train Cadets in: a) The power of observation. b) The power of expression. c) The habit of orderliness. I have that diary still. Here is the entry for the day I arrived: Tuesday 20th October 1953 This day I arrived at Kirton-in-Lindsey. The bus got in at about 12.00 Hrs in thick fog. The first impression was one of desolation. The atmosphere in the bus had been very cheerful thro'out the journey, although as we neared the Station there was an appreciable tension in the air. I naturally felt a little apprehensive about the future; but I think I also felt a little relieved – for at last I was going to stay somewhere, which, for me, had some slight permanency. We had lunch as soon as we arrived, in the pleasantly decorated mess. The stories we heard from the outgoing cadets, if their word was to be taken, promised us an extremely varied and full programme! The evening was Geoffrey Adams 3 R.A.F. 1953 to 1955. spent in one of the huge hangers – filling in forms. I informed the Royal Air Force, at least nine times, of the name of my next of kin! The rest of the evening was spent in preparing for a full kit inspection on the morrow. Retired to bed at 23.00, with plenty to think about. Whilst a straight re-print of the entire diary would become exceedingly boring, it does allow me to get back inside the head of a young man, who had left boarding school at seventeen and a half and been thrown into service life. I was very naïve and unworldly and some of my comments, especially about Current Affairs, which we had to include along with our report of our own daily doings, are, when read today, rather embarrassing. However it does remind me of things long forgotten. As officer cadets we surrendered our airman's webbing kit – heavy packs, festooned with webbing and buckles, and were given white tabs to sew onto our collars and a white band to go round our peaked hats. A diary note at the end of my diary, just prior to the Passing Out Parade, notes: My SD (Service Dress) hat is a bit wobbly and inclined to shake and slip when I do arms drill. I hope it doesn't fall off at the parade – 'cos I'm in a rather conspicuous position. That may have been because my surname began with A or perhaps because, being 6' 2”, I always ended up at the right hand front pole position, when the drill sergeant shouted: “Tallest on the right, shortest on the left!” We were at Initial Training School to be inculcated into R.A.F. routine both on the parade ground and in the classrooms, where we were taught regular, school-type subjects. Ten days into the course, I noted: Maths: Arithmetic finished; onto Trig. No Physics yet. English: Done filing systems and onto various different types of Service letters. General Duties: Progressing through R.A.F Organisations. GCT: Done weapons cleaning and had a lecture. I remember the Service letters. There were Official letters, Demi-Official letters and others, called Informal letters, but most ended: 'I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant.' Very Civil Service! Geoffrey Adams 4 R.A.F. 1953 to 1955. In G.C.T, Ground Combat Training, we were instructed in the use of the rifle, Bren and Sten guns and the mortar. To add to the excitement, we had Initiative Tests periodically throughout the course and played games – hockey, football and rugby. It really was very like school. Living at a time when World War Two had only finished some eight years before, and with the legacy of Baden Powell, all public schools had a Combined Cadet Force (C.C.F.) and at Charterhouse I had become familiar with drill routines, how to handle a rifle and had been on day exercises that involved map reading and the use of a compass. I, and several others, thus came to service life with a basic understanding of much that must have been quite new to many of those entrants who had been educated in the state sector. Our day started early. Many of my diary entries note: Rose at 06.00. Usually followed by the words: to prepare for inspection. Parades were at 08.30 and woe betide the recruit who fainted because he'd missed breakfast. Fainting on parade was a chargeable offence and might well have resulted in extra guard duties or even the loss of a 48 hour pass. I fainted once. One moment I was standing there, the next I felt a whack on my head as I hit the ground. “Take that man off parade”, came the cry from the officer and the two cadets either side of me jerked me to my feet and, with an arm each under mine, they half carried and half dragged me to the grass at the edge of the parade ground, where I sat on a low wall with my head between my legs. I got off that time, swearing I'd had breakfast – which I hadn't. I didn't make that mistake again. The most enjoyable parade of the week was Pay Parade. Each section lined up in one of the hangers. The Accounts Officer sat at a table, with a book and open cash box. As your name was called you jumped to attention, screamed out: “2590671 Officer Cadet Adams – SIR!” and then marched smartly forward to the table. Staring at the wall above his head, you threw up a dramatic salute (one was, after all, being watched by the Drill Sergeant, Section Commander and Flight Commander as well as all your chums) and waited for your pay to be pushed towards you. Picking it up you saluted again and about-turned back to your place. Thursday 22nd October The £1 note arrived just in time. Most of it seemed to disappear very Geoffrey Adams 5 R.A.F. 1953 to 1955. quickly, to purchase such articles as: cleaning equipment, academic materials and the like. But now purchased, I hope they will last for a while. With no extraordinary expenditure, I find that my pay is barely adequate – but adequate. It is the extra items that tend to upset my budget.