It’s Pull To Go Up A Pilots Tale Charles Jeffrey Gray DFM,LH It’s Pull To Go Up Charles Jeffrey Gray DFM,LH ISBN 978-0-473-38526-2 Reverse of Cover Photograph FOREWORD I am indebted to an unknown and waggish colleague for my book title. When I left the 'Blue Funnel Line’1 to go to the Middle East, he hung a notice on the control column of the V.C. 10 simulator. "Jeff", it said, "it's pull to go up and push to go down". I am also indebted to my typist. I set out to write about aviation and flying training and my wife undertook the typing. In setting the scene, Mrs. Garden got included. My wife liked that. Mrs. Garden brought others in her train and so, changed the whole nature of the thing. Aviation today, is propelled forward, not so much by its history and the hard won lessons of the past, as by modern technology and it the first to benefit by the fallout from space exploration. It remains, however, a long hard pull for its participants and, while we still rely on airflow over the wings to stay airborne, many of its basic truths will remain. The same also was true of Mrs. Garden's beliefs and, in the end, her views carried the day although for a time it was a close run thing. Jeff Gray 1982-1983 1 A colloquial name for BOAC used within the company CC BY-NC 3.0 NZ It’s Pull To Go Up Page !1 PUBLISHERS NOTE When my father died in 2016 I had little knowledge of his early life nor his wartime experiences as, in common with many others, he had been reluctant to speak of them. Going through his papers I found a tatty file labeled ‘It’s Pull To Go Up’ that contained several hundred typed pages, mostly ordered and several old exercise books with my fathers characteristic handwriting buried in a box in the wardrobe. It rapidly became apparent that he had written an auto biographical account of his career as a pilot and attempted to have it published in the conventional way. Reading through these papers I have found that there is so much that I didn’t know about him. I have found it a fascinating read and I hope you will too. I have ordered the papers as best I can and resolved some inconsistencies, otherwise the story is entirely his own. Robert Gray December 2016 CC BY-NC 3.0 NZ It’s Pull To Go Up Page !2 COPYRIGHT This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/3.0/nz/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http:// www.brockhurst.co.nz/its-pull-to-go-up CC BY-NC 3.0 NZ It’s Pull To Go Up Page !3 CONTENTS 1. ALL THINGS ARE BONNY 5 2. NEEDLE, BALL AND AIRSPEED 20 3. A QUIET TOUR 34 4. ROLL ON THE BOAT 48 5. THE LONG APPRENTICESHIP 63 6. THE HIRED HANDS 86 7. THE JET AGE 103 8. YE CANNA BE TOO CAREFUL! 110 9. IN THE LAND OF THE BLIND 124 10.THE NEXT SIX SUMMERS 149 11.THE WAY AHEAD 178 12.EPILOGUE 180 CC BY-NC 3.0 NZ It’s Pull To Go Up Page !4 ALL THINGS ARE BONNY 1. ALL THINGS ARE BONNY HENRY GRAY ON THE ‘TRICYCLE’ It was never my intention to become a pilot. It just so happened that it was a combined recruiting centre and the Army man was having his day off. The Air Force officer who interviewed me decided, for reasons of his own, to recruit me to his branch of the service and I was readily persuaded. It was a little more difficult for me to get a day off to attend. The Scottish Rural Workers, at that time, were not over blessed with holidays, nor holiday entitlement. I worked, however, for the best boss I ever had and, come to think of it, the best one since. Jake was farm grieve at Potts of Rayne and never forgot that he, like the rest of us, was an employee. So he treated us well and, in addition, was a marvellous bloke, hardworking, a great sense of humour, a real gent. As a result, he could drive us as hard as he liked and, led by Dod Perrie we flew on, striving always to be first in the district to finish each task. We felt we had a reputation to keep up and Jake turned a blind eye when we broke something, or a horse bolted, or, on one terrible occasion, we didn't hear the alarm and he had to call us. I don't think it is possible now, to convey the right impression of how serious life was then and how strict the conditions of employment. You were entitled to one days holiday a year, It’s Pull To Go Up Page !5 ALL THINGS ARE BONNY on New Years Day, the Scots always had a thing about that anyway and a further day at term time every six months. If you were continuing in the job, you were not expected to take the latter, only if you were moving on. In addition, you could ask for a day to attend the feeing market, the hiring fair of further south, if you had decided to move, or had not been asked to stay. The feeing markets have gone. They were held in places like Inverurie and Insch and Huntly. We farm servants dressed ourselves in our blue serge suits and bonnets and Sunday boots and there was no mistaking us as we congregated in the square or market place. The farmers, seeking labourers, walked about amongst us, equally recognisable for what they were, judging each one as they might have judged a Clydesdale horse or a fat bullock. I would not have been too surprised to be handled or prodded in the human equivalent of showing one's teeth. So it was likely that Jake had given me one of those days as I was old enough to join up. I had been too young for the Territorials and so had missed out on the free kilt and, of course, much too young for the militia men. They were the twenty-one year olds and had been the first to go. The Terriers had not been called, to my surprise, till later and then seemed to spend their time accommodated in various drill halls in the district. It was felt locally, that they might have been better employed at home, but then, authority knows best and, in fact, they were soon gone. Gone, as it happened, with the B.E.F.2 to France and not seen again till the survivors were freed from the cage at the end of the war. The Blitzkrieg released by the Germans, that fateful May in l940, swept through them like a scythe amongst corn. And so, when I was old enough, I went to join the Gordons. Today, we can't call them the Gay Gordons. It is no loss, the title never suited them, recruited as they were, largely from the North East, as gaiety is not a characteristic of the people. The harsh climate and the struggle for a living, is not productive of gaiety. Although not a family of any great traditions, as tradition and humble origins do not sit easily together, I had, nevertheless, absorbed something of the tradition of service from my surroundings. The house was full of photographs of men in uniform, in rather stiff, formal poses, generally kilted or wearing the ANZAC slouch hat and knee breeches, pictures which were well known to me in childhood, although the actual people were not. My Mother, now in her eighties, still has the pictures, but not now in evidence. They have discreetly disappeared. My Air Force friend described the army life and it seemed very akin to that which I was leading, short on creature comfort and long on hard graft. The RAF, on the other hand, slept between sheets. I could see that he had me assessed correctly. However when it came to selecting the particular branch of the service, we ran into our first difficulty. Although I had listened carefully to all he had to say about the many attractive slots they needed to fill, the RAF meant only one thing to me. Pilot. I don't think he had actually seen me as aircrew 2 British Expeditionary Force It’s Pull To Go Up Page !6 ALL THINGS ARE BONNY material up to this point, but it was the sticking point and, perhaps with a trace of reluctance, that is what he put down on the form. It was spoilt slightly for me as the category was Pilot/ Navigator, not separated out in any way, but linked together. In fact, it turned out later, that the navigator category was something of a pitfall, those good at Maths found the first word deleted. I was fairly secure there, maths were not my best subject. I remember too, there was a medical. I felt that I had nothing to fear. I had inherited the slight, but wiry, build of the Alexander’s, along with the prominent nose, and missed out on the stocky broad-backed figure of the Gray’s.