Boy Entrant; The Recollections of a Royal Air Force Brat (36 page)

The British Railways train guard soon found out about the broken window and came to investigate. He was alone at first, but then went off and returned a little later with one of our officers and an NCO. Shortly thereafter, all three of them came along the corridor, stopping off at each compartment to ask if any of us had been in the compartment when the window had been broken, or if we knew who did it. Naturally, everyone denied having been there, or of knowing how it had happened. Shortly afterwards, the train made an unscheduled stop at a small station, where a more thorough investigation was held by the British Railway police. It seemed as though the culprit or culprits must have eventually owned up, because a few police constables were seen conversing earnestly with two ashen-faced downcast-looking youths, whilst taking down lengthy notes in their small notepads.

Meanwhile, a couple of British Railways workers boarded the train, carrying a large sheet of plywood, which they somehow fixed over the broken window. After more than an hour’s delay, we resumed our journey with the plywood patch in place and a much more subdued atmosphere aboard the train.

Late afternoon saw us finally arriving at Freshfield railway station, the nearest stop to our camp at Woodvale. It felt wonderful to finally be able to stretch my legs on the platform, after having travelled for somewhere around six hours. When the kitbags had been unloaded onto the platform, the train chuffed off to lick its boy entrant-inflicted wounds, leaving us standing there on the platform in a glorious blaze of summer sunshine.

For a while, the NCOs and officers milled around in a small group, talking amongst themselves, before ordering us to form up in ranks of three on the road immediately outside the station. We were then marched along a narrow road that ran parallel to the railway line, towards Woodvale. At first, the area around us appeared to be upper middle class residential, but as we marched along the road towards camp, the landscape opened out to take in the airfield to our front and wooded sand dunes on our left, on the far side of the railway line. After having marched for about a mile, we arrived at the tent encampment on a grassy area of the airfield between the main runway and the railway line. The tarmac road suddenly came to an end, but continued on as a dirt track across the grass and through a gateway in the fence bordering the airfield. We stumbled along this track for a few yards, after entering through the gateway, until we came to tarmac again when we reached the western taxiway or peri-track—short for perimeter track—that ran through the centre of the small tent city. All around us were neat rows of small olive-coloured ridge tents, interspersed here and there by larger mid-brown marquees. This was to be our home for the next two weeks and it certainly looked as though it was going to be a lot more fun than going to workshops every day.

Our column was brought to a halt somewhere in the middle of the encampment and we were immediately given our tent assignments, six people to a tent.

“Pick up a safari bed from the pile here, then take it and drop it in your tent along with your kit. When you’ve done that, come to the mess tent and we’ll get you something to eat,” announced our corporal, before dismissing us.

I grabbed one of the olive-coloured canvas bundles that the corporal had indicated. It was about three feet long, six inches in diameter and felt as though there were rods of some kind wrapped inside the canvas. Actually, the ends of four steel rods poked out at an angle for about eight inches from the top and bottom of the bundle and I could feel some shorter rods hidden inside. Clutching our beds and small-packs, we stumbled around looking for the tents to which we’d been assigned. I eventually found mine and threw my stuff on a spot at one end of the tent, essentially staking my claim to that particular bed-space. The tent measured 14 feet by 14 feet and each safari bed, when assembled, was approximately 30 inches wide and 6 feet long, so there wasn’t a lot of room to spare in the confined area. Headroom in the tent was 7 feet, which meant that we could at least stand upright.

I made my way back to the mess tent marquee, where the messing arrangements were considerably different from those that we were accustomed to back at Saints. A field kitchen had been set up next to the marquee, where the cooks sweated over wood-fired stoves as they busily cooked an evening meal for our hungry mob of teenage boys. The mess tent itself contained several rows of collapsible wooden tables and chairs set out on the grass “floor”. Before long, we were sitting at those very same tables, tucking into a meal that was a lot tastier than anything we’d experienced in the St. Athan mess.

After having finished eating, I extricated my kitbag from the huge pile of similar bags that had been dumped near the mess tent and somehow get settled into my new accommodation. I knew that I needed to familiarize myself with some small but important details, such as the location of the latrines and ablutions—the area where we washed—but first I needed to assemble my safari bed. Untying the tapes that held the canvas bundle together revealed a collection of metal rods, some of which were sewn into the canvas of the bed and others which were free. The rods held captive by the canvas incorporated a number of sockets into which other rods, both captive and free, needed to be inserted for full assembly of the bed. It was as taxing as a very simple jigsaw puzzle and before long I was testing my fully assembled safari bed, which proved to be comfortable and very lightweight.

Comfortable as they were, the beds had a notorious reputation for being very unstable and were prone to tipping an unwary occupant unceremoniously onto the ground at the slightest provocation. I’d heard about this from some of the senior entry boys who had been to summer camp the previous year, so I decided to see for myself. They were right! The mere act of just lying down on the bed was comparable to getting into a small boat. The secret of maintaining stability was to initially place one’s bum on or as close to the exact middle of bed as possible. Too much to one side and you were tipped out sideways. Likewise, plunking yourself down too near to either end caused the bed to behave like a seesaw, with the seated end swiftly depositing the sitter on the ground and the other end rising high in the air. Getting into bed at night was an acquired skill and even then, as we all soon discovered, managing to do that successfully didn’t guarantee immunity from being tipped out later if an occupant suddenly shifted his weight without being careful to do it gently. Learning to sleep in one of these beds was much like a sailor having to gain his sea legs, but after a few nights we all got the hang of it—most of the time, anyway.

The long journey from St. Athan to Woodvale and then the business of getting settled into the new accommodation had taken a heavy toll on our energy. It had been a long day and most of us were glad to turn in for the night by the time “Lights Out” was sounded. It was still daylight because we were getting near to mid-summer, which was just as well, since there was no lighting in the tents. That first night was a new but not unpleasant experience, if I ignore the number of times that I found myself dumped on the floor because of the safari bed’s instability. (We didn’t need senior entry raiding parties at Woodvale, because the beds came with their own built-in self-tipping feature.) I dozed off with the sweet aroma of grass and fresh air in my nostrils, but also feeling slightly claustrophobic due to the close confinement of the tent. Occasionally, there was a brief rattle and whoosh of air as an electric train sped past on the railway line not more than a hundred yards away from where I lay. But these things didn’t prey on my mind for too long—I was asleep within a few minutes.

At 0630 hours next morning, I awakened from my slumbers to the sound of “Reveille” being played on a trumpet. That came as a surprise in the grogginess of my sleep-filled mind, but I soon remembered that there was no Tannoy system in our primitive environment and that it fell to us trumpeters to play “Reveille” in the morning and “Lights Out” last thing at night. Fortunately for me, I wasn’t “duty trumpeter” on that first morning, but my turn would come around more than once during our summer camp.

I had been doing quite a bit of trumpet-playing practice and, even if I say so myself, had become reasonably proficient—if not quite up to Corporal Trumpeter standards—by the time we set out for summer camp. But this morning all I had to do was get up, get washed and be ready for parade at 8:30 to find out what the day had in store for us at this RAF version of Butlin’s Holiday Camp.

I fell out of bed (getting out gracefully would take a few more days’ practice) and grabbed my towel and toiletries before heading for the latrines and ablutions. The latrines took some getting used to. The urinal was just a trench dug in the ground hidden behind a canvas screen. I wondered what it would be like if I had to go during the night. The thought of missing my footing in the dark and stumbling into the trench didn’t seem very appealing—yugh! By contrast, going for a “number two” meant using one of the chemical toilets—the “thunder buckets”—that sat in a row in a nearby marquee. There wasn’t much privacy in there and the smell was enough to make anyone gag. Definitely not the place I wanted to sit around in to catch up on my reading!

The ablutions turned out to be a row of open-air washbasins, with cold water supplied by the operation of a hand pump. I washed my face, neck, ears and hands and brushed my teeth, but didn’t need to shave—at sixteen, I only needed to shave off the little bit of bum-fluff that sprouted along my upper lip about once every three or four weeks. Back in the tent, I donned the dress of the day: P.E. shirt and shorts under denims and my webbing belt clipped around my waist. My plimsolls and beret completed the outfit, as I headed off to the mess tent for breakfast.

In the breakfast queue, I shuffled along over a trail of bruised, trampled grass, finally getting to the place where the plates were stacked. I picked up the top plate and held it out towards the boy entrants in kitchen whites who were serving out the food. One of the kitchen staff was frying eggs on a hotplate that formed part of the servery. I asked him if he could splash some hot fat over the top of my egg—I didn’t like the clear jelly stuff on top and always scraped it off my egg at the St. Athan mess—and he cheerfully obliged. There was no choice at St. Athan: the eggs were fried somewhere in the cavernous recesses of the kitchen and brought out to the servery on a tray. There was little other option there than to point to an egg that appeared to have less clear albumen on top than the others, in the hope that the server would feel charitable enough to scoop up the indicated egg and deposit it on your plate. Here at summer camp, it was a different matter: we were being positively pampered. I passed along the line of servers, getting my plate loaded with streaky bacon, canned plum tomatoes and fried bread, then moved on to the cereal. After putting a ladleful of cornflakes into a cereal bowl, I headed for the milk urn that stood by itself on a table near the entrance to the mess tent. That was a mistake. Halfway there, a gust of wind blew up and took most of the cornflakes out of my bowl. There was nothing I could do about saving them because my other hand held a plateful of cooked breakfast, so I turned around and went back to the large carton of cornflakes and filled my bowl again. This time I put the cereal bowl under my other plate to shield it from the wind. That seemed to work, but by the time I was finally able to sit down and eat, I discovered that the cooked breakfast had become stone cold. Such were the joys of open air breakfasting on that first morning, but experience is a great teacher and I had at least learned how to prevent my cornflakes from becoming airborne.

At 0830 hours we were directed by a corporal boy to form up in threes, by entry number, on an open grassy area in front of our tents. After the usual right dress, we were stood at ease and then “stand easy” to await further information on whatever morning activities we would be undertaking. During the short time that we had been on parade, I had noticed a small group of RAF Regiment sergeants—the famous Rock Apes—standing nearby. Therefore, it came as no great surprise to discover that we would be under their supervision for most of our daily “adventures”. The Rock Ape NCO huddle broke up when all of the “entry” flights had been given the “stand easy” and each NCO headed towards his assigned flight of boys. One of them inevitably approached our flight and stopped in front of us with a friendly grin on his face.

“Good morning!” He bellowed.

Hardly anyone responded and those who did only managed a very tame “Good morning, sergeant”.

The grin vanished. “When I say ‘good morning,’ I mean ‘good morning!’ he roared. “Now let’s hear it again and this time put some bloody life into it! Good morning!”

That was about as far as he got before his voice was suddenly drowned out by the gravelly growl of an aircraft engine being given full throttle, somewhere off to our left. All heads swivelled to look in the direction of the sound, just in time to see a Spitfire start its take-off roll from the end of the runway that passed across our front. The fierce growl got louder and increased in pitch as the aircraft came closer to our position. It lifted off the runway, just before reaching the point that would bring it directly in front of us, the undercarriage retracting even as the wheels seemed to have just barely left the ground. When it drew level with us, we caught the full impact of the naked sound waves that were being thrown off by the propeller-blade tips: a sound so powerful that it vibrated our teeth, our bodies and even the very ground beneath our feet. A swirl of condensed vapour whipped backwards from the spinning propeller as it clawed greedily at the moist morning air, pulling the fighter forwards and upwards in a shallow climb. Then, after passing in front of us, the spine-tingling sound of the powerful Merlin engine became steadily lower in pitch and more throbbing. As its growl grew fainter with distance, I thought I could even make out the crackle of exhaust from each of the individual twelve cylinders. We watched it, heads now turned to our right, as the Spitfire grew smaller and smaller until it became nothing more than a small speck against the sky, but the low throaty beat of its engine was still audible long after the plane itself had disappeared from view. The whole episode had started a buzz of excitement amongst us. Spontaneous comments like, “Wow, did you see that?” and “A SPITfire!” flew from many mouths, to no one in particular; we just needed to say something that paid homage to that mystical moment. But the sergeant didn’t let it go on for too long.