Boy Entrant; The Recollections of a Royal Air Force Brat (58 page)

A dilapidated storehouse building provided a backdrop behind the opposing platform, although both were separated by an open area of weed-infested ground, blackened by coal dust that had been deposited there over the years. Far from the bull we had been expecting, this camp certainly didn’t seem to measure up to the exalted reputation of the Royal Air Force College Cranwell. It was puzzling—to the extent that we began asking ourselves if perhaps there was some other Cranwell that we had been sent to by mistake. There was no mistake—we were definitely in the right place. But there were good grounds for our doubts because, as we were soon to discover, there really were two Cranwells. Both were in the same geographical location, yet one was worlds apart from the other.

We soon found ourselves at a counter, after having been directed through a doorway that opened off the passageway by a sign that bore the legend, “All Visitors Report Here”, or words to that effect. The SP who came to the other side of the counter seemed to be expecting us when we identified ourselves, because he checked our names off against a list on a clip-board that he stretched over and retrieved from a row of similar-looking clip-boards hanging on a row of hooks along one wall of the room. When we had signed in, he gave us directions to the barrack block and room where we were to be accommodated. He also suggested that we go there first, drop off our kitbags and then go to the bedding store to pick up an issue of blankets and sheets. Thanking him, we retraced our steps back to the roadway as directed and then walked a few hundred yards further along the road in the same direction in which the bus had disappeared several minutes previously, until we came to another road leading into the camp. Strangely, there were no gates. Anyone could have walked right into the camp without being challenged. We soon found the bedding store, which was housed in a small building that came up on our right. Noting its location, we passed it by on the suggestion of the SP and, rounding a bend in the road, were confronted by a row of six or so barrack blocks each built in the configuration of the letter “H”.

Not unexpectedly, the block we had been directed to was the very last one at the end of the row. As we walked along the road towards it, we noticed that all of the blocks were very old and were definitely of a pre-war vintage that had seen better days. They were also much larger than the neatly modern barrack blocks that we had seen, but failed to have been accommodated in, at Shawbury. We now also noticed the parade ground on our left. It had been hidden from our view by the storehouse building when we were at the Guardroom, because in fact the direction in which we were now walking had brought us around on the other side of the storehouse.

Eventually we reached the last barrack block in the row and entered it, to discover that the interior looked even worse than the exterior. It was a two-storey building incorporating eight barrack rooms in all, four upstairs and four downstairs. The barrack rooms formed the legs of the “H”, whilst the horizontal crossbar contained the toilets, ablutions and various other utility rooms. The barrack room to which we’d been assigned was on the ground floor and was accessed by descending a flight of three steel-edged concrete steps to reach its floor level, indicating that the land on which the block was built must have sloped to some degree. The room was wide and cavernous, as were all the other barrack rooms in the block, seemingly designed to each house somewhere between 80 and 100 men. Right now, however, it contained 20 beds all crammed up near the entrance. A row of tall wooden lockers had been arrayed across the room, at the approximate halfway point, in such a way as to form a wall that cut off the unoccupied area. All but half a dozen of the beds were made up, signifying they were taken, so we picked the best two we could find from those remaining and dumped our kitbags on the bare mattresses before retracing our steps to the bedding store.

A little later we were making the long trek back in the opposite direction, this time peering over a pile of blankets, bed linen and pillows, as we headed back to get settled into our new home. It was while we were making up our beds that the corporal in charge of the billet put in an appearance.

“Hello-hello, who have we here then?” He remarked good-naturedly. “You must be Butterworth and Carlin. We’ve been expecting you.”

He then introduced himself as Corporal Dillon and explained that this particular barrack room was reserved exclusively for under age ex-Boy Entrants. He went on to tell us that he was also an ex-Boy Entrant, although obviously not under age, and that he’d been selected as the corporal in charge of the billet for that very reason.

As the afternoon wore on, several other inhabitants of the barrack room, all of them under age ex-29th Entry members, showed up in dribs and drabs. Richard and I introduced ourselves and were repeatedly obliged to explain that we had been posted to Shawbury from St. Athan before being redirected to Cranwell because of our young age. Everyone commiserated with us on the stroke of misfortune that brought us to “Cranners”, which didn’t do much to make us feel any happier to be there. Most of them seemed to be radio or radar types from Yatesbury but at least five, Rowse, Simpson, Pyle, Melloy and May, were Airframe Mechanics from 1 Wing, St. Athan. All of us, it seemed, were doomed to live in this barrack room until we reached our 18th birthday, which for me was a long ten months away. So much for passing out into the men’s air force.

We went to the airmen’s mess for dinner with some of our new billet mates and listened as they explained the Cranwell camp layout. The first thing we learned was that there were two camps. We were billeted in dilapidated East Camp, which accommodated the Station’s “other-ranks” support staff. By contrast, the officer cadets were accommodated at posh West Camp, which also contained Station Headquarters and Sick Quarters, as well as the Flight Operations area that included the aircraft servicing hangars. The road that we’d travelled by bus through Cranwell village to the Guardroom continued on past West Camp, which was on the left, before meeting up with the main Sleaford to Grantham road. The palatial-looking Cranwell College building was on the right side of this road, situated directly opposite West Camp. Airmen (the collective term for non-commissioned, non-NCO members of the RAF) were forbidden to fraternise with the officer cadets and were strongly discouraged from having any interaction with them, other than in the normal course of duty. For the cadets, this was the equivalent of the training that we had just completed as Boy Entrants, but at a much higher level. And they were treated with much greater respect than had been accorded us. Cadets wore officer-style uniforms but were easily identified by the white band worn around their hats, or the white disc worn behind the officer cap badge on their berets. They were addressed individually as “Sir” and collectively as “Gentlemen” by their drill instructors. Imagine that!

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Next morning, we made the long trek to Station Headquarters on West Camp so that we could begin our Arrivals procedure. We were becoming quite the experts at this process by now, this being the fourth time we had either cleared from or arrived at a station within the short space of four weeks. Then, after returning our completed Arrival cards to the Station Orderly Room, we reported for duty to the E&I Section in Hangar 30.

The E&I Section was housed in two separate physical locations—the Instrument “bashers” inhabited the servicing bay that opened off the hangar on the west side of the north fire-door hangar entrance, whilst electricians occupied the servicing bay that opened off the east wall. We actually had to report to the Instrument Section because that’s where the E&I Section office was located. There, we met Flight Sergeant Walker, the senior NCO in charge of the Electrical Flight. “Chiefy” Walker seemed a pleasant sort of man, burly of build and sporting a neatly clipped black moustache that completely covered his upper lip. He wore an aircrew brevet on his left breast, as did so many of the “command” senior NCOs of that era. It might have been a Flight Engineer’s brevet, but time has dimmed my recollection of its exact designation.

Chiefy led us to the Electrical Flight, where he assigned Richard to the Aircraft Component Test Bay under the supervision of Les, a Junior Technician, whilst I was assigned to the Component Stripping and Servicing Bay in the room next door. My job was to dismantle aircraft electrical components—such as generators and voltage regulators—service and clean them and then pass them through a hatch in the wall, to be tested in the Test Bay. Technically, I was also under Les’ supervision, but in fact I worked more closely with a Senior Aircraftsman (SAC) who had almost completed his two-year stint of National Service. And it was from this individual that I learned most of what I needed to do. The room in which I worked also served as the “crew room” for the electrical mechanics and fitters who worked on the aircraft in the hangar. They were supervised by a sergeant and three corporals. Listening to their banter and chumminess made me feel that I wanted to be a part of the team, working with them out in the hangar, but what became increasingly clear to me was that neither Butterworth nor I were going to be allowed anywhere near an aircraft until we at least reached our eighteenth birthday.

In September, six months after having passed out from St. Athan, we began visiting the Station Library every day to read the latest Personnel Occurrence Report (PORs). This was a daily list of the official promotions in rank and other significant occurrences for Cranwell-based personnel. The occurrence, whatever its nature, was effective only when it was published in PORs. We were anxiously anticipating our automatic promotion to Senior Aircraftsman so that we could start wearing our new badges of rank and, more importantly, receive the pay increase that went with it. Both promotions appeared a few days late by our estimate, but we soon forgot that on our way to the clothing store. There, citing the appropriate POR number as the authority, we requested the SAC badges so that we could replace the LAC badges that only six months previously had made us feel so proud.

In February of 1959 I once again started making daily pilgrimages to the Station Library to check PORs. This time I went alone, because of the three months’ difference between my age and that of Richard. Having now reached my eighteenth birthday, I needed the official POR acknowledgement of my transition to the Regular Service before I could move out of the Boy Entrant barrack room and into the E&I Section barrack block.

When it finally appeared, Richard helped me to move my kit to the new accommodation. It was like moving from a Victorian dungeon to a modern luxury hotel because, although the E&I barrack block was identical to the Boy Entrant block on the outside, it had been completely modernized inside. The cavernous barrack rooms had been divided into several comfortable smaller rooms, each housing no more than five men. I felt sad that Richard had to stay behind in the Boy Entrant billet for another three months, but there was nothing to be done except commiserate with him, knowing that he too would make the transition in just three more months.

And so it was, that with very little ceremony, I finally made the official transition from Boy Entrant to Regular Airman—from boyhood to manhood.

EPILOGUE

For many years after passing out of Boy Entrant training, I made a conscious effort not to advertise the fact that I had been a “Brat”. There were two reasons for this.

For one thing, my 18 month-long stay at St. Athan as a Boy Entrant had been anything but pleasant in the overall view and I would have preferred just to have forgotten all about it. Passing out and into the regular service was an enormous relief, even if fully-fledged official manhood took another few months to catch up with me.

The other reason can be summed up in the word “Brat.” In general, the regular Royal Air Force did not welcome us with open arms. Instead, other servicemen most often referred to us scornfully as “brats” and sometimes, albeit less frequently, as “Trenchard’s bastards”. This reaction was probably due to the cocky attitude we had developed as a survival tool, during our eighteen-month long struggle to stay afloat in the world of Boy Entrants. The mistake was bringing it along with us into our new life, but we weren’t to know any better.

After a “normalizing” period of several months, it seemed obvious that being an ex-Boy was not a helpful attribute when it came to integrating with other servicemen. So I consciously refrained from volunteering that information about my background and I suspect that most other ex-Boys did likewise.

It wasn’t until many years later that I was mature enough to realize what a valuable contribution Boy Entrant training had made to the shaping of my life. Not that it was the be-all and end-all of everything, because it took me several more years to develop character and maturity, but it most certainly was the foundation. Nowadays, I fully believe that entering Boy Entrant service at the tender age of 15 was the most important step in my life. I also believe that many other former Boy Entrants would agree that this also holds true for them.

What qualities did we graduate with, that perhaps weren’t there when we first joined?

Being thrust out into an unforgiving world at the age of 15 years certainly had an impact. Although the RAF took on the parents’ role for our care, well-being and discipline, we quickly learned that there were no emotional strings attached. We had no one to turn to when the going got tough, therefore a sense of independence and self-reliance took root at an earlier age than may have happened had we remained at home with our families.

The fact that most of us stuck it out for the full eighteen months points to the spirit of endurance with which most Boy Entrants were imbued, although it has to be admitted that not everyone stayed. For the majority of those who continued on to the conclusion of Boy Entrants’ training, self-respect was earned in passing out with the skills of a trade at our fingertips. This was something valuable that we had earned through our own hard work and endurance. Regardless of our origins, we knew that henceforth, we had the means to earn our own living.