by Brian Carlin
“I’ve got something for you, Brian,” she said, almost as soon as we arrived at the house, then she disappeared somewhere into the rear of the house, returning a few moments later with an old newspaper. “Your photo’s in here,” she beamed, while ruffling through the pages to find the correct one. Finally, she found the photograph on one of the inside pages, folded the pages back on themselves so that the object of her attention was at the front, then deftly doubled the bottom half of paper up behind the top half before presenting it to me in a triumphant gesture. It was the group picture taken by the “Northern Whig” photographer on the day I’d set off with the other lads on our way to St. Athan. I had completely forgotten about it until she showed it to me.
“I saw it after you left for England,” she explained, “so I saved it for you.”
I had never had my picture in a newspaper before and it made me feel important to see it there now.
“You can keep it,” she added with a kind smile.
I thanked her and accepted it.
Whilst all of this was going on, Melvin was cleaning his shoes. He seemed to have some kind of fetish about cleaning them and we always had to wait ages for him to perform this personal chore that took only five minutes for most other people. We ragged him about it and his mother joined in. It was like a repeat performance of what had happened at my house earlier, but now I was on the winning side and that felt a whole lot better. Melvin just smiled, a little like Stan Laurel’s smile in the Laurel and Hardy films, but just kept on shining his gleaming black shoes. I silently wondered how long it would have taken him to bull his boots, had he been successful in joining the Boy Entrants. Maybe that would have cured him, but then again, maybe not.
Eventually, we managed to drag Melvin and his highly polished shoes out of the house. I said goodbye to Mrs. Jackson and thanked her again for the newspaper, then we headed back towards the centre of the town. On the way there, Melvin admired my uniform and remarked on the wheel badge.
“It means I’m a helicopter pilot,” I explained, as straight-faced as possible, repeating a corny old Boy Entrant line of bullshit.
“Naw,” he said. “Is it really? Are they training you to fly a helicopter?”
No longer able to remain deadpan, I grinned as I said yes. He laughed and then punched me playfully on the arm.
“Watch out for the uniform,” I shouted in mock horror and we jostled and fooled around during the mile walk back into Coleraine town centre.
I was getting plenty of looks and stares from passers-by and was particularly aware that girls of around my age were taking notice. In Barry there were so many of us wearing the same uniform that hardly anyone took any notice, but here it worked its magic and I felt like the fabled one-eyed man who was king in the country of the blind.
But, as much as I enjoyed the company of my friends, there seemed to be an undercurrent that disturbed me more than just a little. I felt that sometimes I was out of the loop when the other two frequently discussed experiences and people of which I knew nothing. It was understandable; after all I hadn’t been hanging around with them for the past three months, but these were my friends. John and I had grown up together and had known everything about each other since the time we first became best friends at around age 10. Now I had the feeling of being on the outside looking in, like a new kid at school listening and smiling and nodding along with everyone else when he really hasn’t a clue what the conversation is all about. Sometimes I would ask them questions in an attempt to fill in the background knowledge that I was missing. When this happened, they would stop and patiently explain, but then the flow was lost, the subject changed and I felt even more of an interloper.
But we still had fun. As day turned into evening, we ate fish and chips at Morelli’s. We could afford that now, at least John and I could—Melvin didn’t have a job yet. Later we hung around the main street and, with the sophistication of our advanced years, were actually able to engage some members of the opposite sex in conversation, although it was more about joking and smart-alecking with some girls. One of them grabbed my hat and ran off with it. She laughed and giggled as I chased after her, then screamed in mock terror when I caught up with her, and then we were in a corner a little way off from the others. There was some playful scuffling and awkward kissing, combined with a lot more giggling and “accidental” contact between body parts. It was typical teenage stuff, but that’s as far as it went. Sex education hadn’t been on the curriculum at St. Malachy’s Catholic school and in fact boys and girls were strictly segregated in two separate schools-within-a-school. So, my level of sophistication when it came to interacting with the opposite sex was close to zero. Looking back on it, I’m reminded of the old joke about the dog that chased cars. He could make lots of noise barking and running after them, but wouldn’t have known what to do if he had ever actually caught one. There was a lot of growing up to do and this was just the kindergarten level. Little did I realize that in just a few more days, the pace of my growth from boy to man would be given a slight boost of acceleration.
The next day was Christmas Eve and my sisters asked if I would take them to Midnight Mass. They were still too young to be out that late at night by themselves, but they would be allowed to go if I went with them. It was a good idea because the congregation at this service was usually more relaxed and cosmopolitan, many of them feeling quite mellow after the pubs had shut and not all were Catholics either. It was common knowledge that many Protestants attended the service to experience the “bells and smells” of a High Mass. Therefore, my exposure to the kind of embarrassing wall of silence I had experienced the previous Sunday, for wearing my uniform to church, would be considerably lessened at Midnight Mass. In the end, Annie decided to come too and so the four of us trudged through the lamp-lit streets to St. Malachy’s Church.
Midnight Mass had its own special air of excitement: the sung mass with its three celebrants instead of the usual one, the heavy smell of incense in the air and the joyful feeling of Christmas in everyone’s heart. When it was over, we made our way home to a darkened house and crept quietly to bed. Now we didn’t have to get up and go to church in the morning, but could stay at home and enjoy Christmas.
Christmas dinner wasn’t a grand affair, there wasn’t too much money to spend on luxuries, but we had a nice dinner of roast goose and Annie had baked a cake and made some mince pies. She may have had her faults, but she certainly knew how to cook and bake when the notion took her. Christmas presents were simple and inexpensive. I got an inexpensive watch from Annie, my first ever and that was about it. I gave my sisters and brother Thomas some money, which to them was better than getting a present, but expected nothing in return because they didn’t have the means of buying presents. Later, I went to see Aunt Maggie to wish her a Merry Christmas and took her a little gift. She received it gratefully as if it were something rare and expensive, which it was not. She gave me a pen and pencil set, which was a welcome gift.
Before long, the warmth of feelings around the family hearth seemed to evaporate like the morning mist, replaced by the old status quo. Once again, I became the frequent target of belittling criticism and the urge that prompted me to leave home in the first place surfaced strongly again—although I was in no rush to resume the disciplined life at St. Athan. The solution was to spend as little time as possible in the family home, so I either spent time out and about with my friends, or visited my many relatives in the Coleraine area. Eventually, on the second day of 1957, and with a great sense of relief, I set off on the return journey back to South Wales.
* * *
The boat to Liverpool was just as crowded on the way back as it had been coming over, but I was able to find Billy Cassidy and the others without any trouble. As before, all available seating in the passenger lounge was occupied, so we made our way down into the hold again and carved out a reasonably comfortable little area where we could possibly get some sleep.
Two regular RAF people in uniform were
also taking shelter in the hold, although they weren’t actually travelling together. One was an airman in his early twenties and the other was a member of the Women’s Royal Air Force, a WRAF. She was also in her twenties, slim, with slightly reddish blonde hair and attractive in a girl-next-door kind of a way. Both seemed to gravitate towards our small group from different directions and we all got talking together. Boy Entrants were something of a rarity to most members of the regular service, so they were curious about us and the meaning of our chequered hatbands and brass wheel badges. We, for our part, were curious about life in the regular service so everyone had lots of questions. But, because she was the only woman in our midst, the WRAF got most of the attention and, young though we were, we all tried to impress her and gain her attention. She responded to our juvenile adulation in an engaging flirty kind way, obviously enjoying it.
The sea was calm during this crossing and after two or maybe three hours the other boys and the regular airman gradually dropped out of our little discussion group as they started getting settled down for the night. I was the last one left talking to Sandra, the WRAF girl (by this time we were on first name terms), but in the process had managed to clear a little area on the floor and had laid my kitbag down as a pillow and then used my heavy greatcoat as a blanket. Sandra seemed to be travelling light and had little protection from the cold night air, other than the thin uniform she wore, so I offered her my greatcoat to keep her warm.
“Thanks,” she said, “but why don’t we share it?”
“Okay,” I agreed, wondering exactly what she had in mind.
I soon found out when she came over to where I lay and then lay down alongside me, pulled half of the coat across her body and snuggled up close to me. Her nearness and warmth had an electrifying effect on me, but also made me feel tense and unsure of how to position my body. We could both see that other passengers in the hold were watching us intently under the bright floodlights that illuminated the hold.
“Try to keep the coat down over me,” Sandra said, “I don’t want anyone seeing up my skirt.” Then she added, “And I haven’t anything on under my shirt!”
I had no difficulty understanding the first part of her statement, but the second thing about wearing nothing under her shirt had me puzzled. “What do you mean you’ve got nothing on under your shirt?” I asked.
She didn’t answer, but instead took my hand and placed it on her breast. She had unbuttoned her tunic, so I could feel the soft yielding flesh through the thin fabric of her shirt.
“Shhhh,” she whispered in my ear, “I’m not wearing a bra.”
My hormones, which by this time were already wide-awake, now thundered into a full-scale stampede. My pulse raced, my throat went dry and my head throbbed as I gently caressed the tender softness, feeling the small hard lump of her nipple pressing into the palm of my trembling hand.
She reached up and gently took the hand away again. “You’re too young for that,” she laughingly hissed into my ear.
“I’m not,” I protested, “I’ve been out with girls!”
“Can you kiss?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said defensively and planted a closed-mouth tight-lipped kiss on her mouth. She quickly broke away and quietly giggled.
“That’s not how to do it,” she said. “You need to keep your lips open like this,” she demonstrated by slightly parting her lips.
“Okay, let me try again,” I said, very eager to learn as I moved my now parted lips towards her. She met them with her warm moist mouth and our lips crushed together. My head suddenly seemed to be filled with lightning flashes and ringing noises sounded in my ears. Never in my life, up to that moment, had I experienced anything so sensually wonderful. But the best was yet to come—suddenly and unexpectedly I felt her tongue thrust itself into my mouth, increasing the pleasure of the kiss a thousand-fold. Then it was all over as she quickly pulled back.
“That’s enough,” she said, “you’re really far too young for this. Let’s just get some sleep.”
That was much easier said than done, as far as I was concerned, because sleep was the furthest thing from my mind right then. I moved my hand around to the front of her shirt again and found the softness that I had suddenly become hopelessly addicted to. But almost immediately, her hand came quickly up to grasp mine and firmly move it away to a neutral area, where she continued to hold on to it tightly. The passionate interlude was over and I could tell she really meant it, so I tried to relax and go to sleep as she suggested. We had been like that for another half hour or so when the regular airman suddenly approached us. He told Sandra that he’d got a much more comfortable place to sleep, which was away from the light and with cushions to lie on. He then suggested that she come and share it with him. To my dismay she agreed and saying only that she was sorry, went off with the airman.
It could be said that Sandra was merely toying with a young boy’s emotions for her own amusement—and I dare say there’s a lot of truth in that. But, whether she knew it or not, I learned more during that brief encounter than I could ever have learned in months of fumbling through the awkward teenage courtship rituals that had seemed so enjoyable only a few days prior to my encounter with Sandra underneath the greatcoat. That night, my transition from boy to man took a giant leap forward.
I never travelled by the Liverpool route again after that. The apparent absence of Wing boys during the crossings had puzzled me, but long before going on my next leave, I discovered the reason for that. It turned out that they all used the Heysham to Belfast ship, which was owned and operated by British Railways. The ships on the Heysham route were modern, much more comfortable and had better catering services than those that sailed from Liverpool. There was also the added advantage that the railway station at Heysham was right on the dockside, making it a matter of simply getting off the train and walking a short distance to where the gangplank led onto the ship. So, even though Heysham was a little farther north than Liverpool, the slightly longer rail trip was well worthwhile.
* * *
On the first day after returning from leave, we were instructed not to unpack the bulk of our kit, since we were going to be moving from the ITS lines to the Wing lines on the following day. Other than giving us that instruction, the DIs mostly left us alone during our final day in the Initial Training Squadron. In fact, Corporal Hillcrest seemed to have disappeared altogether.
That evening Corporal Blandford came into our billet to wish us good luck for the future. He’d been drinking. Not heavily, but just enough for him to be much less inhibited than usual. His tunic was unbuttoned and he wore his hat on the back of his head as he sidled into our billet in a very relaxed manner. We all gathered around to talk to him because, even though he represented discipline in our lives, he was a very likeable person who had always treated us fairly. For a while, he entertained us with anecdotes from his years of service and commented on some of the funnier things that had happened during our time in ITS. When Potter’s name came up, Blandford rolled his eyes and remarked that there was always one like him in every entry. We just lapped it all up. Then the topic of conversation changed to his views on the other drill instructors. When someone mentioned Corporal Hillcrest, Blandford confided that none of the other DIs liked him.
“What are you going to do about him?” He asked, as his voice dropped to a more conspiratorial tone.
We all looked at each other dumbly. Not one of us had thought much about doing anything.
“If it was me,” said Blandford, “I wouldn’t let that little bastard get away with all the things he did to you.”
Somebody asked, “What do you think we should do Corp?”
Corporal Blandford didn’t answer, but instead looked around and stared pointedly at the row of four fire extinguishers that stood in the entrance to the billet. Two were painted red indicating that they were soda-acid extinguishers and two were painted a cream colour to signify that, when activated, they discharged a fountain of thick foam for exti
nguishing oil or grease fires. Then he looked back at us, arched his eyebrows in a theatrical way and said, “Well, that’s up to you boys now, isn’t it? I couldn’t encourage you to do anything unpleasant against a brother NCO, now could I?” With that he smiled, said goodnight and good luck and then left the billet.
We called out, “Bye Corp,” as he disappeared into the darkness of the night. Then we stood around for a little while thinking and talking about what he had said, before somebody had the idea of going to check if Hillcrest was in his bunk. One or two people went around on the outside of the billets to see if his light was on, coming back a few minutes later with the news that his bunk was in complete darkness. On hearing that announcement, four boys grabbed an extinguisher each and, with several of us accompanying them, set out once again around the outside of the billets. Sure enough, the bunk window was in darkness.
“The window’s locked, what are we going to do now?” someone asked.
“Break the fuckin’ window! That’s what we’re going to do,” another voice answered.
With that, there was the tinkling sound of breaking glass. Next came a wooshing sound as the contents of both soda-acid extinguishers were released into the bunk through its broken window pane. Then it was the foam extinguishers.
“Somebody’s coming!” a voice called out in a loud whisper.
In a panic, the person holding the last foam extinguisher heaved the whole thing through the hole in the window, while it was still disgorging its foam, and we all pounded away across the grass towards our billet, under cover of darkness. When we got inside there were great sighs of relief and laughter and joy that we’d finally taken a little revenge on someone who had quite deliberately made our lives much more miserable than was really necessary. We moved to the Wings the very next day and never heard a single thing about the incident after that.