Greetings Noble Sir

by Nigel Flaxton

  Suddenly a furious figure pushed into the group, rounded on a bemused lad and yelled in a broad Scots accent,

  ‘We don’t want your sort ‘ere. You f******* well shut up, d’ye ‘ear, f****** big ‘ead?’

  He pushed away equally quickly and disappeared into the NCO’s room at the end of the hut. This was our first introduction to Sergeant Forsyth who was our NCO-in-charge.

  Everyone looked stunned. I stood up and said, ‘I think that was intended for me. I’ll go and put it right.’ I went to the Sergeant’s room, knocked and responded to his yell, ‘Come in.’

  ‘I think what you said in there was intended for me, Sergeant. Let me say I’ve no intention of being bigheaded. I’m both surprised and pleased to be posted to the course. The lads in there were just interested because I’ve been in the RAF longer than they have.’

  He gave me a thorough look from head to toe, turned away and muttered, ‘Yeah, well, we’ve never ‘ad anyone ‘cept from basic training. I don’t like it. Go on.’ By which he meant get out which I did. Outside I quietly shrugged my shoulders at my new companions and carried on making up my bed.

  Some time later, Sergeant Forsyth emerged from his den and stood facing down the hut and boomed, ‘By your beds.’ We obliged in the correct manner, standing to attention at the foot of our beds. He wandered up and down, giving a typical NCO’s introduction to new recruits which, translated, meant I’m the boss, you depend on me, I can make your life awful hell or marginally less awful hell; which it’s to be is up to you. As he strode out he dug me in the ribs and ordered, ‘You’re wanted at Station HQ. Get down there double quick.’

  I complied, wondering who wanted me there so soon. Once there it was apparent the Officer i/c Education Sergeants’ Course wanted me. In a remarkably small and narrow office he stated bluntly that Sergeant Forsyth had pointed out where I had come from, that such a posting must have been a mistake, that no one ever came to the course except direct from basic training and, furthermore, he would arrange for me to sent back to Brize Norton asap. Peremptorily dismissed, I pottered back to the hut where I explained that my stay was going to be cut very short and I would be returning whence I came.

  Part of me was sorry, part glad. The former grieved over loss of potential status, the latter pleased that I would not have to revert to the overbearing bull that is heaped on all recruits on all courses to keep them in their places. The new training ambience at BZ was tighter but not as bad as I guessed this course would be. C’est la vie, I thought.

  On parade next morning I was again ordered to the Course CO’s office. Farewell, three stripes, I thought. But I was wrong.

  ‘Flaxton,’ he said in carefully controlled tones, ‘I’ve been informed your posting came from the Air Ministry and therefore it cannot be rescinded. You have to carry on here. I suggest you don’t brag about your previous experience.’

  ‘Sir, I have no intention of bragging. Yesterday the other men in the billet were naturally interested to hear I’d been on an active airfield. I’d hoped to be posted here after basic training and in fact was promised....’

  ‘Alright, never mind your potted history. Just make sure you toe the line here.’

  I assured him I would and left his presence. I can’t remember ever seeing him again. Sergeant Forsyth didn’t appear very often either. Our entry was taken over by another Scot, physically twice his size. Corporal McBride was truly great in every sense and therefore highly popular. Shortly after I returned to the billet the men were invited to elect their Senior Man. I suppose they decided there was no contest. So I collected the job of marching the flight everywhere, a chore I knew well from ATC days and winning drill competitions in inter-squadron rivalries. Because the camp was small and sparsely populated I must have become a fairly familiar figure as our group marched all over it.

  So from having my records lost and almost becoming a non-person I moved to being the subject of an Air Ministry posting. My favourite Lincolnshire Group Captain must have carried weight somewhere. The guys that conceal it best are the nicest ones!

  The course was very enjoyable. The intake carried a fair depth of intelligence and good education, so discussions were stimulating and courteous. Much reminded me of College and the practice of teaching. Our targets were to be the cross section of men comprising the bulk of personnel on stations here and overseas which, increasingly, were National Servicemen. These would either have left school at fifteen, the new leaving age, and taken jobs for two years prior to call-up at seventeen, or if they were in the small minority that entered grammar and public school Sixth Forms, they joined up at eighteen. Either way they were teenagers. Given that National Service was fixed at two years from January 1st 1949. most would be demobbed still in their teens.

  On most RAF stations it was pretty obvious the Education Sergeant would be a National Serviceman, the Education Officer most likely a career man. However, as in the Country at large, education was certainly not the key concern it is to-day. From the government’s point of view the education that mattered was that of the small percentage who went to public schools, plus good grammar schools (yes, there was a hierarchy) and on to decent universities, i.e. Oxbridge and the second level of well established redbrick, led by London. From this small section the higher echelons of the Civil Service were populated and members of the government drawn. In the late forties some notable exceptions made it to ministerial level, notably Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary, who left school aged nine in 1890, but he was a rarity.

  So education was not in the mainstream of activites in the RAF. That was reflected in the comparatively low key ambience of RAF Wellesborne Mountford at the time. On a website to-day its history records its vital wartime activity, then mentions it being home to the School of Photography from 1948. This was where WAAFs were trained as we were well aware. The history then records it being home to the School of Education from 1950 to 1952. In 1949 the courses such as ours weren’t dignified by being in such an organisation, but perhaps they were the beginning, because, just as in the whole Country, education grew greatly throughout the second half of the century. We may have been one small acorn.

  Of the eight weeks, one forever stands out in my memory. As with all stations you took turns in duty rotas of one sort or another - guard duty, cookhouse fatigues, fire picket, etc. On training courses these were emphasized to ensure trainees got the message they were important. This one, though, was ridiculous. It lasted for seven days, or rather nights. Each day you followed the normal training schedule, then from 18.00 to 06.00 the next morning you were based in the guardroom and divided into shifts taking guard for two hours, followed by four hours off. This meant any one person did two shifts exactly as I’d experienced at Padgate. But there was only one break when it was possible to get some sleep no matter which slots you were on. You couldn’t make up a bed before 23.00 and you had to strip it by 05.00. So it was only in your one four hour break in the small hours that you could sleep. Realistically this was reduced to three and a half hours.

  We started on Monday night. Most coped reasonably for two nights and days, but by Thursday concentration in the classrooms was woozy and on Friday we were zombies. The problem was exacerbated because the duty involved walking about the camp throughout your two hours - and there was a schedule of places where you to had to be at specified times. There was always the danger of being checked upon. Neither dared you sit down lest you nodded off. Our hearts went out to the memory of those poor wretches caught sleeping on duty in the First World War trenches and the death penalty they suffered.

  Saturday provided some relief because we were free after noon. The billet became unusually quiet until an alarm roused everyone and we trooped off to the guardroom again at 18.00. The same occurred on Sunday when blissfully we slept throughout the day, but we did need to eat. The torture concluded at 06.00 on Monday, though again we faced a day in the classroom, or pr
actising drills, or PT. For weeks afterwards we felt we never recovered our lost sleep. It was also obvious that, on each course, there was much more sickness following each week’s guard duty. It would have been a simple matter to spread the days, or rather the nights, between all courses thus ensuring far better mental and physical well being.

  Plodding round about 02.30 one cold black morning, I remembered an anecdote told me by an uncle who had been an officer in the trenches in the 1914-18 war. One night, as the sole Duty Officer, he was inspecting guarded posts and came across one sentry wedged in a standing position but obviously asleep. He couldn’t just wake him; the man would then know what he’d done and that a Duty Officer had to report him. Neither would my uncle do that because of the appalling consequences. The man, of course, was wearing the regulation steel helmet, so my uncle went back round a corner of the mud wall, picked up a stone, lobbed it at the man’s helmet, ducked out of sight, then walked round to face him.

  ‘All quiet?’ he asked.

  ‘All quiet, Sir,’ came the reply from a very wide awake guard.

  My uncle was Mentioned in Dispatches, but not for that piece of humanity. Subsequently he became Principal of a Minister’s Training College. Of course he never knew whether the man guessed what had happened, but I bet he never fell asleep on guard duty again.

  One element of training caused surprise when it was announced. We were given instructions on keeping bar accounts in the Sergeants’ Mess. We knew that’s where we were headed but most of us hadn’t realised that in most Messes the chore of serving at the bar was subject to a duty rota. There was no facility for ordinary ranks to buy alcoholic drinks on a station. For them a visit to the local pub in the evening, if there was one, was the norm. But for officers and NCOs there were organised Messes where drinks were available at controlled times. They were also social centres with a considerable degree of autonomy. The lot of corporals varied. Some stations had separate Messes for them but they tended to be pale shadows of those of the sergeants. Actually, sergeant was the lowest rank of the members who included Flight Sergeants and Warrant Officers.

  Finally the days approached when we met final tests and exams. The marks from these were added to regular assessments made by Corporal McBride and his fellows throughout our training. Before the results were announced we had a group photograph taken. It was a dull November day as the print shows well. I still have it.

  One other event took place shortly before the end of our course. The WAAF Photographers Course lasted much longer than ours - eighteen weeks. The members were a pleasant addition to the Station scenery but we had little opportunity to meet them. There was no social centre on site and the local village was quite a walk away. We also had a fair amount of evening study. The weather was cold and frequently wet, so social activity with these young girls was almost nil. Some of us found it possible to reach the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and get standing tickets on the day which we did on a number of evenings. But even when we found WAAFs with shared interest in Shakespeare, a standing ticket has its limitations.

  By luck, one WAAF course reached its conclusion simultaneously with ours. They had to celebrate a very long time under training and, we understood, were going to do so as thoroughly as possible. A large empty room was made available and they made valiant efforts to decorate it. Cash was pooled, theirs and ours, and refreshments collected. Music was arranged - a gramophone, of course, and records. Somewhere some alcohol was stashed and distributed surreptitiously on the night. It was a pleasant, totally innocent evening. I try to imagine the comparison between it and a likely similar event to-day, but fail. It was a different age; different even from wartime when inhibitions were flung aside in the knowledge that shortly you might be dead. The tight post war austerity squeeze dampened such occasions in and out of the Forces.

  Nevertheless there was one girl, the daughter of a senior Army officer, who was voracious but her appetite was not for food. She got wilder as the evening progressed and whenever she kissed, which she did frequently, she all but swallowed heads. I wonder where she went after the party. Some of us felt we knew why Daddy allowed her to become a lowly WAAF - permanently.

  The announcement of our final results was a shock. I had assumed that all seventeen of us would pass but seven did not. They disappeared rapidly from the billet so our euphoria was tempered for a while. They gave results as an order of merit and I’m still amazed, given my original welcome by Sergeant Forsyth and the Course CO that I was first. I have no idea whether my result was reported back to my Lincolnshire Groupy but I felt I’d confirmed his trust in me. But I wonder where my placement would have been had they known I’d inadvertently marched the Flight past a man in civvies with his dog early one morning. Too late I realised he was the Station CO and I didn’t give the order to salute. Both he and his dog were very understanding so the news didn’t get around. He also was a Group Captain. They seemed a pleasant bunch.

  The last two days were surreal. The graduates were officially Acting Sergeants, but we were informed our authority was not active on the Station. That was to ensure no one tried lording it over any corporal who’d put us through it during training. Our pay increase also coincided with our leaving for our permanent postings. Never since have I ever experienced a rise of 162.5%, because four shillings a day shot up to ten shillings and sixpence.

  We also had the chore of sewing chevrons on our uniforms; three pairs, for battle dress (that was the tunic with concealed buttons which didn’t need polishing), best dress, which did, and greatcoat, which did as well. Another cottage industry was revealed in a civvy lady who undertook the work for a fee, which we could now afford. We all tried our own hands first, saw the resulting odd angles which would never have passed an inspection, then graciously gave in.

  Posting! Everyone else went to unknown destinations as expected. I, however, did not. Not because my records had gone AWOL again, they were well known now up to Air Ministry level. So I followed the normal procedure of anyone who was posted to a course from his main station. I was sent back to Brize Norton. I hadn’t given the matter a moment’s thought, so the embarrassment didn’t hit me until I walked through the main gate and reported, as one did, to the Guard Room.

  I didn’t know any of the MPs - technically RAF Police, but we called them MPs as in the Army - but the basic details of assigning me to quarters soon revealed my rapid metamorphosis. An ordinary AC/1 goes away for two months and returns with three *^!*~*# stripes! Unheard of. Old sweats beaver away for years to get two, let alone three. And this bloke’s *^!*~*# National Service! The RAF’s going to the dogs.....I didn’t need to be telepathic to know their thoughts. I just kept my head down whilst they looked for accommodation for me. I wondered if it was going to be a cell behind the guardroom, or perhaps a maintenance hut on the outskirts of the airfield, but it seemed the only NCO rooms free were in the permanent building I’d lived in for six months.

  Heaving my kit bag I got out rapidly and set off down the familiar main drive to the far side of the drill square. A nice single room in the block I knew well, that’ll suit me, I thought. From its number I knew it wasn’t on the same level as my former home on the ground floor, so I could slip in quietly before I faced the inevitable ribbing I was expecting from my erstwhile pals.

  After I’d thrown my kit into the room I rapidly made for the Education hut to which I knew I had to report, but it was closed. Too late in the afternoon. I walked back more slowly, looking around and experiencing a weird feeling of being in a familiar place but in an unfamiliar time. I was my alter ego, a being that lived in a different age. I was estranged and unprepared to be so.

  ‘Hi Flaxton, you’re back!’ The familiar voice of Sergeant Robinson reorientated my thoughts. ‘When did you arrive?’

  He was walking back from the hangar having also finished his day’s work. He shook my hand warmly. ‘Are you fixed up with a room?’ I assured him I w
as and had intended reporting to the Education Office but was too late.

  ‘Have you been to the Mess yet?’

  Inwardly I blanched, realizing another trip to arctic climes awaited. I told him I hadn’t.

  ‘Come on, I’ll take you. I can show you around.’ He was too intelligent not to guess my reservation. ‘You’ll be a five minute wonder, no more.’

  I gave waffly thanks and set off beside him. ‘Your name’s Nigel, isn’t it. Mine’s Bill. I never answer to William.’

  ‘Ah...er...oh...thanks,’ I responded even more waffly.

  Of course my reception was frosty. What else could I expect? My posting to the Education Course was, I suspect, unique. National Servicemen were intended to follow the normal programme of basic training followed by trade training whatever that might be. All other men on the Sergeants’ Course had done that and then been posted to stations where they were unknown and on which their authority was plain for all to see. Even the very, very few who were selected for commissions went through their secondary training and were then posted. No National Service bod was supposed to do what I did.

  When I did report to the Education Office the next morning my reception could not have been more pleasant. The EO was very happy that his attempt had been successful and even more so when he learned of my course placing. The other sergeant was happy to have an assistant and it seemed we might make a good working threesome. But, of course, the powers-that-be, wherever they were. would not tolerate overstaffing and I was posted within a fortnight. Knowing this was to occur, I wondered whether fortune might be with me again and I would get overseas. As a child and wartime teenager such notions were fantasy, but now overseas was quietening down, everyone said. What about the British Sector in Germany? I’d taken the language at School, so it would be an excellent chance to improve my skills which they certainly needed. In the event I was sent to RAF St Athan, in South Wales. Not even near the nice bits I knew from holidays in Fairbourne and climbing in Snowdonia.