RAF Rates of Pay - 1950's and 1960s

[Warmtoast]

I'm off to the National Archives tomorrow to do some long planned reseach. Assuming I have some spare time I want to see what we (the RAF) were paid in the 50's and 60's.

Despite an extensive online search of the NA's catalogue I can't find any relevant entries for Servicemen's rates of pay. There are plenty of files concering pay of the locally employed staff at most of the overseas locations where the RAF were located in those days, but not much else.

Anyone done reseach on the subject at the NA and can help with file department/category/references please?

Or should I be looking somewhere else?

TIA

[teeteringhead]

For Colindale (http://www.bl.uk/collections/newspapers.html) rather than Kew, but newspaper or magazine advertisments or articles may be a "lateral thinking" way of finding out??

[airborne_artist]

Old copies of the appendix to the Navy list certainly carried details of rates of pay, allowances etc. The RAF had a sister publication.

Here's a 1938 Navy list appendix (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Appendix-toThe-Navy-List-June-1938-pay-uniform-entry_W0QQitemZ160128425672QQihZ006QQcategoryZ64305QQssPageN ameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

[Audax]

Cranwell cadet 1964, starting pay 12/6 per day in old money, 62p in todays loot

[Wader2]

1961 officer cadet got £4/10/- week if on direct entry commissions B and C and a massive £5/10/- for the DEC A if they signed on to 38/16.

As a commissioned APO navigation student it was about £39 per month. As a qualified pilot officer I think it was about £100 per month in 1963.

In 1974 I seem to remember pay topping £10000 and in 1984 as junor spec aircrew it topped £20000. By 1994 it was perhaps well over £40000.

[debsh]

National Service AC2 was paid 4 shillings and six pence per day;
Acting pilot officer on probation was, at one point, 18s 6d rising to 21/- per day for a full pilot officer.
I think you will find that the RAF Museum at Hendon has all the Air Ministry Orders for pay and conditions.

[threepointonefour]

ask beagle.

[Runaway Gun]

You JUST beat me too it :)

[BDiONU]

Dunno if it helps but as an SAC my pay in October 1977 was £283.02 gross. Deductions - Accomodation £11.20 (£2.80 a week), Food £26.40 (93p a day), Nat Ins £10.68, Tax £51. Net £184

BD

[Nimman]

Check here for Aircraft Apprentice rates of pay in 1964

http://www.104thlocking.org.uk/images/Joining/RatesOfPayWeb.jpg

[A2QFI]

In 1958 I saw about £30 a month in my college bank account. Some cadets who had come to Cranwell via 2 years at Halton were substantive corporals and got almost £80 a month - they were the Kings of the Hill! The bank was run by a civilian called Harry Hencher and had its own locally printed cheque book. Extra messing and standing order to Gieves for hat and gloves knocked it down to about £20 in hand. When I left the RAF in 1977 I was getting about £400 a month, in hand, as a Flt Lt with 7 years seniority and flying pay - that's why I left!

[John Purdey]

You haven't lived! In 1947, the daily pay for a Halton Apprentice was 1s and 6p per day. On the fortnightly pay parade, each lad was paid ten shillings in cash (sixpence was retained for laundry charges), and the balance was paid before each of the three long leaves. Needless to say most of the ten shillings cash went on boot polish, blanco and brasso!

[soddim]

The crippler in the early 60's was that officers had to be over 25 years of age to get married allowance (and quarters). Existing overseas married under 25 living in expensive private accommodation didn't leave a lot for the fun in life. But, in those days, at least the job was fun and people were not leaving in droves.

[A2QFI]

Spot on Soddim! I was in Cyprus having a great time on 13 Sqn but I remember I was on about £180 a month then and paying downtown Limmasol rent. Money was short but the fun factor was high. Arif's Magic Bar and Niazzi's for good meals, Heroes Square for dubious cabaret and so life went on!

[Papa Whisky Alpha]

I joined as National Service 16/1/1950, starting rate 4/- per day, 24 shillings a week after stoppages.
Signed on and received a further 21 shillings a week.
Made Corporal in 1952 pay was now 12/- per day.
Sergeant in 1954, pay now 19/6 per day. First large pay review April 1956 when my rate rose to from 19/6 to 27/0 per day (and national service men over the age of 21 years received another 6d per day).
On commissioning pay increased by 2/6 per day if your rate was above the rate of an APO

Happy days !

[Melchett01]

Shilling ??? What's that when it's at home? Is it similar to those coins that Tony Robinson keeps digging up in random fields in the Hebrides ? :E

Edited to add - as a more serious after thought, what was the view of military pay back in the 50s / 60s? Am I correct in understanding that it was more like 'pocket money' rather than a proper military salary? And did it generate the levels of harrumphing that are common today when talking about pay levels ?

[Warmtoast]

Thanks for all the replies and what remarkable memories you all have!

Nearest I think to what I received as an AC2 National Service recruit in 1951 are the rates quoted by Papa Whisky Alpha.

I'll ask at the info desk at Kew tomorrow for advice, rates must surely be somewhere in the Archives - I hope.

[Archimedes]

AIR 19/920 is 'service pay and and allowances' with a date range of 1958-1963.

AIR 75/48 is 'Personnel Policy: pay and conditions' 1949-52

Also try searching AIR 2 (use 'pay' as the search term) and there are an array of documents, covering pay for everyone from the Air Council to caretakers.

As a caveat, this doesn't mean the rates will be in the first two documents, but at the very least some clues should be hidden in there. First lesson of the PRO (as was) is never to take the file description at face value...

[Gainesy]

ask beagle

Now, now. The yoof on here have trouble with £.s.d., let alone Groats.:)

[forget]

Flying Review 1964.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b270/cumpas/RAF.jpg

[Wader2]

What was the view of military pay back in the 50s / 60s? Am I correct in understanding that it was more like 'pocket money' rather than a proper military salary? And did it generate the levels of harrumphing that are common today when talking about pay levels ?

Melchett,

AFAIR, pay was perhaps more akin to pocket money and the Mrs would have had to make do with the married allowance bit - £401 per year, exactly the same as the fl lt pension at age 38. (1961).

Pay rises were every two years under the Grigg Committee formula but were always 'spun' - nothing new there.

"Forces get 7% pay rise"

Yeah, 2.8% this year and 4.2% next year.

In the 50s and early 60s many officers were either 2 yr national service or on 5 yr short-service commissions. The later could undergo initial training, flying training, OCU and a productive tour on Canberra or Hunter and out.

Owning a car was an exception unless daddy bought it. One student nav had a Gestapo staff car, another a pre-war Hillman soft-top. Car sharing, ie part-share, was common. We didn't get paid enough to go off base during the week.

Bar bills were limited although Merrydown Cider did not count. As you ran out of credits you could not buy a beer or a round. At the end of the month all the credits were pooled and those with no credit bought Merrydown. The result, everyone drank up to the limit!

It didn't produce the same level of angst mainly because the average age was much lower. Those over 38 were rarer on the ground - no spec aircrew - with the bulk of the aircrew all on 5-8-12 or 16/38 commissions.

On a different thread there was talk of reducing the junior officer pilot cadre to around 700. In 1961 the monthly into training figure was around 100 per month and that ignored the Cranwell cadets. 1200 trainees per year, maybe 700-900 into the front line every year!

[Warmtoast]

Archimedes

Thanks for the pointer to possible NA files, certainly a better response than the guidance (non-guidance is a better description) from one of the staff manning the NA information desk yesterday.

I've noted the file numbers you've given for my next visit.

Many thanks

Tony

[hobie]

You could move out of married quarters (Northolt) in the mid 60's, and buy yourself a 3 bed semi for 4999.00 stg (call it 5 grand) in Ruislip Gardens ..... :)

[Pontius Navigator]

hobie, but then you might have wanted to. Would you want to now?

[hobie]

hobie, but then you might have wanted to. Would you want to now?

True PN .... it was a long time ago ...... :)

.... and I do remember the insulation on those houses was practically zero ..... you could get a 3mm layer of ice on the windows during cold weather .....

on the inside of the glass !!!!! :p

[BEagle]

Do remember that, before 1970 when the Military Salary Scheme came in (I can only speak for Zobs, not Baldricks):

1. Singlies were not allowed to live out.
2. No-one paid food and accomodation charges. Just Extra Messing.
3. No-one paid cash in the Mess bar.

So everything was 'pocket money' for singlies (who also had real batmen, or 'mess servants' as some faceless tw.at later renamed them :mad:). All you had to pay was a Mess Bill every month, tip your battie - and spend the rest on your Austin Healey 3000 or whatever. The PMC would 'speak to' any officer whose bar bill was deemed excessive. And unless you were over 29 and/or a Sqn Ldr, you were not allowed to keep alcohol in your single accomodation...:hmm: (so we kept it in our car boots!).

I think I was paid about 17/- a day at RAFC Cranwell in 1968 - and paid 'Twisted George' £1 10s 0d per month to be my battie. But I had to buy a Radio Licence at 7/6 per year - utter robbery!

When Military Salary came in, I was at University as an APO. I was suddenly paid £1200 per year; as I'd done a year at RAFC as a Flt Cdt, that rose to £1800 in my final year.....

And that was in the days when a brand new MGB cost £1312!!

"Tell that to 't lads of today.....!"

[hobie]

And that was in the days when a brand new MGB cost £1312!!


and the only ones that could afford them were the USAF guys over at South and West Ruislip ............ and pulling all the gals to boot !!!! .... :{

[Lou Scannon]

I had a job as a salesman and was earning £1500 per annum in 1960. I was delighted to give it up for a crack at aircrew and was paid around £4 a week as an "orficer cadet".

By the time I married (being the only way of getting regular sex without upsetting the Air Force Board) I was earning £40 a month which rocketed to £85 when I married. I managed to move from a civilian "grottage" in Wiltshire where I paid £23 per month to a sub standard hut at RAF Rudloe Manor for only £12 per month. There was a bonus there in that the security light outside mysteriously wound my quarters electricity meter backwards. I fitted it with the most powerful bulb I could find and saved considerably. Further savings were made by burning the lino from the underground comms centre on my living room fire.

By the time I bought my first house I was earning nearly £1500 a year-but the house cost over £4000.

Eventually left in 1977 earning £6,000 as an aircrew Flt Lt and joined civil aviation where everyone gets to earn like an AVM.

...and I still have a guilt complex that I never got shot at like todays young men and women!

:\

[adrian mole]

As an Apprentice in 1965 I was getting paid £2/10/0 a week reduced to £1/10/0 after deductions. Also seem to remember having a clothing allowance of £11 a year but a new Best Blue would quickly wipe that out! Then as an SAC I think I started on £7.10.0 a week but could still manage to save from that. (To get it into perspective I was earning £8 a week for my paper round!)