Silverstead Days
Interested to note that you were at Silverstead Fixer way back. I completed the DF Op course at Compton Basset in the second half of 1953 and was promptly put on a troop ship to the Suez Canal Zone where I was assigned to the Kabrit Homer. Because they were over-staffed with DF Ops. I spent very little of my time there actually working in the Homer and instead carried out a range of other RT and Signals duties before my tour came to a premature end. I should have done a 30 month tour but Egypt signed a treaty with UK which meant that our occupation of the Canal Zone was ended and my tour terminated after 18 months. Instead of being sent somewhere interesting like most of my fellow DF Operators, I was posted back to the UK in May 1955.
I was sent to RAF North Weald from where I was posted to Silverstead Fixer, billeted at Biggin Hill. Sadly I can’t remember any of the DF team I worked with. What I can remember is the war we waged with Biggin Hill. The camp seemed to hold frequent events so that anybody off duty or between shifts on the following day was immediately roped in for litter picking and generally clearing up the mess. To avoid being caught up in this nonsense we used the Fixer as a retreat. Somehow we acquired a couple of RAF beds, with bedding, and converted the empty loft space in the Fixer into a bedroom which allowed off-duty operators to sleep over and hide until the mess clearing was completed.
This meant of course that as well as beds we needed food and we had to convince the cookhouse that there were a number of us working at the Fixer at any one time and we needed rations. I have clear memories of attending a meeting with a senior NCO in the cookhouse in which we pointed out that the standard rations issued to Fixer staff were inadequate. He sent for a poor junior and told him to imagine that he was three men, working round the clock in the middle of a field, some way from the camp. He then drew the other guy’s attention to the box containing the meager rations that we had been offered, looked at him and said something like, “You reckon you’ve got enough to eat there?” The response was predictable. The NCO then ran off a long list: eggs, bacon, sausages, bread, butter, tea, milk, etc., then gave orders for them to be prepared immediately and made available twice a week in future. So from then on we lived in comparitive luxury.
I can’t remember exactly how long I was at Biggin Hill. I certainly remember the IRA scare which lasted for some weeks towards the end of 1955 and during which, if we failed to escape, we were made to join those patrolling the airfield at night carrying pickaxe handles. At one point I was interviewed by the SIB because they were convinced that I was responsible for leaking details of the Biggin Hill security precautions to one of the daily papers. I did no such thing but that’s another story.
I left Silverstead towards the end of 1955 when I was posted to Slappers Hill Fixer in Devon. I stayed there as Corporal for the final 18 months of my engagement.
They were happy days.
Leahoe