What a way to start "Civvy St. !
Starting a new life as a Check Pilot in the newly formed BEA Check Flight meant that I had to find somewhere to live . We found an old Rectory in Tilehurst Rd. Reading which looked just the job, albeit very expensive. We were warned by several friends that the place was reputed to be haunted by a little old lady who had been seen, by tenants, roaming around the house. We never saw her but there was no doubt that something was strange about it. The two children would wake , crying, whereas they had always been sound sleepers. I woke one night to the very loud sound of racing hooves coming from the meadow beside our room. It was a bright moonlit night and I went to the window. The sound was still there but everything was calm and there was not an animal to be seen ; the most puzzling thing was the disappearance of the fairy that we had placed on the top of the Xmas tree, December 1947. It was there the night that I had placed it and next morning it was gone , never to be found.
Our job at Aldermaston was to give BEA Captains a two day course and check. We would start by giving them dual instruction on the ubiquitous Dakota and the brand new Vickers Viking using, what was called, two stage amber. This involved placing amber panels all around the inside of the cockpit windows so that the Instructor could see outside and then placing a pair of blue goggles over the pilot's eyes . This enabled him to see the brightly lit Instrument panel clearly but the amber side windows now appeared as an impenetrable black. The first day was all instrument flying practice followed by a comprehensive check on their flying, including all emergency procedures.
The job was very interesting and the majority of the Captains who came to us were 100% enthusiastic . They saw the need for the different approach to instrument flying ,that was neccessary with all the new aids to landing and Flying Control that were coming in and performed accordingly. Unfortunately there existed a very hard core of the older pre war Captains who had never been checked by anyone in their lives, brought up on the old "seat of the pants" system ,and who resented the possible idea that their flying was not all that was now required of them.
There had been some cases of aircraft arriving over a beacon and being told to "Hold at X feet" and then their next call was asking where they should taxi in to ". !
I, personally, never, encountered any of these people and made some very good friends amongst the many that came to Aldermaston
during the next nine months or so. One of these was Johnny R---- who later,tragically, "collided " with a MIG who was "buzzing" him whilst flying in the "corridors" which were insisted upon by the Russians in those "Cold War" days, There were quite a few who, on making a return for a "Refresher", would bring us some small gift of something that had been bought abroad ,knowing that we never did any of those flights that were so looked forward to by the ones that were able to escape the still strictly rationed peacetime Britain of 1947.
It could'nt last and it didn't. Labour swept the Country and decided that a poverty stricken Britain would not allow it's citizens to take out more than Five Pounds in cash on leaving the Country. This was, in effect, the same as putting a travel ban on Europe and the outcome was
inevitable. BEA, running with virtually empty aircraft , declared that they had too many Pilots and some ninety were declared redundant. The "Old Boys" were all powerful and only agreed that it would be done on a "Last in, First out. " basis and this was to include Check Flight. So Check Flight no longer existed and we were out of work in a flooded market. As proof of the panic that had beset BEA, within six months they were writing to most of the sacked pilots, offering them jobs again...but not Check Flight. The Old Brigade had won.