Another Continental adventure
At Rochester , it was very convenient to be a member of the RAF Volunteer Reserve as it meant that you could put in the requisite flying hours on the Tiger Moths, Chipmunks etc. that were available and thus receive the £85 p.a. that went with it. Not a fortune , I know, but worth a lot more then...early 1950's. I was also still dodging searchlights at 85 m.p.h. in the Rapides that also earned a few coppers but had it's disadvantages in coming back late to a fog bound airfield. Once, after returning from one of these exercises, I could only see the lampost at the corner of the airfield sticking out of the thick fog that enveloped it. I used this to land but could not see to taxi so had to leave the Rapide and managed to grope my way to the tower. I was there early next morning to taxi it in and also to gather buckets of the wonderful tasty mushrooms that were so prolific. The trouble was that our Chief, Tom Chambers, had an arrangement with a local Farmer who used to pay him for the season's crop and you had to be there extremely early to gather a lovely supper of huge mushrooms before he got there .
The airfield, at Rochester , drops away to the west and there is a deep valley along which the M2 now runs, just before the bridge which spans the Medway. Once when coming in to land, just before lunch on the 3rd. May 1951, in an Oxford with my two Naval Lieutenants having finished their Instrument lesson, I was approaching to land from the West Malling direction, had my wheels and flaps down and was coming to the valley when both engines cut out. I just had enough time to stick the nose down , dive into the valley and gain enough speed to pull up over the ridge and flop the Oxbox down on to the grass. My wheels had already been lowered for the landing ! Two very quiet and shaken Naval Pilots had lunch with me that day. Blocked fuel lines were found to have cut off the cross feed to both engines but I felt for the Captain who put his plane down on the Hudson when I read about it more recently. You don't have time to think and that is where experience saves you.
Whilst I was still at Rochester my Mother and Father decide to make a coach tour on the Continent. Not liking sea travel they asked me if it would be possible to fly them to Dunkirk where they would meet the coach. Shorts had a single engined Proctor which they hired out to the staff at cost so together with my Wife, Dora, we set off. I had written to the authorities at the small aerodrome of Mardyck, near Dunkirk, telling them when I would be arriving. I had not received any reply but, nevertheless, we flew off to Lympne to clear Customs and Passport Control. When we got there I found that I had left the briefcase with the "ship's papers" and our passports at Rochester so I had to go back there and collect them before presenting myself to my not very impressed Mother and my more tolerant Father and my not very surprised at all, Wife.
Thank goodness, we had a lovely flight across the Channel. I flew low and it was the first time that I had flown with Dora as a passsenger and it was lovely to have her sitting next to me as we flew to France. When we got to Dunkirk we could not raise anyone on the Radio and Mardyck looked deserted.. It was a grass aerodrome so I put down as near to the Control Tower as possible. There was not a soul in sight anywhere. Eventually a lone figure on a bicycle appeared on the horizon. When he got to us he made us understand that we were to wait there for the Gendarmerie. Thre was a howling wind and we sat for what seemed like hours and, eventually a sinister looking black gangsterlike Citroen arrived and discharged four big Gendarmes. Nobody, but nobody spoke a word of English but papers were demanded,Passports were examined...nay, scrutinised and immediately confiscated but , the Radio Licence bore the Royal Seal and obviously impressed them immensely. All this was performed ouside the plane with the papers held down in the cold wind on the wing of the plane with my Mother trying to dictate matters by speaking English about x number of Decibels louder than anyone else. The man with the bicycle had disappeared but turned up again about twenty minutes later closely followed by yet another sinister black Citroen which turned out to be a taxi.. We all crowded into this and the whole cortege swept into Dunkirk to what turned out to be the Police Station . There we, at last, managed to get the Chief of Police to understand that we were merely seeing my parents off on a tour and the ship was due in about two hours... Eventually it was decided that we could stay as long as we kept the taxi driver with us so we went to the docks where we were told that the ship was two hours late. My Father, who was always the worrying sort, wanted to sit there on the dock until the ship appeared but my Mother, as usual, got her own way and suggested that we had something to eat. All of us, taxi driver included, had a very good lunch together and ., eventually met the ship and put my relieved parents on the coach.. On the way back to the airfield we passed the taxidriver's home. His wife ran out shouting that she had a message for us to fly to Lille and clear Customs there before returning to Lympne, in England. I was now in a quandary, Because of my return to Rochester I had not enough fuel to fly to Lille, then on to Lympne and then to Rochester. I had not enough money to buy fuel and credit cards were unheard of in those early days of the '50's. Taking my courage in both hands, I took off from the deserted airfield , thanking the good old Proctor which fired first time on the battery, and flew straight back to Lympne where I went up to the Tower and explained , to the best of my ability, what had happened. The Controller was most helpful. " We can contact the Customs at Calais direct on VHF and explain" he said. He did so and I asked him to apologise to French Customs. I shall never forget the answer that came back " Monsieur, you cannot apologise to French Customs.
Weeks later , I received a letter from the M.C. A. ( Ministry of Civil Aviation ), asking me , most civilly as befited their name, to explain "without prejudice" why I had been to France, landed at an unmanned aerodrome, left two unknown persons there without clearing Immigration and Customs and had then left without clearance, without clearing Customs or Emigration. I duly replied and never heard another word from them. Months later, I had a letter from Mardyck saying that they were sorry that they had missed me but he, their only Air Traffic Controller, had been on "conge" (holiday) but had heard that I had been over and hoped that we had "enjoyed our visit. " I always wondered who the lone figure on the bicycle was and was told by people who know about these things that he would have been the "garde de champetre". Literally Guardian of the fields (locality). This position is still in existence and is, literally a paid official whose business it is to know everything about the locality in which he lives and to aid the Police, local Officials and Doctors etc. in everything that he sees and hears.. A sort of Official "Nosey Parker". I had a later experience that showed me how efficiently they work but that is another story.