Once more unto the breach, Dear friends.....
Or fill the walls etc... Around March 1952 an advertisement appeared in the aviation magazines "Aeroplane" and "Flight" that roused the somnulent world of British aviation. Sabena, the Belgian Airline, wanted Pilots. practically everybody at Shorts applied but I did not. I was quite happy at Rochester. We had our little house and garden, the children were happy at school and had rapidly made friends. The working hours were reasonable and left me free to enjoy family life and free lance at weekends. I learned ,later that Sabena had over 1200 applications .
A week or so went by and one day I came in to work about a quarter to ten to find my Flight Commander, Peter Harrison, in a bad mood. "What time do you think this is ?" he said "I'm not lecturing this morning, Peter " I said, reasonably " It doesn't matter; everyone is supposed to be here at nine whether they're lecturing or not " he replied. I lost my temper "Why don't you install a bloody time clock then we can clock in and out!" was my reply. I stormed out and sat straight down and sent off a letter to Sabena applying for one of the vacancies.
I quickly forgot about it but got a letter from Sabena's London Airport Office asking me to come for an interview on a weekday the following week. I wrote off an answer saying that I was working during the week and, in all fairness to my present employer, could not ask for time off to apply for another job. I told them that if they could not fit me in on a Saturday then they could forget about my application. I sent this off and forgot all about Airline flying about which I knew nothing. A few days later our neighbour, Mrs. Foreman, told me that there was a phone call for me. It was a lady from Sabena who told me that she was the London Manager's secretary and that they would intervoew me the next Saturday morning. Even then I was in two minds whether to go or not but, eventually, we all went up to London where we stayed with our old friends Chris and Jim Smith who were neighbours from our block of flats during our Clapham days.
The interview turned out to be more like a questionnaire conducted by me as it seemed that an expanding Sabena were desperate for pilots and were trying to sell the idea of coming to Sabena and the many benefits of living in Belgium. The big obstacle in getting the job was the huge number of applicants. Evidently Sabena were expanding rapidly. They were one of the oldest companies in the world and pioneered flying to Africa between the two World Wars. The Belgian Pilots' Association was agreeable to the \company recruiting foreign pilots but had insisted
that they must be British, preferably with RAF backgrounds. This was because the hard core of Captains was all ex RAF and most of them with distinguished Fighter Pilot careers and still with a high regard for the UK. Many of them were married to British girls, several of them ex WAAFs .
The very high number of applications was due to the fact that Sabena wanted pilots of varying experience, some of them with very few hours for future training but some with enough experience to fill the present gaps. They had not asked for current licences so ex-RAF pilots who were in sedentary jobs and had long given up the thought of a future in civil aviation had applied. The fact that they wanted a few experienced pilots was where I was lucky.
The interview board consisted of Mr Stocke, The London Manager. Mr. Stainier, The Sabena General Manager and one of the handful of British Pilots who had joined Sabena directly after the war, Dougie Owen.
I was told that, if chosen, I would be given four years of seniority to compensate for my high number of flying hours ( three thousand...a lot of hours in 1952 ) and would be paid around twice as much as a Captain in the UK was earning at that time but that I would have to start as a Senior First officer and was promised a Captaincy within two years. In BOAC, now British Airways, First Officers were waiting up to twelve years and ,sometimes, never attaining Captain's rank. There would be a probation period of three months and then the Company would pay for the passage of Dora and the three children to join me in Brussels. During this period I would be lodged in a first class hotel and all meals would be paid for by the Company. There would be a ground course followed by examinations on general aviation subjects such as Meteo, Radio procedure, Air Traffic and even Aviation Law. I did not anticipate any trouble from this as I already held a Commercial Licence which 97% of the applicants did not. All this was dependent on passing Sabena's medical examination.
A heartsearching discussion now took place between Dora and myself. It must be remembered that this was 1952...long before the Common Market had ever been thought about. Very little was known about Belgium by the average British citizen and what there was was not very heartening. The country was going through a very critical constitutional stage. The King, Leopold the second,had been spurned by the country after the war and had been forced to abdicate. There were many calls for Belgium to become a Republic and the British press reported fighting between the Flemish and the French speaking Wallons with many student protestations mainly from the Flemish speaking "Vlaams" groups.
In the end we decided to accept the three months probation period as that would give us a chance to see for ourselves what conditions were like. Dora and the children would stay with her parents in St. Helens but Sabena had promised free tickets at weekends and they had a DC3 service to Manchester so "wi out further talking or chatter, that were decided upon" To be continued ...if you so desire, Reg