A little bit more
I never realised that Window went on until the 50's and 60's, Blacksheep, or had it now become "Chaff". I also thought that the bundles opened in the slipstream so did not understand how you could catch them ?
On with Sabena; We soon made many friends and everyone spoke and was happy to speak English. Virtually every Belgian pilot who had escaped to England had become a Fighter pilot and the "Esprit du Corps" and comradeship was very much in evidence. Throughout my long career ...thirty years.. with Sabena, I, and all the other British pilots ,were treated exactly the same as the Belgian pilots. Promotion to bigger and better aircraft came on Seniority, irrespective of Nationality, and this was meny years before the European Union came into being. We were issued with Work permits and these, by Belgian Law, could not be repealed on any grounds except the obvious ones of grave misdemeanour etc. We were never asked to change our Nationality nor was language ever a problem. Every Belgian seemed to speak at least four languages and loved the opportunity to speak English, so that our efforts to speak French---Flemish was beyond most of us with one notable exception....went unheeded. Despite this our ground course was conducted entirely in French which led to some very lively sessions but our Belgian co-students would always come to the rescue if the Instructor struggled and it was surprising how much French that we had learned by the end of our surprisingly interesting and well presented six weeks course.
To celebrate the successful completion, by all of us, of our course the Chief Pilot for Europe, Peter Dils, a Fighter Pilot D.F.C. invited us to join him in a night out at the "Maison des Ailes", the Headqurters of the Belgian Airline Pilots Association. It began with a noisy, beery session around the piano where we sang all the old songs such as "Bless em all" etc. most of which were well known to the Belgians. "Craven A" was, surprisingly, not and was encored several times. We were very surprised to learn that, in Belgium anyway, the obvious "White Cliffs of Dover " was not regarded as being typically English and "My Bonnie Lies OVer The Ocean" was virtually regarded as the National Anthem and was sung at the least excuse. Even when having a quiet drink in a pub, if you were heard speaking English, immediately the strains of "bring back, bring back..." etc. would waft over the air. and free drinks would follow .
The "Maison des Ailes" was a stone's throw from the Night Club and Entertainment quarter around the Porte de Louise. We moved on to one of the smaller bars where we were having a quieter drink with Peter Dils and another Chief Pilot , Paul Leva, who with his English Wife, Pat, was to become amongst our greatest friends. Paul had been a Spitfire pilot and one of his achievements was to down a V1 (Hitler's robot flying bomb) by formating on it and then tipping it over with his wingtip as he had used all his ammunition. We were standing at the bar when the street door burst open and in rushed a short, well padded little man who put his fingers to his lips and dived around and hid under the bar. Immediately afterwards, two big Gendarmes came in, looked us all over carefully and then departed. The rotund figure emerged "Now that they've gone " he said "The drinks are on me ". This was our introduction to Freddy Moreau. He and Jeff, his brother, had escaped to join the RAF and had both married English girls. The two Brothers were now Sabena Captains. Evidently Freddy had been "spending a penny (or centime?)" on a corner of the Ave.Louise when the Gendarmes had seen him. We wondered what Freddy had done to deserve being chased for this was a common sight in Belgium in those days. Perhaps it was because the Ave. Louise was not the sort of place to do that sort of thing as it was, and is, the most distinguished street in Brussels.
Freddy was one of the characters of Sabena. Only a couple of years later, Freddy was driving up the Rue Neuve, which was one of the main shopping streets, and was stopped by a Gendarme who pointed out that he was driving the wrong way up a very narrow one way street. " I always do something stupid when I am pi...d " said Freddy. Even up to 1967 there was no such thing as a driving licence in Belgium. Anyone could buy a car of any horsepower and take it straight out of the showroom. This, coupled with the absolute "Priorite de droit " which gave traffic on the right absolute priority irrespective of the importance of the road on which you were driving, led to the mayhem that ruled the roads at that time. To make it worse, the ubiquitous Tram had absolute priority over all other vehicles. Descending the Rue da la Loi which had double tramlines in the middle and was the busiest road in the Capital, was like the Chariot race in "Ben Hur where there was no quarter asked or given and came down to survival of the fittest.
Freddy was hauled into Court and , as there was no licence, was forbidden to "exercise the right to control petrol driven machines for six months" This embraced motor cars, even lawn mowers and, alas, aeroplanes. Sabena gave him six months leave so he decided to visit his Wife's parents in England. His Father in Law was doing the "Pools" one day. "Come on, Freddy, he said. "Give me eight numbers " Freddy did and they were all draws (They did'nt have to be Score Draws in those days) and he won a huge amount of money. One of the first things that he did was to seek out the Gendarme that had arrested him and take him for a night out that nearly got them both in prison.
I had been fortunate in finding a very nice little unfurnished house to rent in a district called Evere, quite near to the aerodrome. It was small but had three bedrooms and was near to schools, shops and the trams into town. Buying a car was a long way off as we had to furnish the house from top to bottom. The Westminster Bank had long been established in Brussels and I made an appointment to see the Manager, Mr. Lowe. He turned out to be a Fellow Lancastrian of the old breed of Bank managers. When I told him that I needed a loan of Two Hundred Pounds to furnish the house , he took me to a nearby Bar called the "Bodega" and there, over a few beers, we discussed everything except the loan. After about half an hour one of the bank employees came in and handed him an envelope which Mr. Lowe gave me to me and said "Theers your money, Lad and Good Luck." I always had a good rapport with the Bank. When Mr. Lowe retired he was replaced with a Mr. Oxley . Many, many times I would receive statements sent to me erroneously by the Bank which were those of other customers sometimes showing overdrafts of huge amounts. I would ring Mr. Oxley and say "Your people have made a b...'s of it again and that would be good enough for a slap up lunch where I would discreetly return the statements.
All this talk of drinking .... I am going for a cup of tea. I hope that you are enjoying my recalling of those wonderful nostalgic days as much as I enjoy relating them Regle.