When I got a weekend pass from Innsworth, I used to visit my parents who were evacuated with the London schoolchildren at Tredegar, South Wales.
On the Saturday lunch-time I would cycle to Gloucester and leave my cycle in the yard of a pub just by the station. I then got a train to Newport where I changed to the train up the Sirhowy Valley.
I always bought a quart of cider from the N and took it for my father. On my return, as no trains ran on the branch line on Sundays, I had to catch a bus down to Newport and that went at two o’clock in the afternoon. It then took two hours to do the twenty miles and I still did not get back to camp until nearly midnight.
When we had to stay in camp for the weekend there would be a continuous card school going on. We would go off for meals and it would still be going. It was always pontoon at sixpence a go.
One day when I was alone in the billet I decided to play a little tune on my clarinet. Suddenly the door opened and in came the sergeant who had the room at the end, near the entrance. He was not concerned with us on the fitter’s course.
He said that he played the violin. He was brilliant and could play like Stephane Grappelli. He then found a pianist and a drummer and we played jazz in the NAAFI in the evenings. I got ten shillings a nIght.
Sometimes, I went to the Spa Orchestra concerts that were held in Cheltenham Town Hall. I always sat in a box, up on the right hand side.
On one occasion, during a Beethoven Symphony, the ball end flew off the tympanist's drumstick. It bounced down the staging and landed at the conductor's feet!
Whilst the remainder of the entry were having their tests, I was parked in the Administration Office. It was full of filing cabinets and there was nothing to do, so I started to learn to use the typewriter that was there.
After the Fitter's Course, I returned to Hooton Park. it was the spring of 1944. We still had to work on dispersal to get the aeroplanes flying and we also carried out maintenance inspections on the Ansons in the hangar.
After the inspections were finished, sometimes I would go on air-test. The main runway ran parallel to the Manchester Ship Canal. As we took off we could see the Liberty Ships and Eastham Lock, where they entered from the River Mersey.
The pilot would fly the aircraft out to sea. We would shut down and restart each engine in turn and then wc would go into a dive and pull out, to see that it all stayed together. Dad used to tell me that the pilots would always take the erks up after work on a plane. They felt it gave the groundcrew added incentive to do a good job!!
The wing-tips would bend up about a foot. Sometimes we would fly up the coast of the River Dee estuary and look out at the expensive houses at Neston, with swimming-pools in the gardens.
On one occasion we flew over Birkenhead and up the coast to Southport. I was with an Australian pilot. Suddenly he got out of the cockpit and said, "I'm fed up with this, you fly it. I'm going up the back for a fag." So I had to take over!
He obviously thought that I could handle it and that he would be quite safe. I had control and after a quarter of an hour or so he came back and complained that I had climbed 400 feet. I had not noticed it!
All the aircraft had landed by midday and we had them shut down and chocked. The planes for the afternoon flights would be parked up near the hangar and not out on dispersal. The dispersal park was about half a mile away, it was the large area of grass between the main runway and the Manchester Ship Canal.
After lunch we were supposed to report back to the hangar at 1315 to see the blackboard for the afternoon flying detail and to restart the aircraft that would take off about 1400.
Sometimes I was a bit late arriving back; the Warrant Officer decided to take action. If he was upset about it, I think a quiet word would have been sufficient, as in the evening I quite often had to wait until 2030 to get the last aircraft refuelled.
I apologise for telling this story with such relish!
Unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong day to strike. Unknowingly, he picked a day that I was actually early! On the way into the hangar, I stopped and talked to one of the airframe sergeants. I then went into the storeroom to get some spark plugs and copper wire; so I did not get down to my designated aircraft until about 1330.
Soon afterwards, an officious little corporal arrived; he said I was on a charge of being 'absent without leave, between 1315 and 1330.' I asked him quite politely if he was absolutely sure about this. he said that 'Chiefy' Scott had ordered it. Three other airmen were charged at the same time.
The next day, at 1200, we were marched into the C.O's office, "Left, Right; Left, Right," etc. We stood in a line before the C.O., the Warrant Officer and the corporal stood to one side.
The charge was read out and the C.O. asked what we had to say. I immediately spoke up and explained that I was on duty for the whole time in question; that I had entered the hangar at 1310, spoken to Sergeant McMullen (what a stroke of luck!) and then gone to the store and that when I was at the aircraft the corporal came and charged me.
The sergeant was sent for and he corroborated my story. The C.O's moustache began to droop and he shouted, "Case admonished!" Actually, he should have said, "dismissed."!!
After we had been marched out, those involved got a 'rocket'. I suspect that the other three airmen probably were late, but they got off as well.
Life returned to normal and after the afternoon flights had departed we would get into the cockpit of an unused aircraft and have a little sleep in the sun.
After a while the sergeant would cycle round and waggle the ailerons on each aircraft, this would make the control column move about and it would wake up the sleeper.
One day I did not wake up and unbeknown to me everyone was suddenly detailed to go to see a 'V.D.' film. My absence was noticed and when I went back to the hangar there was no one there, but chalked on the board was a message saying that I had to report to W.O. Scott.
This was tricky. I knew that the Warrant Officer lived in a house outside the camp and that he usually cycled off home about ten minutes early. So, I came back to the hangar about ten minutes to five and knocked on his office door.
There was no reply, he had gone home.