A Spitfire Pilot - Part 27
While Bob Oxspring was down south, the squadron was taken over by a Squadron Leader Archie Winskill and he was a bit of a miserable character and he didn’t like anybody that we could find. We had one or two slight accidents, like taxiing accidents of various sorts and odd things going wrong that for some reason or another had never occurred when we down at Biggin and Winskill threatened us with the direst of penalties for the next person who did something really bad and I’m delighted to say that the next person who had a taxiing accident was Sqn Ldr Winskill!
Some of the Works & Bricks boys had left a small roller near the edge of the perimeter track and as Winskill was taxiing back he smashed straight into this, smashing up the prop and doing a fair amount of damage to the Spit, so we never heard any more from him after that and in any case, Bob Oxspring came back and all was well.
Whilst we were up at Ayr, all we did were convoy patrols and long-distance cross-countries and on one of the convoy patrols, I was up when the Queen Mary came up the Clyde towards Glasgow and it really was a magnificent sight. We flew round and round it, just admiring the rate at which it was going, it really looked beautiful. It had no escort because it was so fast that most of the escorts couldn’t keep up with it anyway, but it really was a beautiful sight.
I also had to fly to Etherington in Northern Ireland to do a convoy job over there and that again was for the Queen Mary, but when we got there the weather was so bad we couldn’t take off so we couldn’t do the convoy job anyway.
I had a small accident at Etherington. I was taxiing along the perimeter track, when a lorry decided to come out of a side road which was disguised by a bit of a hedge and I just caught the far wingtip and damaged the navigation light, there was no other damage to the aircraft, but they decided it wouldn’t be fit to fly back to Ayr, so I took another chaps’ aircraft and flew the section back and the other chap came back on his own later on.
We continued to do lots of formation flying and long cross-countries and on one of the formation trips, my seat came adrift and shunted down towards the bottom of the aircraft. I was trying to fly the Spit with my nose practically on the compass, but I managed to land alright and all was well. I realise now that the long distance cross-countries were to get us ready for what was going to be a fair old flight from Gibraltar to Algiers.
We were given what turned out to be embarkation leave so I piled all my gear into Ferdies’ car and drove it back to Woodford and that was the last time I drove back. Anyway, we managed to have quite a decent time, Mum and I, whilst I was on leave; the only snag was I had to leave a telephone number every time I went anywhere and one evening we were at the Queens Brasserie in Leicester Square, one of our favourite haunts, and the band stopped playing and the bandleader went to the microphone and said there was a telephone message for Pilot Officer R*******n. My heart dropped a foot, anyway I went out to the managers office and young Alan (brother of RJHR) was on the phone saying they’d had a telegram from the squadron saying return immediately if not sooner. So Mum and I came home and that was that. Ferdie and Mum saw me off from Forest Gate station and as we thought I’d be away at least two years Ferdie agreed that it would be OK for me to marry Mum when I returned. So away I went, but in the event we got married about six months later, but that’s another story.