The Beauty Competion (Part 2)
The operation was therefore mounted. I am not sure where (all this happened months before my time), and the publicity brought in quite a squad of hopeful contestants from all round the island. Now they needed an impartial panel of judges. The difficulty was that every Welshman is pathologically suspicious of the motives every other Welshman, and the promoters would find it hard indeed to compose a group which would not finish at each other's throats.
The obvious solution was staring them in the face. What about this new community of impartial strangers which had just arrived in their midst ? They invited the officers of the Squadron to put up half a dozen of their finest. In hindsight this was not to turn out to be the best idea since sliced bread, but it looked all right at the time. In the Mess, there was some in-fighting to secure one of the half-dozen places, as the possibilities were obvious. I think the Boss had to lay down the law in the end. Anyway, the rest would be in the front row with the local civic notables. The great day came - and the panel opened their Sealed Orders.
Of course the thing was a fix. This was the only condition on which the Leaders had allowed it to go forward. Virtue must be seen to triumph. In all conscience the Preferred Candidate would have been high in the betting order in any case, and she was of impeccable pedigree, too - Sunday School teacher, lead soprano in the choir, Brown Owl, pillar of the Chapel - the lot. They were to choose her and no other. But when the parade was assembled for inspection, another last-minute entrant appeared who was head and shoulders ahead of the field, so to speak. They flouted their orders and voted unanimously for her.
Then all Hell broke loose, for it seemed that they had unwittingly selected a well known Lady of Ill Fame. They barely escaped from the venue with their lives. Loudly rang out the hwyl in the Chapels next morning. Beelzebub had come amongst them and his name was RAF Valley. They were banished from the polite society of Anglesey - not that there was all that much of that, anyway. Daughters were locked up. Pubs and shops did not to carry their aversion to them to the point of actually refusing their money, but a bar which could be heard loudly discussing the football results, say, suddenly switched in a body to Welsh as we came in. I don't know the Welsh for "doghouse", but whatever it was, they were well and truly in it.
Even a Max Clifford would be hard put to it to improve our image. Some remedial P.R. was badly needed. So matters rested when I arrived on the Squadron in April, 1950. And about this time there happened another unfortunate incident.
A retired senior member of the Works and Bricks team who had maintained the airfield for years in war and peace had died. He had expressed a wish that his ashes be scattered from the air over the airfield which he'd had in his care for so long.
All arrangements were made to do this with due reverence and dignity. The time was chosen, a clergyman of his denomination would attend with the mourners. No aircraft would move (excepting the Harvard which would perform the task), and the Station would maintain silence during the ceremony. The Harvard would overfly at 1,000 ft, the urn-bearer in the back cockpit would uncap and instruct the pilot to yaw hard, while the ashes of the deceased were poured over into the inside of the yaw.
What exactly went wrong, I do not know. There was an unstable north -westerly blowing; it was very turbulent. Perhaps the timing of the "Yaw" was 'out'. Fortunately about half the ashes went over the side, so the watchers below would see a grey-white puff of "smoke" to confirm that the task had been completed. The other half blew back into the Harvard, ending all over the cockpit, its occupant and down the back end. The horrifed crew conferred frantically. Should they confess when they got down ? How could the aircraft be reverently cleaned ? (you can't very well hose him out). Who would tell the mourners ? It didn't bear thinking about.
On the other hand, a cockpit is pretty dusty at the best of times, isn't it ? What had gone down the back end was only grit and powder, it was well spread out, it shouldn't cause any problems if left alone. They resolved to keep their mouths shut, and it was long afterwards before I heard a whisper of what had really happened.
The Harvard continued in service and showed no sign of its grisly secret. By rights, there should be a ghost story coming along soon - the "Tale of the Haunted Harvard" - but apparently the dear departed saw the funny side of things and bore us no ill will. It may be flying yet - Harvards moved from Station to Station a lot, and over the years some of my readers may have flown it, so I shall not give its airframe number.
Some Good News coming next (and not before !) time, so all is not lost - yet !
Goodnight again,
Danny42C
Misfortunes never come singly.
Last edited by Danny42C; 17th Jan 2013 at 19:26.
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