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Old 1st Mar 2013, 16:00
  #3548 (permalink)  
Danny42C
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Danny is Home and Dry.

Now we're ashore in Dover, and it is Sunday afternoon. British Railways (surprisingly) raised no difficulty with the return half of our rail tickets (apparently it was then not all that unusual for travellers to go out from one Channel port and return to another).

And now our chequebooks were good ? Forget it ! In those days eveything in London was shut tight except the pubs (no ATMs in those days) and it would be a stupid publican indeed who'd cash a cheque for a dishevelled young stranger waving some bit of plastic. Neither of us were members of the RAF Club, mostly avoiding London like the plague, so we'd never seen any reason to join.

All we had now was the cash in our pockets, and this had to be carefully husbanded. Willie went off somewhere to spend his last couple of days' leave with his people, I took the tube to Euston, deducted from my remaining cash the price of a sleeper on the Irish Mail, and had a very frugal meal with what was left. I got on the train as soon as they let us aboard, put my head down and slept like a log.

The train got into Holyhead at dawn. The steward brought me a cup of tea. I hadn't a penny to tip him and made a clean breast of it. He was quite understanding about it (he was ex-RAF). My little Bond stood where I'd left it in the station car park two weeks before (you could do that in those days, no one would pinch it, even though it was just a matter of throwing a switch on the panel and a tug on the starter). And if they did, it was the only one on Anglesey - it shouldn't be hard for Jones the Plod to find. It started first pull, I pop-popped back to Valley. Breakfast in the Mess tasted better than I'd ever known it ! Then back to work.

About this time we learned that the Squadron's days were numbered. Some bean-counter in Air Ministry (possibly the same chap who'd picked up the mismatch between Derwent failures and flame-out practice crashes) had realised that it was a very expensive way to provide the simple services the Army needed. We were ripe for privatisation.

The job was put out to tender: the successful bidder was (IIRC) Marshalls of Cambridge. In September they wouid take over from us, setting up shop in Llanbedr (Harlech); we would hand over our aircraft to them; 20 Squadron would disband (it would in later years reform as a Hunter and then a Harrier Squadron). Yet there was still one last summer to work through.

Here I beg to differ a bit from the otherwise omniscient Wiki. They say that 202 AFS moved into Valley in early '51. The decision to move them might have been taken at that time, but they did not physically appear until early September, on the eve of our departure. In between we had some unexpected visitors.

A section of the xxxth Bombardment Group of Strategic Air Command would be coming in with their B-50s for an indefinite period. Why Valley and not East Anglia (that unsinkable aircraft carrier), which was their natural habitat, we never knew. There was plenty of unused technical accommodation on the W side of the main runway (later the AFS would go in there to begin with), but I wondered how the USAF even knew Valley existed. (Wiki tells me that they used it during the war as a staging post for aircraft delivered across the Atlantic).

On the appointed morning, the Valley weather had done its worst - rain, low scud at 2-300 ft, poor visibility, a pig of a day. I think all our flying had been called off. The plan was that the "Coinel" would bring in the first ship, with the others to follow at twenty-minute intervals. Of course we all turned out to watch the arrival.

So what happens now ? - don't miss the next Thrilling Instalment.

Good afternoon, chaps,

Danny42C

PS: Geriaviator, thanks for unravelling the Great Bold Type Mystery (the infection has reached P.2 now, our chaps must all be out drawing their pensions)..........D.


The Onlooker sees most of the Game.