Danny has his hopes dashed.
I soon had problems on several fronts. Alex Hindley's recommendation for my PC had not fallen on stony ground, for my first flight from Thornaby was in the station Harvard to 12 Group at Newton, on 20th October. I took Jack Derbyshire with me as a passenger, but my business was with the AOC (AVM Harcourt-Smith). He looked me over and added his weight to Hindley's submission. So far, so good. It looked like a repetition of my original commissioning in '43. All I had to do now was wait. Done and dusted. Or so I thought.
But it happened that Fighter Command was then headed by the redoubtable Air Marshal Sir Basil Embry (he who in one of his escape efforts had killed a German guard with his bare hands - which did not endear him to his captors when they picked him up again - and who had dismissed the Vultee Vengeance as worse than a Fairey Battle). As at that time we were (IIRC) not fighting anybody in particular, he found time hanging heavy on his hands.
To keep himself busy, he decided to check out a selection of the young gentlemen who had been put forward for PCs in his Command. Later in the year (I cannot be more specific, for I must have gone down to Bentley Priory by train - could you get to it from Stanmore ?} I was bidden to present myself to the great man.
He greeted me cordially enough, but the difficulty was that he had done his homework, and worked out that the best I could hope for was a "scraper" around the age of 40 - not quite what he was looking for at all ! That was bad enough, but when he found that, although I'd been to a rugby school, I didn't play - no, not even for the Station, he lost interest in me completely; my fate was sealed. Thumb down.
(One Saturday last autumn, I filletted my D.T., and my eye was caught by the "Property" section. Normally, this would be of little interest (as I don't have a spare half-million), but on the cover page was a Spitfire Gate Guardian in front of a noble pile that looked familiar. It had to be Bentley Priory, looking fine in the autumn sunshine, and I was not at all surprised to read that the MOD were trying to sell it off to some developer for conversion into flats. I looked at the Spitfire. Surely the engine panels' shut lines were never as accurate as that ? Of course they weren't - they'd been done by a signwriter (with a felt-tipped pen ?) The thing was a fibreglass fake.
So there you have it. The very epicentre of the Battle of Britain, the place from which, seventy years before, Britain had been saved from its greatest peril in a thousand years, had now no place in the hearts of the British people, and was tossed on the market like an old bingo hall. And its guardian was an oversized Airfix model ! With the contracting RAF, could they not find one real Spitfire as a memento of the building's glorious place in our history ? So what next ? Chop up " Victory" for biofuel ?)
As for me, it rather looked as if, in five years' time, I would be out on the street, and have to start working for a living. It was time to dig a bit deeper, if I wanted to stay in the service. I came across AM Signal P3406 of 2.6.50. * This introduced what was laughingly called the "Limited Career Permanent Commission" (for "Limited", read "No"). Even so, it was a fair offer. They would keep me on till age 50, and then pension me off. I would not get past Flight Lieutenant. Take it or leave it.
(* No, my memory's not as good as all that: I've a couple of yellowing copy letters in the back of my log).
This LCPC was on offer (originally) only in the Air Traffic and Fighter Control Branches (later it was renamed the "Branch Commission", and was extended - on application - to age 55). I applied for ATC, and was duly accepted. This may strike you as surprising, seeing that I was already in a Fighter Control Unit. But as I've already explained, I was only "admin", and I didn't fancy a troglodyte existence "down the hole", whereas in ATC I'd at least see aircraft flying, blue skies and green grass. And I'd spent some time helping out in Binbrook ATC in '49: the job did not seem too onerous.
Anyway, after Bentley Park I was down in London and I think it was then that I looked up Niel Ker. He was slaving away on his Russian Course, and they'd devised a cunning way to keep their students' noses to the grindstone. Starting with 12 more people than they needed for Paris after Christmas, they set a progress test every fortnight and chopped the bottom two. Simple but effective.
Niel was in digs, his landlady bore the good old Russian name of Mrs Braithwaite, although she'd probably been Grand Duchess of something or other in the Tsarist court. She was the relict of a Mr Braithwaite, and normally lived alone except for a very friendly old labrador called Pyotr. This animal was well trained and obedient, but the thing was that he would obey only commands in Russian. So it was that I learned that the Russian for "Sit" was "Sidi" (seedee). Mrs B mothered Niel, and I can vouch for the fact that she could turn out a very tasty steak-and-kidney pie.
Goodnight, all,
Danny42C
P.S. Perhaps I've been a little hard on Airfix. In the middle of a roundabout in Thornaby town centre is a plastic replica Spitfire, and that's fair enough, but at Bentley Priory......D.
You can't win 'em all.
Last edited by Danny42C; 19th Apr 2013 at 17:06.
Reason: Spacing