Danny finds all is not well.
(follows my #3702 p.186)
Back at Thornaby......
The Bond was in a motorbike garage for a rebore (ten bob for the bore and fifteen for the piston), so I took the bus to Stockton. The strip advert above the seats was interesting: "SUMMER HOLIDAYS FREE - Join No. 3608 Fighter Control Unit, Royal Auxiliary Air Force at RAF Thornaby........ " This did not seem to be exactly the kind of message that we ought to be sending out in our recruiting advertising.
Unfortunately it was not very far from the truth. It rapidly became apparent that things had been allowed to slide in the time of my predecessor. I (honestly) cannot recall his name, but I was told that he had in his time been the Meteor Aerobatic Champion of Fighter Command. Obviously his talents did not tend towards Administration and Organisation: his Auxiliary C.O. would not be of much help to him, being primarily a Fighter Controller.
This is not to say that he had no smart ideas: one in particular (which was up and running when I arrived) I admired, but had to admit was on the wrong side of the law. We ran our own tea-and-bun swindle inside the unit on training days; with no overheads this can be a profitable business. Funds accumulated but there did not appear to be any form of accounting in place. It was not a recognised "Non-Public Fund", so the Station Accountant Officer had no interest in it. However my chap had thought of a neat way to augment its finances.
They designed a quite attractive Christmas Card for the Unit: it sold like hot cakes. An arrangement had been reached with the printers whereby the job was invoiced to us as "Recruiting Posters". TAAFA paid out without question for anything with "Recruiting" in its title - without even asking for a specimen of the goods. As we were getting the cards free in this way , we could sell them cheaply and still make a killing (I think the law calls it "fraudulent conversion", but I am no lawyer).
It was obvious to me that someone was going to get his collar felt if this sort of thing went on, and it could well be me. It was too late to do anything about this particular swindle, but I resolved that there would be no more. I went out and bought a magnificent Cash Book (big enough to be in use yet if the Unit had lasted so long). One of my (two) Auxiliary Secretarial Officers, Tom Oliver, was Assistant Manager of a Darlington bank. I collared all the cash I could find washing around and locked it in my safe. I issued a receipt for all the cash I received, and demanded one for everything I paid out. The counterfoils were passed to Tom, he set up a full set of books, opened an account at his Bank for us, and we were in business.
It rapidly became clear that the appointment of my new C.O. was going to take some time (in fact it took some nine months) and in the meantime I was well and truly left "holding the baby". As I've said, there was no acting rank in prospect, but by the strangest of anomalies it appeared that I was entitled to an Entertainment Allowance of (wait for it) 3/- per day in keeping with my exalted status. I can only suppose that this came from TAAFA in some way, but the amount was so small, and as I had no intention of entertaining anyone except myself, I decided that I was the best home for the windfall.
IIRC, Flying Pay was introduced about this this time, but I cannot be exact. It started at 3/6 a day, and it was payable so long as you remained appointable for flying duties, so I was in the money there, too. The idea of Flying Pay struck us as strange and unwelcome. Why pay an RAF officer or airman extra for doing the job he was paid for already ? It had not been found necessary during WW2; the principle had always been that (apart from specialists like doctors and dentists) all officers got the pay of their rank and seniority no matter what they did. An Equipment Officer store-bashed, a plumber plumbed, a pilot flew and the Admin and Special Duties Branch stirred round the paperwork. All lived happily together on equal terms, but now a divide of Have and Have-nots had been created. I suppose the purpose may have been to encourage pilot recruitment, but when we have reached the stage of having to bribe the young gentlemen of Britain to come and fly in the RAF, it's time to pack-in. (Having said that, we took the money of course !)
I had an unnerving experience in a Vampire one day. It must have been in summer, for when I closed and sealed the canopy it got uncomfortably warm, and I fully opened the "eyeball" fresh air inlet up on the left. Half-way through take-off, I'd just got the nosewheel off when something small hit me hard on the cheek, and it was followed by more tiny missiles. I hastily pulled my goggles down (this was long before helmets and visors); we were far too far down to stop and I took it round for a quick circuit and down. Downwind the fusillade had stopped, but looking in my lap I found two or three small BA bolts.
I climbed out, the cockpit was checked: there were more of them all over the floor and of course others could have gone anywhere in the aircraft. The Vampire was put u/s at once. Maintenance records were checked and the whole sad story came to light.
It seemed that an instrument technician had recently done a job in the cockpit, changed an instrument or something of the sort. To do it, he had taken a little cardboard box of these BA bolts, opened it and found there was no flat surface to put the open box - except that the tiny thing could just fit in the open "eyeball". Of course the inevitable happened: he upended the box and the whole lot went down into the air duct.
He now considered the situation. If he reported the occurrence, half the front end of the aircraft would have to be unshipped to retrieve the bolts, and he would not be Chiefy's blue-eyed boy. On the other hand, the bolts were wholly contained in the ducting and could not possibly escape to do any harm. They could stay down there (wherever they had got to) for the life of the aircraft and no one be any the wiser. And of course, they were "C" stores (consumables); he did not have to account for them.
He took the logical way out and kept his mouth shut. It was just his hard luck that the gale that went through the duct when the aircraft got under way was enough to convert the bolts into the swarm of projectiles which had attacked me. He was for the High Jump: I do not know what happened to him.
More about my problems next time,
Good evening, chaps,
Danny42C.
It's just one damn' thing after another.
Last edited by Danny42C; 21st Apr 2013 at 18:37.
Reason: Formatting.