First, Disembarkation Leave (two weeks) to re-acclimatise ourselves with life in North Yorkshire (I stress "North" - and we didn't have central heating any more !) Then I had to report to Linton: to begin with I commuted from home (some 40 miles) until we could find a place in York. Linton was an AFS, so they ran a two-watch ATC system, similar to the one in force in Strubby.
I know I was commuting, for I was running South down the A19 to go on the afternoon watch when the oddest of all road incidents happened to me. It didn't deserve the term "accident" - "near miss" would cover it better. To set the scene then: straight (single) carriageway road, hardly any traffic, dry and sunny. However, the intention was to dual-carriage that stretch; for the purpose a strip of grassland had been appropriated (perhaps 30 yds wide), sloping gently down to my left. There it met a fairly solid hedge, parallel to the road.
So far, so good. About a half-mile ahead was a gentle climb. Over the brow on the other side came a furniture van and a "tail"of two or three cars, which had obviously been waiting for a safe opportunity to get past. First up was a Morris Minor (the well loved "Moggie"). There was all the room in the world, no problem.
But the Moggie panicked (probably spotted me for the first time when abeam the van), and yanked hard left across its bows to get back to the side. He overdid it, and had to yank right even harder to save running out of road (at this point I'm fairly sure I saw the back end twitch a bit).
Everybody else had the anchors on by now, for fear of what might happen next, and it was as well we had. His RH pull overshot (leaving him heading for me), next he snatched left really savagely to correct. This time he completely "lost" it. The Minor's back end broke away, the car spun left rather more than a quarter turn, flying
backwards across the road about 20 yards ahead of me.
It charged down the grassy slope and came to rest with the boot embedded in the hedge.
At this point I was driving past and had a glance at four (putty-coloured) faces. Two large middle-aged men in front, their even larger wives in the back, all looking somewhat alarmed.
However as there was no reason to suppose injury, and the Minor should need little more than a back-end respray anyway (and I couldn't afford to be late on watch !), and seeing in my mirror that the van and another two cars behind had stopped to render assistance, I suppressed my Good Samaritan impulses and carried on to Linton. When I came back that evening, the Minor had gone. Whether it had got out under its own power, or been hauled out, I don't know.
Now I must tell you a strange thing. You might imagine that my memory for names, faces and of detail in general would improve as the intervening years lessen. The reverse seems to be the case. Perhaps this reflects the gradual onset of the "Short Term Memory Loss" syndrome (with which many of us are all
too familiar).
I do not remember
any names at Linton (nor for that matter in GK). Not the Stationmaster, nor the W/Cdr(A), with whom I had a lot to do, nor the RN Commander (Air), who (IIRC) replaced a W/Cdr(F), nor my SATCO, none of the other ATCs (some RN), nor our airmen. What I do remember is that Linton had a lot of RN (and one or two RM) student pilots. They flew Vampires (and I'm only fairly sure about
that as we had Vampire fire hulks).
Now on all the Stations I'd been posted to since coming back post-war(excluding my training), I
must have had a Subsidiary Duty (and of course, a Barrack Hut or Room to look after). For such is the inescapable lot of a Junior Officer. But other than Thornaby (where I was Mess "Wines Member" (aka Bar Officer), I cannot have been very assiduous in any of those Duties, as for the life of me I cannot remember what they were.
Apart from Linton. For I was summoned by W/Cdr (Admin), shortly after arrival, to be told that I was the Station Fire Officer, with immediate effect, and had better find out all about it ASAP (yesterday would do fine). This should prove interesting, I thought.
Evenin' all,
Danny42C.
"....and each man in his life plays many parts...." (Shakespeare - or as much as I can remember)
PS 1:
Reader123, you're probably right. Is there a solicitor in the house ?....D.
PS 2: Smudge, Yup, today's the day !...D. (For those who have not read the gory details, main story is on Page 143 #2848, sequels on 144 #2866 and 146 #2908)...D.