The sound of activity at the door. In walked the two flight lieutenants, the squadron leader and behind them was the station commander. I, the two NCOs and the members of No153 course stood to attention. There followed a hesitant shambling to their feet as the others followed suit. The CO had an artificial leg and used a stick to get around. Four rows of ribbons on his tunic showed why.
“Welcome to RAF South Cerney,” he boomed. “I am Group Captain Fennel and I run this station. Just a word to introduce myself and wish you all the best of luck in your careers.”
With that he turned and departed, a man of few words. The Squadron Leader took over. He then gave a run down on what the rules were, when we were moving to the new cadet’s mess and the necessity of wearing a hat when we went into Cirencester. I was amazed, we were working a five and a half-day week and apart from this week we could go into town in the evening. That Friday the service tailors from London would come down and we would be given £10 to buy a proper SD cap, shoes and brown leather gloves. All officers had to be saluted and as The Central Flying School’s helicopter unit was also on the station that included them as well. This applied to me anyway as an officer cadet because I was a substantive AC2 but I had seen a few uniforms put away with pilot officer’s rings on them so those with instant University Air Squadron commissions weren’t going to get away with it either. The Squadron Leader continued that we were to be ready, in uniform, for the indoctrination period at 0830 hrs. It was now teatime so we all walked in a big crowd to the airmen’s mess where the corporal’s dining room was reserved for cadets. This was very different; I had always been marched around to meals. The food was standard RAF fare, chips with everything.
The evening was spent tidying up my service kit, I had brought some Brasso with me so I polished up the brasses on the belt, and as it had a plastic finish it did not need blancoing. I thought about boning the pimply finish on the shoes smooth but that was unnecessary, as they were not going to be used for posh parades. Some of my companions were trembling in anticipation, this being what they had dreamed about for years. The visitors from upstairs seemed to indicate that it was a pretty soft life. There was not a lot of running about, the drill was pretty straightforward and most of the time seemed to be spent on making sure that everybody’s brain worked in sympathy with their educational qualifications.
I had been used to sleeping in a barrack block so the odd disturbances during the night didn’t stir me at all. Lashings of bacon, eggs and chips started the day off though some were a bit late as they were still learning how to put a uniform on. At 0829.59 precisely a flight sergeant walked in.
“Good morning gentlemen,” he barked. “Will you form three ranks outside?” This was the first time a seargeant had ever called me a gentleman, usually quite the opposite. We formed up outside. He called out the name of the elder of the NCOs followed by his fellow and me.
“Flight Sergeant Morris, you will march this lot about whenever they move. The other two will be the right markers until they get some idea of what’s going on.”
We took up our positions. The flight was brought to attention and as I did so I brought my knee up to the horizontal as I had been taught in the army.
Flight Sergeant Thomas glared down at me.
“We don’t do that in the RAF.”
Just my luck, I had just set a precedent for my entire Air Force training. I was always the first to be bullocked on every course I went on.
South Cerney had the standard three curved hangar layout with CFS using the western one. It was one of the few airfields remaining with no runways, just a perimeter track around the outside, which is why it was ideal for helicopters. We marched, in a fashion, to the centre hangar where our course classroom was. We filed in and were introduced to the instructors on the course, most of them were Education Branch and their job was to bring us up to speed on the three Rs. Further documentation followed. Photographs were taken for 1250s, (ID card), next of kin etc.etc. We then went into the hangar for a session of drill to try and get some sort of rhythm to our marching. I soon learned to march the air force way; it was a damn sight more relaxing than the army was. Then an old fashioned tea break with the NAAFI wagon.
The rest of the week passed much in this way with two drill sessions a day between the academics. Not all the course were going to be pilots, half were going to be navigators or air electronics officers so sometimes they were split off to mess about with wriggly amps and suchlike. We pilots then had lessons on aerodynamics and it is amazing how people who had set their heart on hurling about the sky for so long had such an appalling ignorance about what keeps an aeroplane in the air. Friday lunchtime came and we all lined up to collect our money to buy our hats, gloves and shoes.
The tailors had already unloaded their vans into the admin room in the barrack block. Gieves, Moss Bros. and R. E. City were the three firms. Hawkes was an Army and Navy specialist. Shoeboxes identified the Poulsen shoe man and surrounded by piles of hatboxes was the Bates rep. These were the hats that everybody wanted. Oversize crowns enabled them to be wrapped in a wet towel so that the material flopped over the headband almost to the ears, very much like a Luftwaffe cap except the cloth was softer. They were a pound more expensive than the tailor’s versions so by the time I had my Bates hat, Moss Bros. gloves and Poulsen shoes I had disposed of twelve pounds. The tailors were of course, trying to sign everybody up for budget accounts so they would be trapped with them for the rest of their service life but I had been warned by my father to avoid this. Some of the cadets were getting measured up for No.1 uniforms at their own expense, an action I considered very optimistic because if you failed the course you became an instant airman and officers uniforms are no use then. Three went the whole hog and ordered them with red linings, then a Fighter Command prerogative. Within five years two of them were buried with what was left of the remains of their owners.
Saturday morning came and on Saturdays there was a parade and a barrack block inspection. The block wasn’t too bad, there was a rumour that we would be confined to camp if it was manky but the three NCOs and I managed to get them to clean the right places and being the junior course we were responsible for the washroom. My old sergeant major would have failed it at one hundred yards! The precaution of getting old brasses for my belt paid off as all the others with new ones toiled ceaselessly to bring up any sort of shine. We all paraded and were inspected. The usual comments about haircuts and whose uniform are you wearing then we all went inside for the block inspection and my experience of knowing the right places to clean saved us as he ran his fingers along clean pelmets and so on. So that was that, we were free until 0900hrs Monday morning.