Walter603 (your #7714),
.....a RAF iron-framed bed with springs, the standard timber locker and a small rug.
Timber locker
and a
rug ! We had only our kitbags and the sprung bed. Had to buy our own mirror.
....You reminded me of the 4 Yorkshiremen story that was popular many years ago. "Floorboards in the annex? Aaaaah! i'd 'ave given me soul for them. An 'ole in the ground was what I 'ad for a bed" etc. etc. Next Yorkie, "Wot...'ole in the ground? I 'ad to sleep in a pond!" and so on.
At Babbacombe we were on bare boards with a straw palliasse ! (you were probably the same).
(your #7744)
Danny, I find it hard to understand that officer pay rate chart. I couldn't see a date stamp anywhere but it looks pre-war. Like you, I remember my Sgt and F/Sgt salaries gave me approx £5/18 a week as Sgt and £7 plus as a F/Sgt.
Our 13/6 a day as a Sgt-Pilot would be £4/14/6 in '42, and a F/Sgt-Pilot on 15/6 would get £5/8/6. Unless you got some extras, I'm afraid your past has picked up a rosy glow ! And £sd went out 43 years ago, so there is some excuse ! Yet, "all found" (except for 6d a day Sgts Mess Bill), it was good money. As one of my contemporaries put it: "it was the last time that you could have a good night out on a day's pay".
It isn't feasible that the commissioned ranks would take a pay cut on promotion.
No, and for that reason a Warrant Officer (and some F/Sgts ?) were commissioned as F/Os. But our problem here is the case where an NCO is commissioned, and there is a long delay in it coming through, in which time he has continued to be paid as an NCO. That pay has to be recouped, he may well have been promoted in the interval, in which case the amount to be repaid might exceed his arrears of pay as a P/O.
When I went back into the RAF in '49, it was as an F/O on 19/10 a day (nil seniority !). or about £355 pa. It was £50 less than I'd been getting as an Executive Officer in the Civil Service, but it was worth it to get back in. And of course, Marriage Allowance would have about doubled it, and you don't get that in the CS. Comparison with the rate chart shows a figure of £274 pre-war. Prices had about doubled in the interval, so my pay should have been £550 to keep in step. No such luck !
It woz an 'ard life !
{your #7745),
"Old Comrades"
Ah, those first bewildering weeks at "arsy-tarcy" and then ITW ! As I've said, you "immediate service" chaps had this advantage over us "deferred service types, in that you'd learned all the survival skills necessary for an erk in the wartime RAF before you started training. For me, who'd already done nine years "hard" in boarding school, and for one or two ex public-schoolboys, it was bad enough, but for the majority who'd never been away from Mummy, it must've been the culture shock of their lives !
You seem to have done pretty well eveything bar painting the coal white.
Happy Days !
Danny.