NigG (#130),
...Can you clarify this, Danny? My understanding is that all new RAF pilots (and other aircrew) trained during wartime were enrolled in the RAF(VR), and wore VR lapel badges. But it sounds like you weren't. Also, why was the RAF(VR) still enrolling in 1946.. when, presumably, you had been demobbed, and the RAF was being down-sized?...
I was enlisted (in 1940), and commissioned (in 1943), into the RAFVR. I at first had the "VR" on my shoulder as an airman, and if commissioned in the early years of the war, would have had the "VR" on my lapels. Your father would have had the same. In the same way, embodied prewar Auxiliaries wore an "A" on lapel or shoulder, which distinguished us from prewar regulars.
But then the great mass of conscripts were coming in (although aircrew were all volunteers from among them), and the RAF saw advantage in enlisting/commissioning everyone into the RAFVR, although they were not now in fact strictly "volunteers". It meant that you could get rid of them without difficulty "on the cessation of hostilities".
The "VR" on lapels now served no purpose, and was discarded. I am not sure about the OR's shoulder tag - I was a long way away, with other things to worry about at the time - (but the Auxiliaries kept their "A"s, which caused a good deal of heartache among the "genuine" volunteers). I don't think the VR was reformed until 1947 (for the RAF will always need Reserves), although most had been ruthlessly "released" at the war's end (the 1949 RAF was one-tenth the size of the 1946 one). The ones who were chosen to stay mostly were put on Short-Service Commissions (a select few were awarded Permanent Commissions).
It's complicated, I know, but that's how it was.
Thank you for the compliment !
Danny.