I did my first ATC tour at Manby/Strubby '55-'58. Manby was the home of the Empire Flying School (we still had an Empire), with "Gus" Walker as the Commandant. There was little movement at Manby apart from visitors and the handful of School Lincolns, all the rest of the action was at its "satellite" - Strubby, a few miles away. The major user there was a very busy Meteor AFS, to which were added the School Canberras and Meteors, with (towards the end) a sole Hunter.
It was a 1945 airfield frozen in time. The Tower, the hangars and the Nissen hutted camp were straight out of WWII, you would not have been in the least surprised to see bomb trolleys being towed around the dispersals and a file of Lancasters moving slowly out to the runway at dusk for the night's raid over Germany.
ATC was very high-intensity indeed, many days we had more movements than Heathrow. We had CR/DF in Approach, and the dear old "Bendix" (MPN-1) Radar (the "Stephenson's Rocket"of GCAs) on the field, but no ILS.
Local Control was the usual garden shed on top of an old square Tower, cold, draughty, leaky and reached (I think) by an outside staircase. There were no WRAF at Strubby (but there were at Manby). One SATCO covered both: we looked forward to our turns at being "rested" for a week at Manby - it was a haven of peace and tranquillity.
Many people lived out in Mablethorpe and Sutton (5-6 miles away on the coast). Newly married, I had the best "hiring" I ever saw (in Mablethorpe). Happy Days !
Danny.