Boy Entrant; The Recollections of a Royal Air Force Brat (57 page)

At the weekend, we ventured into the village that adjoined the RAF station and started getting to know the local young ladies, with some success I might add.

All in all, we liked Shawbury and the City of Shrewsbury and felt content with our technical duties. It seemed as though we had achieved perfect balance with the potential for interesting work and pleasant leisure activities. But as we blissfully enjoyed our new life at this wonderfully idyllic station, we were completely unaware of the urgent “signals”, of which we were the subject, that were flying rapidly back and forth between the Station Personnel Records Section and Flying Training Command HQ. The exchange of correspondence continued for about two weeks, before the Brass arrived at a momentous decision. The first we knew of it was when, one day, the Beautiful One—the Tech. Wing Adjutant—summoned us into her presence once more. We were quite excited at the prospect of gazing on her flawless countenance again, never suspecting that the outcome of this meeting might not be quite as joyful as we expected. When we arrived in the outer office, the Wing Discip. Sergeant motioned us to wait and then popped his head through the doorway into the Adjutant’s office, to let her know we had arrived. He then beckoned for us to go in. We entered her office, then stood at attention and saluted, somehow sensing the sombreness of the atmosphere at the same time.

“Stand easy,” she said. Then, seeming to choose her words carefully as though she’d been rehearsing them, she began, “As I mentioned to you before, Queen’s Regulations expressly forbid underage personnel from being accommodated with adult personnel.”

“Yes Ma’am,” we agreed.

“Well,” she continued, “We’ve tried to make some arrangements to provide separate accommodation for you at Shawbury, but I’m afraid Command won’t hear of it and has ruled that all of the underage personnel in Flying Training Command must be stationed at one place.” Her voice dropped to a softer tone, “So, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you are both being posted to RAF Cranwell.” She allowed us a moment for this to sink in before adding, “I’m sorry. We liked having you here and the reports I’ve had tell me that you seemed to be fitting in well, but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about it.” She seemed genuinely sorry as she said this, but then continued, “You need to report to the Station Orderly Room right away to begin clearing. We’ll miss you and all I can do is wish you both good luck.” With that, she sadly shook hands with both of us and smiled encouragingly. Crestfallen, we saluted her and then turned and left the office.

Two weeks! It must have been one of the shortest postings in RAF history and just when we were finding our feet and getting to know our way around. We hoped that Cranwell would be just as enjoyable as Shawbury, but we really didn’t hold out too much hope in that direction. After all, it wasn’t just “Cranwell”; it was the bloody
Royal Air Force College
Cranwell where officer cadets are trained before being let loose on the world. That could only mean one thing; tons and tons of bull.

* * *

Two days later, Butterworth and I stood dejectedly on a Shrewsbury railway station platform, dressed in our best blue uniforms and with all of the possessions we owned in this world packed into our cylindrical white canvas kitbags that now rested on the platform by our sides. We were waiting for the Birmingham train to take us on what would be the first leg of our journey to Royal Air Force College Cranwell in the County of Lincolnshire. It was a sad occasion, because we had fallen in love with Shawbury during our short sojourn there. There had been a welcoming feeling at all levels, both on the station and in the surrounding area and we had been settling into it very nicely, thank you, when the order to uproot us had come so rudely and abruptly from On High. The prospect of going to Cranwell, on the other hand, was none too encouraging. Several people had visibly shuddered when we told them of our new posting, which didn’t do much in the way of helping us adopt an attitude of gleeful anticipation at the thought of going to our new home.

Several weary hours and a number of train changes later, we pulled into Lincoln Central station where we would make the last change for the final leg of the rail journey. Accidentally misreading the name of our next destination on the ticket as “Seaford,” we scanned the timetable posted on a wall near the station exit, but couldn’t find it listed. In desperation, we approached a uniformed official, who was quite possibly the Stationmaster.

“Excuse us please,” I said. He looked at us sharply as though we were interrupting something important, but seeing that I had his attention, I continued, “We’re supposed to be going to Seaford but can’t see it on the timetable.”

“Seaford?” He barked. His body language suggested that he was busy and didn’t really want to be bothered by two little erks like us. “There ain’t nowt ’round ’ere by that name, lad.”

I held out my ticket so that he could see the name of the destination printed on it, but had to wait a few moments whilst his officious attention was directed elsewhere, before he condescended to look at the small green rectangle of cardboard in my hand.

“Oh,
Sleaford
!” He exclaimed, pronouncing it loudly in a slow theatrical manner as though he had solved a great mystery and was making everyone within earshot aware of how he had cleverly exposed our incredible stupidity. His patronising tone strongly suggested that if morons like us intended to travel in Lincolnshire it would help if we could at least get the names of its towns right. He must have enjoyed the moment, because it also gave him the heaven-sent opportunity to be rid of us.

“Need St. Mark’s Station, lad,” he continued gruffly, “train for Sleaford dunnit go from ’ere.”

It was bad enough that we had to change trains, but we also had to change stations and in a city we weren’t familiar with. “How do we get to St. Mark’s station?” I asked.

“You’ll ’ave to go oot the station exit,” he indicated where the exit was as he spoke, “and then go to tha’s left too-ards ’igh Street. Go to tha’s left agin and cross o’er the crossing and it’s aboot ’alf a mile on tha’s ra-ight.”

We thanked him for his grudging help, then threw our kitbags up on our shoulders and headed towards the station exit, proffering our tickets to be punched by the expressionless ticket inspector on our way out. Once outside the station, we turned left as instructed and soon came to the level crossing on High Street that the Stationmaster had mentioned. But the train we’d only just disembarked from was still at the platform and was apparently too long to fit all the way into the station, so the last few carriages blocked the crossing, preventing the gates from being opened to traffic and pedestrians. Instead of waiting until the train pulled out, however, we decided to use the pedestrian footbridge adjacent to the crossing. Climbing up the steps to the bridge level with the heavy kitbag slung over my shoulder was quite an effort, which was further complicated by trying to manoeuvre its awkward bulk in a way that avoided having it bumped into by the fast downward rush of hurrying pedestrians.

It was a relief for both of us to finally reach the level part of the bridge and start catching our breath, as we then started descending the easier downward flight of steps on the opposite side of the crossing. That’s when I was rewarded by catching my very first view of Lincoln Cathedral. It stood majestically on the city’s highest hill, overlooking the landscape descending into the valley below. It appeared tall, regal and serene above the common everyday goings-on of the hoi polloi below. The simple act of looking up and suddenly seeing this beautiful cathedral gave me a pleasantly strange feeling that seemed to resonate somewhere deep within my being. It was somehow like a sense of
déjà vu,
but not exactly, because I didn’t get the sensation of having been there before. It was just a feeling of familiarity. The sensation is really difficult to describe, but the best way I can put it is that I suddenly knew I liked this city and wanted to return as often as I could. It’s a good thing too, because Lincoln eventually became my second home. It was here that I met and married my wife Pam, it was where both of my daughters, Michelle and Sarah, were born and where I lived out a large portion of my life. But that’s another story I intend to tell some other time.

St. Mark’s Station was smaller than Lincoln Central and with fewer amenities. Eventually, our train for Sleaford arrived at one of the station’s two main platforms. It was a local “milk” train that stopped at every small village station on the way, making the 17-mile journey spin out to more than an hour. Finally, we arrived at Sleaford in mid-afternoon and were pleased to discover that the bus terminal was directly across the street from the railway station. Well actually it wasn’t so much a terminal as a series of buses parked by the kerb along the street. The buses were mid-green in colour and bore the seemingly quaint logo, “Lincolnshire Road Car Co. Ltd.”, displayed prominently in yellow lettering along their flanks. It didn’t take us very long to find a bus with “Cranwell Camp” displayed on its destination indicator and so we climbed aboard. A few minutes later, the bus conductor came aboard and approached us for the fare. We produced the bus warrants we’d been issued that morning by the Personnel Records clerk at Shawbury.

“East Camp or West Camp?” inquired the conductor.

We looked blankly at him. “Dunno. Can you drop us off at the Guardroom please?” one of us replied.

“That’s East Camp,” he said, taking our bus warrants and winding the little handle on his ticket machine to dispense a yellow paper ribbon consisting of two tickets. As this was happening, the driver climbed into his cab and then the bus juddered spasmodically for a few seconds as he coaxed its reluctant diesel engine into life.

“Hold tight,” called out the conductor as he pushed the bell button twice in rapid succession. The ding-ding sound of the bell was drowned almost immediately by the harsh grinding noise of first gear being selected and with a jolt the bus set off, taking us on the last lap of our day-long journey.

As we travelled along its main street, I could see that Sleaford seemed to be a modestly-sized market town, but it was soon left behind as the vista evolved into that of a gently undulating countryside of green fields, woods and copses. The bus crawled along very slowly—probably at about 25 miles per hour, which was something we weren’t used to. The Western Welsh buses travelled along at a fair clip and during my short stay at Shawbury, the efficient speed of the Midland Red buses hadn’t gone unnoticed. Richard and I joked with each other about getting out and pushing or of being able to get there faster if we got out and walked, thinking that the driver was just a little too cautious and didn’t want to put his foot down too hard. Later, I found that this slow speed was universal for the Lincolnshire Road Car Co. Ltd.—for reasons that have remained a mystery.

The road along which we travelled was the A15 to Lincoln and except for a short detour through the village of Leasingham, we stayed on this road for about two miles before making a left turn onto a “B” road. Just as we made the turn, I caught a brief glimpse of a signpost pointing in the direction that we were now taking. It read “Cranwell 2”. I took this to mean that the distance to our destination was two more miles, but it was the wrong assumption. The sign really indicated the distance to Cranwell village—the camp itself was another two miles further on. After passing through the village, obvious signs of an airfield began to appear. First a control tower, then hangars and eventually clumps of buildings could be discerned as the bus slowly puttered towards them along the now arrow-straight road. The buildings became more identifiable as we got nearer and then we were passing between them—married quarters on the right and what appeared to be dilapidated red-brick barracks on the left. After a few hundred yards of driving in the built-up area, the bus pulled up at a bus stop with a long wavering squeal of its brakes that set my teeth on edge.

“Guardroom,” sang out the conductor, as he looked in our direction.

I was expecting to see the typical main entrance of a Royal Air Force camp complete with gate, a headquarters building facing the entrance and a Guardroom strategically situated to monitor and control entry and egress to and from the station. But the bus had actually stopped at a place on the road where none of these traditional landmarks were obvious. There was, however, a long single storey building set back a few feet from the road and judging from the abundance of gleaming white paintwork and shining brasses, there was no mistaking that it was the Guardroom. We grabbed our kitbags and alighted from the bus and then heard the ding-ding sound of the bell and the conductor’s “Hold tight” caution as the bus thundered off, leaving us standing there in a dense swirling cloud of black diesel exhaust fumes. Before picking up our kitbags again, we took a few moments to check each other’s uniforms to make sure that everything was as it should be, before presenting ourselves to the Snoops inside the Guardroom.

The structure and location of the building was odd to say the least, but it wasn’t until we walked into a passageway penetrating its midsection that I realized it was actually a railway station. I could see that we were really standing on a station platform. There was another platform facing the one on which we stood and between both platforms lay the track bed, minus rails and sleepers. This had apparently been the terminus of a spur line, probably from Sleaford, that at one time had served the station. But the tracks had evidently been torn up some time ago, although the path they had followed was still plainly visible, grown over as it was. From these clues, it wasn’t difficult to deduce that the main form of transport to and from Cranwell must have originally been by train. And since the railway station was the camp’s main access portal to and from the outside world, it only made sense for it to incorporate the Guardroom. Progress, no doubt encouraged by the Lincolnshire Road Car Co. Ltd., had consigned the train service to history’s dustbin, but the Guardroom still remained as the lone survivor of an earlier era. Whether it had originally occupied the whole building, as it did now, or had completely taken it over later when the railway staff had abandoned ship, was entirely open to conjecture.