Boy Entrant; The Recollections of a Royal Air Force Brat (6 page)

* * *

The journey home was less exciting. Going to England for the first time had been a fantastic experience, but there was nothing new to discover on the way back, just the long, long trip to endure. So, we got the train back to Liverpool, then the boat to Belfast. The first stop, after disembarking next morning, was the Clifton Street recruiting office where we were issued with railway passes that would take us to our home towns. We then said our goodbyes and headed off in the direction that would take us to our respective homes. I made my way to the York Road railway station and caught the next available train that would bring me to journey’s end.

About two hours later, when I alighted on the Coleraine station platform, one of the porters who’d bantered with Melvin, Bull and me a few days earlier, when we were setting off for Belfast, seemed surprised to see me.

For the next few weeks I found it difficult to settle back down into the old routine of delivering groceries to Paddy Corning’s customers, knowing that it wasn’t going to be for much longer and that my life was about to change drastically. I saw a lot of my pal John Moore. We had lived near each other when we were younger, had gone to the same school and had been best friends for several years. It was John who introduced me to Elvis the Pelvis. One day he got talking about this record he’d heard played on a jukebox in a little greasy spoon café near the railway station, so I went there with him and listened. That was the first time I heard Elvis—he was singing
Blue Suede Shoes
. It was so different from the usual run of the mill songs that I was used to hearing on the radio around that time and just seemed so new and fresh. We sang the chorus back and forwards to each other when we were out and about, like a young person’s code that the older folks couldn’t understand. After that, we made many trips to the Railway Place Café to put our money in the jukebox and feed our craving for
Blue Suede Shoes
over and over again until the proprietor must have been going out of his mind. He was probably pleased later, for a little while anyway, when we latched on to
Hound Dog
.

I introduced Melvin Jackson to John. He was one of the two others who had travelled to the RAF recruiting office in Belfast with me. We had become friends and I was sad that he hadn’t made it past the initial exams. But now, all three of us went around together during the short time that I had left. Melvin was very self-conscious about having failed to pass the education test. For years he had dreamed of joining the RAF, but now his hopes had been dashed. His mother took me on one side during one of my visits to his home and in an earnest confidential tone asked me not to tell anyone the reason why Melvin hadn’t been accepted.

“If anyone asks,” she said, “just tell them that he had failed on account of his poor eyesight.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

One or two people did ask me during the next few weeks, in a way that made me believe they already knew the real reason, but I stuck to the party line about Melvin’s bad eyesight.

Coleraine was your typical mid-fifties small town, where all the shops on the main street closed up at six o’clock in the evening and from midday on Wednesdays, which was “half day.” There were two cinemas in town,
The Picture Palace
on Railway Road, which was better known around town as “Christie’s” after the owner’s family name and
The Palladium
in Society Street. Both showed a film for two days—two evening performances and a Saturday matinee—and then changed the programme. They were closed on Sundays, like just about everything else in town. And that was about it for entertainment. Young people in their late teens or early twenties could go to dances at
The Boathouse,
or to
The Arcadia Ballroom
in Portrush, the nearby seaside resort. Older guys always had plenty of pubs to patronize, but there weren’t many activities available for us 15-yearolds. We thought of ourselves as oh-so-grownup because we’d left school, were working and had a little money in our pockets, all of which we felt entitled us to a night-life. And for our age group, the “in place” to hang around on Friday and Saturday nights was Morelli’s Ice Cream Parlour and Fish & Chip shop, although we never actually purchased very much from that fine establishment.

We’d stand around outside and watch girls no older than we were promenade up and down the street. They were never alone, always at least in pairs and like us they were there to see and be seen. We would behave in really sophisticated ways, like whistle after them, or try out some very witty pick-up lines as they passed by, such as, “Can I see you home? Where’ve ye been all me life?” Yeah, we really talked like that! Embarrassing, isn’t it? The girls would giggle but usually kept walking. If they stopped it was just to trade some banter. At St. Malachy’s Catholic School that John Moore and I had attended, the boys and girls were segregated and although I lived with two sisters at home there was still much I had to learn about the opposite sex. Our encounters were awkward to say the least, but it was great fun. Yes, we felt so grown up because we’d left school, but the joke is that not one of us had reached our sixteenth birthday. Hell, we hadn’t even started shaving yet.

The Summer of 1956 in Coleraine,—which mainly consisted of rain between the showers—gave way to autumn, when small boys hurled sticks at the high branches of the local Horse Chestnut trees in the hope of dislodging a few prickly seed-bearing cases. This activity was occurring throughout the British Isles. The dislodged chestnuts were used in an ancient children’s game that English youngsters called
Conkers
and Irish kids, at least in my neck of the woods, called
Cheesers
.

Around this time another familiar-looking package plopped through the letterbox. It contained a letter officially informing me that I’d been accepted to train as an aircraft electrical mechanic at the No. 4 School of Technical Training, Royal Air Force St. Athan, Glamorgan, South Wales and that I was to report to the Belfast Recruiting Office on Saturday, 13th October, 1956. The envelope included a railway warrant that would take care of my train fare and some consent papers for my father to sign. I think he gave me the speech again about him not wanting me to go, but that he wouldn’t stop me. I was hoping he wouldn’t, but why would he? Let’s face it, there would be one less mouth to feed and the prospect of a little more money coming in from the earnings that I was expected to send home. So he signed the papers and we sent them back to the RAF.

Meanwhile, I continued working for Paddy Corning, but there was an omnipresent sense that time was running out and any plans for the future involving friends or home town were becoming increasingly short term as each day passed. I still delivered groceries to the likes of Mrs. Mulligan, but now she always received her full weight of the
Gypsy Crèmes
.

And so it was that I pedalled on into October and into a new chapter of my life.

CHAPTER 2

The Oath of Allegiance

M
y final week in Coleraine was tinged with a mixture of excitement and sadness. In addition to giving Paddy Corning a week’s notice of my intention to leave his employment, there were goodbyes to be said to family and friends. And one of the most important people that I needed to say goodbye to was my Aunt Maggie, so I made a point of visiting her at home one evening on my way home from work.

In reality, Maggie was my great-aunt because she was my mother’s aunt, but I had been brought up to know her as Aunt Maggie. She never married and therefore had no children of her own, but for family reasons Maggie had raised her sister’s daughter—my mother—from when she was a young child, all the way into adulthood. The relationship she and I shared was therefore akin to that of grandmother and grandson. Although she was kind and generous to my sisters and me, she had never really hit it off very well with my father. Each tolerated the other, albeit uneasily, whilst my mother was alive, but they had a big falling-out after her death and wanted nothing to do with each other after that. Because of this, my father forbade me to have any contact with Maggie, but I disobeyed him and secretly went to see her at least once a week. She always made me welcome and wanted to be involved in my life, but she wasn’t going to be able to come and see me off on the train because she was getting on in years, so I went to see her instead. Aunt Maggie knew why I’d come, and was visibly upset that I would be leaving our home town.

“If your mother was still alive, she’d never have let you go,” she said.

For the umpteenth time, I explained that it was the best thing for me because I would be learning a trade.

“You’ll write, won’t you?” She asked. Then she gave me a little package of writing paper and envelopes so that I wouldn’t have any excuse not to. And she gave me some money. “Here, take this,” she said as she pressed it into my hand, “it’ll buy you something to eat on the boat.” She was so kind to me, it broke my heart to have to say goodbye.

When it was time to leave, tears filled her eyes and she repeated what she had said earlier about how things would have been much different if my mother had been alive. Then she gave me a hug and kissed me wetly on the cheek, which I tolerated although I hated being subjected to sloppy stuff like that, like most young boys of my age. When I left, she watched me from her front doorway as I walked down the long straight street. And then just before disappearing around the corner at its end, I turned and waved her a final goodbye.

My father had told me that the Parish Priest wanted to see me, so I made the long trek up to the Parochial House, all the while wondering what I was going to say and what Father Close would have to say to me. He was a brusque kind of a person, so I felt just a wee bit intimidated, although I needn’t have worried. The housekeeper answered the door when I rang the bell and I told her that I’d come to see Father Close. She asked me to wait there on the porch and then disappeared into the gloomy interior of the large house. Shortly after that, the middle-aged, balding, grey-haired priest came to the doorway. He didn’t invite me inside, but instead asked me detailed questions about where I’d be going as we stood there on the Parochial House porch. He told me that I was going out into the world where there would be a lot of temptation and that I needed to be a good Catholic and keep up my faith. Then he said “Wait, I’ve got something for you.” With that he produced a small metal capsule-like article, about an inch in length, from the pocket of his cassock. It rattled when I took it from him.

I did keep the little statuette with me always, and still have it to this day; in fact she should have her own frequent flier account with the amount of travelling I’ve done around the world. And Father Close was right; she does seem to have protected me wherever I’ve gone.

As we stood there on the porch, Father Close made the sign of the cross over my head and said a prayer.

“God be with you,” he said, shaking my hand. And with that, we parted.

The last two days were difficult, knowing that my life was never going to be the same again. It was tough saying goodbye to my friends John and Melvin, and we all solemnly said that we would get back together when I came home on leave at Christmas, but it was never really the same after that.

* * *

On the day of my departure, both my father and John Moore escorted me to the railway station again, but on this occasion it was for the last time. My Aunt Alice was also there to see me off. She was my father’s sister, and had intervened when things had become difficult for me in the family home while I was still attending school. She had rescued me by arranging that I would spend the weekend days at her house. This arrangement had worked out very well for more than a year. I went over there on Saturday mornings, did some chores and ran some errands for her. Then she made lunch for me—a good lunch too—and as a reward for doing her chores, usually sent me off to the Saturday afternoon cinema matinee. I didn’t stay there overnight, but went home after having dinner with her and my Uncle Frank. Then on Sundays after Mass, I would go to her house again and take the dog for a walk. That done, I was free to spend the rest of the day as I pleased and would usually go somewhere with John Moore, but I was in her charge for the day, so any misbehaviour on my part would have wrecked the arrangement. And for that reason, I behaved; otherwise the privilege of spending my weekends with Alice would have come to an end. The alternative wasn’t too appealing; it would have meant confinement at home under the distrusting eyes of my stepmother, Annie, who was always of the opinion that I would only get up to no good if I was out of her immediate supervision. Even after I left school and had started working for Paddy Corning, I still spent Sundays with Alice, right up to the end. And now, she had come to the station to say goodbye.