All This and Free Boots Too

All This and Free Boots Too

Tony Rattigan

All This and Free Boots Too

Tony Rattigan

Published by Tony Rattigan at Smashwords

Copyright 2018 Antony Rattigan

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This book is dedicated to Samuel Finley Breese Morse, without whom we would all have been merely Wireless Voice Operators.

In remembrance of our most famous RAF Wireless Operator and funny man, Eric Sykes 1923 – 2012 and other airmen that I met along the way, who are no longer with us – Pete Broster, Dave Stewart, Reg Howarth, Dave Lewington, Ken Pavitt and Captain.

Contents

Introduction

Training

RAF Stanbridge

RAF Episkopi

Tactical Communications Wing

HF Radio Zutendaal

81 SU Bampton

RAF Marham

RAF Gutersloh

81 SU Bampton Again

Other books by this Author

About the Author

Introduction

First of all, why did I write this book when I always claimed I wouldn’t? Once I started writing novels it did cross my mind about writing my memoirs but I discarded the idea.

Then in 2016 one of my old buddies from my RAF training days, Dave (Dafydd) Manton, mentioned on Facebook that his regular publisher had no wish to produce Dave’s RAF memoirs, I Was a Cold War Penguin. As I had just published my latest novel, I had free time on my hands and was looking for a new project, so I offered to help him publish it through Amazon. We did this and produced an ebook and a paperback. Dave generously donated the royalties to the RAF Benevolent Fund, which encouraged sales, and eventually the proceeds ran into the thousands.

Despite working together on this project, we only communicated by phone and email and never actually met up until later in the year. By sheer coincidence, that summer I happened to rent a holiday chalet just 16 miles away from his home. Once I realised this, we arranged a meeting and Dave came to the site and bought me lunch (and drinks!) So we finally met face to face for the first time in 43 years.

Of course Dave and I swapped stories of our time in the RAF (our careers had taken vastly different courses so our paths had never crossed) so we had lots to tell. Unfortunately for Dave, I had read most of his stories in the book. Having spent so much time working on his book only months before, at that time I was probably more familiar with his life than he was.

But he hadn’t heard my stories before and after a while he suggested that I write my own book about my career. ‘Well, maybe. I’ll think about it,’ I told him and put it on the back burner.

By a curious coincidence 2016, the year in which I started work on this book that you are holding, also happened to be 22 years after I left the RAF, following 22 year’s service. 11th December 2016 marked the day that I was OUT of the Air Force exactly as long as I had been IN it, so now seemed an appropriate time to tell my story. (The years of therapy having finally paid off.)

So for me, what with first producing Dave’s book, the anniversary I’ve just mentioned and then writing my own Air Force memoir, 2016 was for me, the Year of the RAF.

Before you go any further, I should point out that this book isn’t about aviation heroes or flying aces. If you want to read about one, I recommend Wings on My Sleeve, the autobiography of Captain Eric Winkle Brown RN, a navy test pilot. Apart from all the other amazing things he did, he holds the world record for making 2,047 landings on aircraft carriers. The Americans deliberately set out to beat his record but their man had a nervous breakdown after only 1,600 landings. (Ha Ha!)

Rather, this book is about an ordinary communications guy who didn’t go anywhere dark or dangerous, wasn’t anyone special or did anything unusual, who spent most of his time working in nice, air-conditioned Communication Centres (Commcens) of one sort or another. Much as I’d liked to have been, I was never the guy that got posted into a new camp, sorted out everyone’s personal and professional problems, then rode off into the sunset while the townsfolk looked on, saying, ‘Who was that masked telegraphist?’

But along the way I went to some interesting places and met some interesting people and they’re who this book is really about.

I should also make it clear that this book is about my professional life and not my personal one. (Dozens of WRAF’s heave a sigh of relief! – I wish.) In fact I only mention my marriage and subsequent divorce to explain why on various postings I go from living in married quarters, to my own house, back to living in barrack blocks. Apart from that – mind your own business!

To quote J. R. R. Tolkien – ‘This tale grew in the telling.’ When I set out to write this book I didn’t imagine it would be so long. (I actually think my Word Processor was typing stuff long after I’d gone to bed.)

I didn’t realise that so much had happened to me during my life, as the more I reviewed the different periods of my life; the more stories floated up from the memory banks that had been forgotten for so long. I know from relating some of my RAF stories to people I’ve worked with in civilian life, that some of them can sound quite exciting to someone who’s never done that sort of thing. But as a wise man once said, ‘It reads better than it lives.’

When I told a member of the writing group that I belong to, I was toying with the idea of writing my RAF memoirs he asked, ‘Will they be funny?’ (He and I are usually the ones making jokes in the class.) I replied, ‘I hope so.’ But thinking about it later, I realised I should have said, ‘Not necessarily.’ The point being these are not The Comic Adventures of Airman Rattigan, rather it’s the story of my life in the Air Force. Like everybody’s life, it’s not an endless series of thigh-slapping, side-splitting, knockabout romps – it’s just life, with all its ups and downs.

Not that my life was particularly hard, I hasten to add (compared to other servicemen that is) there are tough, funny, ironic, sad parts to everyone’s life and that’s what I’ve put down on these pages. I’m also sorry if it gets a bit philosophical at times but what is the point of life if you don’t learn anything along the way?

I’d like to apologise to the people I don’t mention in this book. I’ve met a lot of people and I can’t remember them all. Faces I’m good at but names … unless I use them regularly, I forget them. Also, as I get older the fresh information is overwriting the old memory banks. If you were a friend or did me a service, I have used your real name where I could. If you were one of the ‘bad ‘uns, then for legal reasons I have made up a pseudonym for you or just not bothered to name you.

Apologies also to readers who were in the forces, for over-explaining technical details they are already familiar with those as it will bore them. But apologies to civilian readers for probably not explaining enough. It’s a fine line between the two.

There’s an old saying in the forces – ‘Pull up a sandbag and I’ll tell you a story.’ It evokes images of old black and white war movies, where the squaddies are sat around their tank/trench/gunpit/fortified defence, the Hurricane lamp swinging gently in the night breeze, as the grizzled old Sarge tells them about his previous adventures. So, telling your mates about the things you got up to on other postings, to pass the night shift or an evening in the bar, became known as Sandbagging.

Needless to say those stories were not necessarily 100% accurate all the time. As long as it was entertaining, a certain amount of embellishment was allowed, nay, expected. Sandbagging (it was a verb as well as a noun) was a socially acceptable habit.

So, Dear Reader, I invite you to, ‘Pull up a sandbag,’ and I’ll tell you my story.

Training

Only the Beginning is Difficult

Okay, let me start off by admitting to something now and get it out of the way, so I don’t have to keep apologising for it throughout the book. I was cocky and arrogant as a youngster. (Some will say I still am … but don’t listen to my mother, she’s biased.) Always thought I knew more than my elders and betters. On my telegraphist course I even gave myself the nickname Super Rat. I was 18 when I joined up and like most 18 year olds; I thought I knew it all. Later, when you are in your 20’s, you realise you don’t know the half of it. And that’s the beginning of wisdom.

I’ve said and done some stupid things during my life (haven’t we all?) but the point of this confession, right here at the beginning, is so I don’t have to qualify each episode by saying, ‘I was young and stupid.’ You get this one explanation/apology now and that’s it for the book. Okay? Good, now let’s move on.

***

So there I was in 1972, 17 years old, with a failed Gas Board apprenticeship and a job selling carpets behind me, currently unemployed. Having left school at 15 with no qualifications except a swimming certificate, I didn’t fancy working in one of Coventry’s many car factories, so there weren’t really a lot of options open to me. I could have become a postman I suppose – it’s not much of a job but it keeps you off the streets.

I had planned with friends to go backpacking around Europe but I could see that within a couple of weeks we would be begging on the street of Paris, so I gave up that idea. Then I thought that if I wanted to see the world, I could do it on the queen’s shilling as I came to know it. In other words, let the government send me around the world and they could feed and clothe me at the same time. So I thought I’d look into joining the RAF.

I duly toddled off to the Careers Information Office (CIO). In the Coventry’s shopping centre precinct there are a row of shops on the ground floor, above them is a balcony with another row of shops, with offices above them. On the balcony level was the Joint Services CIO. You went in there and they told you that the RAF office was up another several flights of stairs. Their standing joke was that if you had a nose bleed before you reached the office, then you were no good for the RAF.

I made it without any medical problems and met a man in RAF uniform. On his arm he had the 3 stripes of a Sergeant, with a propeller in a circle, above them. As we talked I asked him what that meant, it denoted a Chief Technician, apparently.

Anyway, we talked about joining the RAF, he took my details and gave me some brochures on the jobs available, depending on my score in the aptitude/intelligence tests which I came back and took a few days later.

I finished the tests and he added up my score and then told me which trades my results qualified me to enlist in. Apart from the obvious ones like cook, fireman, clerk, I didn’t know what most of them were or what they involved – except for one, Teleprinter Operator. I’d seen enough TV programmes to know what a teleprinter was and what it did. (And it sounded just my sort of job – indoor work with no heavy lifting!)

‘I’ll have that one,’ I said.

He checked my score and told me that I had actually qualified for a higher trade in the same field, a Telegraphist.

‘What’s the difference?’ I asked.

‘Telegraphists learn teleprinters AND radios and Morse code. The training is longer, 6 months as opposed to 14 weeks, but you end up in a higher pay band.’

Sold! To the man in the blue uniform.

(When the Data Protection Act came in, one of the things it stated was that any organisation that stored information about you had to give you a copy of that data on request. When the RAF computerised all our records many years later, we were told that we could request a computer printout of that data, but only ONCE. I wisely saved mine up until my last year of service so that I would have a complete record of my career. I still have my printout and used it to check my recollection of dates of postings, promotions, etc. and was surprised to discover that it even included the scores I achieved on the entry exams. I’m not going to disclose them here but they weren’t good. I’m surprised that they even offered me a position as anything higher than a police dog! But there you go; they did, so they must have been desperate.)

We agreed that I would enlist as a telegraphist. It seems that at that time you could sign on for as long as you liked, even the full engagement of 22 years. Who walks in off the street and signs their life away like that, without knowing what they are getting into? Personally I figured I’d do the minimum, 3 years, and see how it went. Unfortunately the recruiter told me that as the Air Force was spending a lot of time and money training me, the minimum engagement for my chosen trade was 6 years. Fair enough, I suppose. I reckoned that if I really hated it and bought myself out, I would do it long before the 3 year deadline, never mind the 6. As I was only 17 and a minor, I had to get my mum’s signature on a form, giving her permission. So he gave me the forms, arranged a medical for me and off I went.

I duly passed the medical and it was arranged that I would join up in December as the basic training schedule had to fit in with the trade training schedule and the next telegraphist courses weren’t until January.

I had a few months to myself to kill (this was the middle of the year) so I got a book out of the library and taught myself Morse code, as I would have to know it in my new career.

Eventually, they sent me a rail warrant and asked me to attend Birmingham CIO for my Attestation ceremony. On the 12th December 1972, with my best suit on, I made my way to Birmingham on my own, I was 18 by then, so I didn’t need Mum to sign any more forms for me, and along with a few others, I took the queen’s shilling and swore my oath to the queen.

Not the government, not politicians, but the queen. Did you get that you slimy politicians who have sold the UK out to the EU over the ensuing years? I and my fellow troops didn’t take our oath to you. So if the military ever do circle our tanks around Westminster, I assure you the guns will be pointing INWARDS not OUTWARDS.

They did actually give us £5 cash each for expenses, I often wonder if it was meant to be the modern equivalent of taking the shilling. They also gave us a rail warrant to Newark railway station for the day after next, the 14th and instructions to report to RAF Swinderby.

***

RAF Swinderby

14 December 1972 – 6 February 1973 School of Recruit Training

I arrived at Newark railway station in Lincolnshire to find dozens of others milling around, looking for someone from the RAF to tell us where to go next. There were buses waiting to take us to RAF Swinderby. When we got there, I think the first thing they did was take us into the barrack block to drop off our cases and find the bed space that would be home to us for the next 6 weeks.

I can’t remember if we chose our beds or if we were allocated them but I was in an upstairs room, first on the left at the top of the stairs and my bed was half-way down on the left hand side. The bed space consisted of a bed, a bedside locker and a wardrobe type locker, single.

At some point our new sergeant introduced himself to us, Sergeant Bastable. Oh come on, I thought. Am I in a Carry On movie? Sergeant Basta**? Who’s next, Corporal Punishment?

He assembled us outside and marched us off to the barbers. As it happens, I was the first one in the chair. I’d had long hair for years but several weeks before I had sensibly had it cut short, so I could at least get some attempt at styling it, before the RAF got their hands on me. Others though had turned up with long hair and they just basically got it all shaved off.

The barber gave me a short, back and sides and then charged me five bob (25p). I’d have thought if they were going to butcher us like that, they could at least do it for free! I thought he was joking so I told him to charge it to the MOD but no, he wasn’t joking and so, to add insult to injury, I had to pay up.

Then we were lined up outside again and marched off to the clothing store, to get our kit. We were told that from now on wherever we went, we would have to march there, for it is written, ‘Whenever 2 or 3 are gathered in my name, then verily, they shall march everywhere.’ Of course at this stage we weren’t actually marching as such, we were just all walking in the same direction, in 3 orderly lines.

We were given our kit, everything for the Airman to be except underwear. Shirts, ties, beret, shoes, belts, braces, boots, jumper, raincoat and the old Hairy Mary battledress. They felt like they were made out of old Army blankets. You know what I mean when I say battledress. Go on, you’ve all seen Porridge, that’s what our uniforms looked like, as if we were all inmates of Slade Prison.

We were also measured up for our No 1 uniforms. Our battledress was our every day, working outfit, our No 2 dress. The smart uniforms, made of a material called Barathea (no, me neither) for best and parades and such like, were our No 1 uniforms or Best Blues. We had to wear those whenever we left camp i.e. to go on leave.

We shoved all this kit into the holdalls we had been issued and were shown the best way for 2 men to carry their holdalls. You place one on top of the other (holdalls that is, not men) and put the handles from the bottom holdall through the handles of the top one and then you stand either side of it and each of you grabs a handle.

Over the next week or so they taught us all the basics such as how to iron a shirt, how to press your uniform, how to tie a Windsor knot in your tie and so on. I had been a salesman in a carpet showroom and always had to wear a suit and tie, so was quite familiar with how to use an iron on my shirt and trousers, and how to tie a knot correctly. Many weren’t so they had to pick up these life skills quickly. They also taught us to lace our shoes and boots straight across instead of criss-cross, as most people do. Try it, it looks a lot smarter.

People came from all sorts of backgrounds and previous experiences. As this was basic training, all trades were present, I got pally with an armourer. I didn’t really know the guys who would be on my Trade Training course, I don’t even know if they were on the same flight as me but you just got along with whoever was around you. Usually the people in the surrounding bed spaces or the ones who stood next to you when you lined up for drill practice.

One of the more dastardly things we had to learn was how to bull your shoes. This isn’t just polishing them; it meant applying layer after layer of polish, then, using a duster or a piece of cotton wool dipped in water, you would rub and rub in tiny little circles until the leather shone. Shoes had to be bulled all over but boots only had to have the toecaps and heel parts bulled. The rest of it was dimpled so couldn’t be bulled anyway.

Over time as the polish built up, everyone’s toecaps shone but on some people’s, they positively gleamed. With enough effort some people could get it to look like black glass and you could actually see your reflection in it, but that was going too far for me. I had neither the knack nor the patience. We had 2 pairs of shoes, one that we wore every day and one that was laid out at the end of the bed for inspection, which we were saving for our passing out parade. Always looking for the easy way around things, I didn’t even apply polish to that pair until the final week. I reckoned that they were shiny enough the way they had been issued. Apparently the Sgt agreed because he never picked me up for it.

Another odious task was the bed pack. We each had a counterpane, top and bottom sheets and a couple of blankets. When we got up each morning, we were expected to fold and stack these into a square shape, the same size as the top of the bedside table, the sheets and blankets layered in a particular order, with the counterpane wrapped around the outside, so that it looked like a large, liquorice allsort. This was then placed on the bed for morning inspection. After breakfast we would have to stand by our beds while the Cpl inspected us, our bed packs and bed spaces before the day’s fun began. If he didn’t like what he saw, he would often tip it on the floor. I heard that some poor devils had theirs thrown out of the window, but it never happened in our room.

After a while I just slept under the counterpane in my overalls, it saved so much time in the mornings. Getting to sleep was never difficult, we were so exhausted that staying awake was the problem.

A week and a bit after we arrived, they sent us all away on Christmas leave. I wondered why they’d bother bringing us in before Christmas at all, but I suppose everything had to work to the Trade Training camp timetable. We all proudly put on our No 1’s and headed off home. A chap got chatting to me on the train and I’m telling him all this guff about the RAF I had picked up in my WHOLE WEEK in the Air Force, and he asked me how long I’d been in. Well, I could hardly say just a week, could I? I’d look such a fool. So I blithely told him I been in 11 months.

***

We came back after Christmas refreshed and ready for anything. That was when we started in earnest.

We had regular bull nights where the whole block had to be scrubbed and polished. All brass was polished as were all floors, tiled floors in the bathrooms were scrubbed, windows were cleaned until, well … you could see through them.

We had lino on the floor and it had to be polished every bull night. We didn’t have the luxury of electric bumpers, oh no, it had to be done by hand. They gave us liquid polish and a hand polisher. It was a rectangular block of metal with a soft pad underneath. Sticking out of the top was a broom handle on a pivot, so you could swing it from side to side and lay it almost level with the floor. It was known as the Brick on a stick. The idea was that you would slide the brick backwards and forwards but not like a broom, you could swing it in front of you, and then because of the pivoting handle, slide it behind you. Or you could stand there and swing it from side to side.

Some idiots thought it would be cool to polish the soles of their shoes. There is nothing more soul destroying than to watch someone who has done that, walk across the floor you’ve just spent half an hour polishing and leave footprints behind. Fortunately the Sgt soon put a stop to that foolishness.

The food was passable, we ate in the Airman’s Mess. I don’t know what it was like in the Officer’s or Sergeant’s Messes but in the Airman’s they served Breakfast, Lunch and Tea in that order (according to the Recruit’s Handbook of which I have a copy, thanks to Steve Hughes). It was fine by me because calling the evening meal Tea was what I was used to at home (although we called the midday meal Dinner not Lunch) but I bet the posher ones amongst us had a fit of angst and had to adjust. So that’s why I shall refer to the meals as they were advertised in the Mess. (So don’t go thinking it’s because of how uncouth I am.)

Supposedly, if you skipped breakfast and ended up passing out, you could get charged for it, but you would have to be stupid to pass up food like that. It was the middle of winter and they worked us hard, so you needed all the fuel you could get, just to keep going.

Every day they would march us around and teach us the finer points of drill and then for a break, would take us into the cinema to try and teach us stuff. I doubt if anyone learnt anything though, because as soon as the lights went down, everyone immediately fell asleep. Sometimes they wouldn’t show us a film but talk to us, so we couldn’t kip, but sitting down, indoors, in the warm, it was a major struggle to keep your eyes open.

We learnt about the RAF rank structure: (Pay attention, there’ll be a test later.)

We mainly wore rank badges on our uniform upper sleeves to denote our rank.

AC – Aircraftsman (What we were.)

LAC – Leading Aircraftsman (What we would be when we had finished our Trade Training.)

SAC – Senior Aircraftsman (What we would be after a year as an LAC, subject to us passing our promotion exams.)

J/T – Junior Technician (Only for technical trades, which didn’t apply to me.)

Cpl – Corporal

Sgt – Sergeant

C/T – Chief Technician (Again, only technical trades.)

FS – Flight Sergeant

WO – Warrant Officer

Then the officers:

They wore rings of varying thickness on their uniform forearms.

PO – Pilot Officer

FO – Flying Officer

Flt Lt – Flight Lieutenant (Although, because us Brits are ornery, we pronounce it Leftenant.)

Sqn Ldr – Squadron Leader

Wg Cdr – Wing Commander

Gp Capt – Group Captain

Air Cdre – Air Commodore

I stopped paying attention after that, on the grounds it was getting too confusing as the stripes on their sleeves started looking like supermarket bar-codes (thin one, thin one, thick one, thin one, thick one, thin one). Besides, I was probably never going to meet them in person and if I was, somebody would tell me who they were beforehand.

They also taught us about the history of the RAF. It was formed on April 1st, 1918. An apt date, I reckoned, All Fools Day. Probably explains why over the years I have heard it referred to as the Royal Air FARCE.

***

After a while they reckoned that we were well disciplined enough to carry sticks with us as we marched around. Dummy rifles actually, to get us used to the weight. We had to learn the basics of rifle