The Last Chapter Read online

  R.A.F No. 2225885

  It was the R.A.F. I was going into and in late September 1943 I reported to Padgate, Warrington. I got there by bus and I never felt so isolated, probably because I’d never been away from home before, except to Ilkley and the Isle of Man with St. Lawrence’s. When I got on the camp there were loads of lads the same age as me, I mated up with a lad from Moss Side in Manchester, he was about 6’-1” and his voice hadn’t even broke, his name was Tom Tyrer (He later became an Airframe fitter.) We were given a meal and they asked questions for the records. The next day we were given an aptitude test, the outcome of which, we had to be interviewed by this Sergeant. After asking me basic questions to do with joinery he suddenly said “How would you like to be a Wireless Operator”, I told him I knew nothing about it. Apparently I got 98% in the test, which involved listening to morse signals and we had to say whether the signals were the same or not. When I said I didn’t want to be an operator the Sergeant said “You’re in the Air Force now lad, you will be a wireless op”. We did 8 weeks training which involved foot slogging on the square, firing on the range, route marches and assault courses.

  Two of the lads at Padgate were from Belfast Northern Ireland, Bobby McCracker was one and I don’t recall the other lad’s name, only that he had a beautiful tenor voice and used to sing Irish songs a lot. He was also a semi-professional footballer and played for “Distillery” a semi-pro team in Northern Ireland. They were alright but were too involved in religion, when I first met them Bobby asked me what religion I was, at the time I was C of E and said so. He said “That’s alright then”, I am convinced if I’d have gone the other way he would have dropped me.

  While at Padgate, we used to go to the gymnasium a lot, the Sergeant in charge used to always want to put boxing gloves on and encouraged us to spare with him, you could see he knew his stuff. Then we were told who he was, he was Ernie Roderick Ex. Welterweight Champion of Great Britain and had fought Henry Armstrong for the world title, he lost over 15 rounds. I actually had a scrap book at home with that fight in it. He was also brother in law to Nell Tarleton who I mentioned earlier, I was quite proud to have sparred with Ernie.

  During my stay at Padgate there were one or two incidents I remember. Weekends meant a pass out and if you lived not too far you could go home. I was only about 20 miles away and me and a lad called Bob Unsworth who lived in Walton used to hitch a ride to Liverpool. If you had a uniform on it was easy to get a lift and you could always get a free ride on trams or buses.

  The bayonets we used were old fashioned type about 15ins long, anyway one went missing and we were told if it wasn’t found all weekend passes were cancelled. Something had to be done, me and another airman went down to the armoury and while I was getting some oil for my rifle, the other lad stuck a bayonet up his pullover and the problem was solved.

  The Sergeant we had was very strict but a very cool customer. One of the lads was a cocky cockney who didn’t like the Sergeant and was telling someone in the toilets that he’d like to give him a hiding, what he didn’t know was that the Sergeant was in one of the cubicles and heard all this. Later on he came in the hut and asked who’d said it, no one owned up, so he said if anyone fancies their chances he’d take his stripes off and would have a go behind the hut. He also said he would cancel passes for the weekend if nobody owned up. Left on our own we said whoever it was to own up and we would have our weekend passes. Eventually he got some nerve and went into see the Sarg and apologised. They always say there is loads of bull in the army, but the air force wanted some beating.

  There was lino on the floor of the huts that had to be polished every day, all the shelves had to be scrubbed clean, the toilets were spotless and everything was inspected. There was an inspection of the ranks (men) every day but this particular day I was told I needed a haircut, I went and got one but told the barber how I wanted it. At afternoon inspection I was told I needed a haircut again, this time I was marched to the barbers and he did it army style, I very nearly didn’t go home that weekend.

  One lad come from Speke called Mason was religious and used to kneel down and say prayers every night, the chap in the next bed to him was an atheist so you can imagine the arguments. Mason stood by his bed for inspection after the Sergeant called “Stand by your beds”. Your blankets had to be folded neatly and piled on top of each other, you’re eating utensils layed out along with your soap, razor, comb etc. The Sergeant asked Mason did he shave, he said he never had, so the Sergeant told him to lather his face with soap, and then shave every hair on it. Later on, we caught him shaving his forehead and just stopped him from shaving off his eye brows, he took some stick but never complained.

  At the end of 8 weeks training we were all sent on our different courses, I was sent to Blackpool in civvy billets I lived at Albert Road, I can’t remember the woman’s name, but she was a very good cook. I shared a room with a young man from Jamaica, his name was Ronnie Smellie and he turned out to be the Cycle Champion of Jamaica. My parents came up to Blackpool for a day and I introduced them to Ronnie, my mother was made up because when he shook hands he bowed to them both.

  We started training, the 3 subjects were Morse Code, Procedure and Electro Magnetism, at first everything was hard to come to terms with. We did all the training in the Winter Gardens a famous building Blackpool. For Morse the instructor would sit at the end of a long table and transmitted symbols to us, each on represented a letter of the alphabet. It was probably about 4 words a minute at first, but you needed to know the alphabet and I found it hard. After about 2 weeks the corporal pulled one or two of us and said unless we improved we would have to leave the course. So that night I got in my bedroom with the alphabet and studied it for 2 hours or more, at the end of it I could recite the lot, from then on I was able to handle it. E & M was really wireless theory and was hard to understand. Procedure was the method of sending messages with certain signals for the importance of priority. After 3 months in Blackpool most of us got up to 10 words a minute and passed the course. While I was in Blackpool there was a boxing show at the Winter Gardens, it was just amateur boxing but the highlight for me was an exhibition of boxing skills by the great Nell Tarleton. I went along on my own to the show and was looking forward to seeing Nell do his stuff, I wasn’t disappointed. He fought 3 rounds with a different boxer each round, he allowed them to corner him they threw punches from all angles and never landed one. He was unique when it came to the art of boxing, one of the boxers took a swing at him and ended up going round in a circle and Nell playfully kicked him up the backside.

  We were transferred to Calne in Wiltshire a camp called Compton Bassett, this was a real camp, wooden huts, cookhouse, dining room, assembly hall and over 1,000 W.A.A.F.s. One lad I met at Blackpool was an Irishman from Northern Ireland, he was short but very powerful man with lots of strength. Anyway he was put in the same hut as me along with a load of Southern Irishmen, me and a lad from Manchester were the only Englishmen in the hut. To say it was lively is an understatement, sometimes there was murder and basically it was only about religion. One night we were all in bed after ten, and suddenly there was a shout of “You Protestant B……”. George (from N/Ireland) had thrown his wellington boots and they landed on Joe Chater an ex member of the IRA. The next day Chater tripped George up , George hit him and knocked him over 2 beds, his eye was like a large plum, Chaters mate, a Dubliner called Con Deesey offered George out. George didn’t want to fight Con and said so, but he insisted so we all marched up to the gym and asked for a set of gloves. A Sergeant refereed the fight which lasted for about 2 minutes, George hit him 4 times and each time Con hit the deck and got up to take another, in the end the Sergeant stopped it. That was typical of the atmosphere in the hut. I was accepted because I came from Liverpool, an example was one night a few of us went into Calne and a feller called Deeley from Cork was slagging off Englishmen, one of the others said “Bob’s” English he said
“He’s different he’s from Liverpool”.

  The nearest town was Chippenham, a nice little town where we used to visit every weekend.

  Being wartime, there was a shortage of beer, so we were all drinking cider which left you with a big head next day, one night we missed the last train and ended up sleeping in the railway station. Then we had to get into the camp, I remember I had a pair of brown shoes that I had blackened because you can’t wear brown in the RAF. The black had come off and the brown was showing, as it was we walked past the guard room and no one challenged us so that ended up ok.

  The work was hard, the speed of the morse was getting fast and you needed to concentrate , I had mastered the code and procedure but the wireless theory (E & M) was hard .

  I got into a few bits of trouble while I was there, once when we were on a break from a morse lesson we queued up to go back into the room and I was stubbing my cigarette out before I went into the room. The Corporal reckoned I was smoking on duty, I was put on a charge and got 5 days jankers, working in the kitchens, peeling