Here is another amazing piece by Deebs, enjoy
Ty Deebs <S>
The end of the war in Europe meant a lot of changes in my life. First of all it meant the novelty of seeing shop windows lit at night. Nothing in the windows, but a novelty for a kid that thought nightly black outs were the norm.
We saw for the first time the horrors of the concentration camps, more booing and hissing, and we saw what our bombers had done to Germany. Cheers and hoots. When the war with Japan, and WWII was finally over, the new government (Winston had gone) started scrapping IMMEDIATELY all the RAF's aircraft. We went to a kind of garage sale at Avro's in Chadderton. Every scrap dealer in the country seemed to have turned up, mostly with their horse and cart, very few people drove cars. I bought a Lancaster altimeter for 1/6d. Old pre metric money but it was CHEAP!
Manchester had begun to clean up the mess but everywhere you went there were 'bomb sites' as they were called. The roads were mainly cleared but the rubble just piled up. WE kids used to play in the bombed out houses and stuff and one day I found the remains of an incendiary bomb when i was walking to school.
I showed it a teacher and the whole school was called to Assembly and me and my harmless casing were paraded and I was told how stupid i had been for picking it up. (Still getting food parcels from Ginny and I saw my first orange!)
By now, I could recognise by sound alone if it was a Harvard flying over, or a Tempest or the Holy Grail of aircraft noises the jet engine. I can recall clearly seeing my first Gloster Meteor. Unlike todays fast movers with ginormous engines that roar, the first jets that I heard had a kind of hollow whistle. I didn't know it at the time, but I'd inevitably become what we call in the UK an anorak!
At that time I used to build what we called 'Solids', the forunner of todays plastic kits. You'd buy (lets say) a Spitfire. In the box would be 6 pieces of balsa wood. the very roughly cut fuselage, wings, tailplane and fin and rudder. With templates you would sandpaper away, (took hours) and if you were a perfectionist, the wing cross section had to be spot on, well you can imagine! The whole thing was stuck together with 'Balsa Cement' then had to be filled and primed before painting. The little pots of Humbrol were about 10 years away and i used to paint mine with poster paint and then varnish it! I had 100's of these solids hanging from cotton in my bedroom.
In 1950, two events happened that changed the world. The Korean war and me flying for the first time. I was my 12th birthday and it was in a Tiger Moth from Southport Sands. It cost my mum a fiver but I will never, ever forget the experience. They sat me in the front on cushions and i wore this helmet and goggles much too big for me. I was airborne about 20 minutes but my feet didnt touch the ground for ages. (FAST FORWARD TO JULY 2007. The last time I flew and probably THE last time was my last birthday as a gift from my ex and it was.............yes a Tiger Moth from Wickenby. I had logged over 2000 hours as PIC (Pilot in Command) in the ensuing 57 years and to be honest i cried a little)
The Korean war was of course the first time that jet had met jet in combat, we all know that Im sure. What may not be so well known is that the Royal Navy were heavily involved flying Sea Furies and one actually knocked down a MiG 15. I LOVED the F86 Sabre. there was just something about the shape that got to me. In the earliest movies of the Korean war MiGs were always played by Thunderstreaks! (Bridges at Toko Ri anyone?) And then there was Bill Speakman a soldier with the Argylle and Sutherland Highlanders. Surrounded by Chinese soldiers on this hill top, he and his mates had run out of ammo so he threw f.u.c.k.i.n beer bottles at them and they retreated! They gave him the V.C.
In the early 50's when i was in high school i used to skip the last three periods on Friday (woodwork) get on my bike and cycle to Woodford hoping to see (which I did often) the Avro 698 flying. This of course was the Vulcan, without doubt the most amazing flying machine i have ever seen. The 50's were halcyon days for British aviation. We held the worlds Air Speed record at 616 mph (i think) with a Gloster meteor. We then upped this to 720 mph with a Hunter. The Canberra had flown and reached 40,000 feet altitude, the worlds first jet airliner the Comet entered service, and now we had the prototype V bombers, the Vulcan, Valiant and Victor. Manufacturers names like Bristol, Hawker, Fairey, Handle Page, Shorts, Avro, Westland, Folland.....all gone now. They may not always have produced world beaters but aircraft of the 50's (not only the Brits) were full of character and individuality, not like todays CAD/CAM produced which means Identikit shapes. REAL aeroplanes started life on the back of envelopes and prototypes were practically hand built. Not a robot welder to be seen! And there was a place where all this magic could be seen and heard............at the annual S.B.A.C Display held at Farnborough in Hampshire.
The letters S.B.A.C stood for the Society of British Aircraft Constructors and they put on a flying show lasting 5 hours or so with ONLY British designed and built aircraft! I was 14 when i saw my first Farnborough. I was allowed by my parents to travel ALONE the 150 miles or so, and stay at the YHA in London ALONE. Looking back i wonder whether this was a commentary on the social climate in the UK at that time, or an indication of my parents indifference to my health and well being! Today they would be charged with neglect or something and i would be put in a foster home!
Remember that at this time the words Health and Safety, Product Liabilty and Indemnification did not exist! This was show off time for the various manufacturers
and the stuff they got away with was unbelievable. One of the 'Star Attractions' was the promise that you would actually get to hear a sonic boom as the 'Sound Barrier' was broken for your entertainment! They would actually aim the sonic boom at the crowd and it was a badge of honour if the windscreen of your car got cracked. Sue them? Unheard of. The sound of an aircraft going supersonic is a sharp double crack. The aircraft had to be in a dive of course, hence the aircraft was aimed at the crowd. At my first Farnborough, John Derry took up the De Havilland DH110, later to become the Sea Vixen. He climbed to 30k put the nose down and came down. What happened next happened in micro seconds. CRACK-CRACK then a deeper BANG and then the disintigrating plane flew right into the crowd killing lotsa spectators and of course the pilot. I was nowhere near that bit of the field but it was horrible to witness. What came next tho, scared the s.h.i.t out of me. Neville Duke took off in a Hawker Hunter and we were told by the PA HE was going to go supersonic. CRACK CRACK and down he came and made a low pass down the runway to the cheers of 100,000 people. A guy called Ronald Porteus had a crazy display he put on with his Auster AOP9. OVER THE CROWD he would put his Auster into a spin from about 5 thousand feet. thePA commentaor invited the crowd to count out loud the number of spins, which we all did with great enthusiasm but watching the plane get lower and lower Right over our heads! He would if I remember spin it 9 or 10 times pulling out at 200 feet, yes 200! Those were the days!
In 1955 I went to the RAF recruiting office in Manchester. It was on the second floor and I remember the walls of the stairway being decorated by posters and photos. The one that sticks in my mind is one of a young man, wearing a leather helmet, goggles pushed up, oxygen mask hanging by one strap and hes looking up into the sky!
'I want to be a Pilot' I said. Come back next year with 5 GCE's and we'll see what we can do the recruiting officer replied. I did, but with 3 GCE's. What happened next will be the last History Post.
Thanx for reading.
