Classic British Flight Sim

Hi Garry, Thank you for your consideration. I’ll plan on doing about one post per week.

Leif, you’re showing your age! Ah! Hotspur and Greyfriars, Wizard (was Wilson, with the abnormally slow heart beat rate, there?), Adventure – Memories, memories!

Hi Callum, Thanks. More British aviation coming up later. Nice to be encouraged.

Ralph

Sorry Jetset. Dosen't vodka do funny things, late at night?

Thanks for your comments.

Ralph

Auster

My Mother tells what in retrospect are extremely funny stories - she was a little bit older But before she met my father (who was tucked away at Loch Erne in Northern Ireland for the duration on PBYs) she dated a lad who started as a WopAg on Hampdens and decided he didnt want to die young so transferred to Pilot training - he was a Sgt Pilot on Mosquitos - story goes that when he was posted to the far east he flew his Mosquito down the street where my mother was billeted in Wimbledon - BELOW the roof level of the semis in the street - your story about the shrapnel falling down made me laugh - she said she was walking across Wimbledon Common one night (during an airraid- go figure) and they were firing rockets??? (If anyone knows what those were Id like to know)
her comment was it was one of the few times she wore her "battle bowler"
because 90% of the crap coming out of the sky was British NOT German.

Looking forward to your next installment


Leif

Auster, just keep writing the stories, finding myself totally immersed in your memoirs.

Lincoln, an old Roman town, is at the intersection of a number of roads. The main ones are the A15 and A46 (the most dangerous road in the UK these days?).

These roads are still very dangerous, as you know the A15 towards Scampton and even beyond Caenby Corner towards Brigg have hidden dips, many drivers either foolishly believe they are imortal and overtake on approach or are just passing through and totally unaware of the road layout.

It is not the roads here that are dangerous though, it is the motorist who exceed their driving ability, inapropriate speed and do not anticipate or use observation skills sufficiently!!

You just would not want to ride your bike again here!!

Regards Nigel.

Ralph, this is bloomin' terrific stuff! As Gary says, don't let it become a chore, just write as and when...but not too long between installments ok ? Thoroughly enjoying reading it!

Hi Nigel, On my bike those dips on the A15 were big hills and I seem to remember counting 7 of them between Newport and Scampton. In a car it is virtually impossible to safely overtake on this section. You just have to be patient and wait, at least 2 seconds behind anything travelling in front.

Caenby Corner. Post war I went to a sort of fete there. Still have some photos from the visit. Remember a tug-of war between about 100 men on a rope across the field and a big steam roller. They didn't stand a chance!

There was a prog on the box about 10 days ago about how dangerous the A46 is. I was returning to London from Lincoln on a very black night and was on the A46 near Brough when I saw a small light ahead. I suddenly realised that there was something across the road and braked violently, stopping inches from this car which was doing a 5 or 7 point turn in the road. It was a revelation to the driver when I pointed out that a black car across an unlit road on a black night is just about invisible. I’m not going to mention the gender of the driver. As you say, roads themselves aren’t dangerous.

Ralph

Ralph

If I may invite you to http://www.classicbritishfiles.com (aka The Pond) an admirer has left you some gifts in the Photo Gallery - taken at Netheravon
not so very long ago


Leif

Leif,

Many thanks for the link. Major Somerton-Rayner who flew the yellow XR 241, once told me that he had had more engine failures on that flight than I had had hot dinners. More about that later.

Ralph

Wartime Lincoln Part 2

Carrying on with the aviation side of Lincoln life, I forgot to mention that Fiskerton was equipped with FIDO, the fog dispersal system. This involved burning huge quantities of low-grade petrol/kero from burners along the runway to clear the fog up to about 300 feet. They burned about 100,000 gallons an hour (RAF Carnaby on the Yorkshire coast was a ‘crash station’ for damaged aircraft with an extra long runway and its FIDO burned twice that amount). FIDO had been publicised in the press and we assumed that this was the reason for the lines of flames that we saw on a couple of occasions at Fiskerton. Presumably they were testing it because it was daylight and fog free.

I remember once in the spring of 1942 when were heard bombers continuously droning overhead, throughout the whole evening and night. This was quite unlike any other night up to that time. It was in fact the first 1000 Bomber Raid by the RAF and the target was Cologne. The sky was clear and the aircraft could be seen before it got dark. They appeared to be singles and strung out over the sky. I now know that although many of them were from Lincolnshire airfields, some of them were coming from all over the place because they were ‘scraping the barrel’ to get 1000 bombers into the air.

Although the Dams Raid took place from Scampton, we obviously knew nothing about it until the following day. I did, however, see Guy Gibson later. Lincoln had an open-air municipal swimming pool, to which I used to go regularly and one day the word went round that he was there. In fact he was at the deep end, sitting on the grass and surrounded by admirers in swimming costumes, mostly girls, whilst he was resplendent in his uniform complete with VC ribbon.

Several of us teenagers were very interested in aircraft recognition and there were lots of clubs throughout the country that were affiliated to the National Association of Spotters Clubs. Meeting were held regularly, with lectures, talks, etc, and there were proficiency tests. It was, I think, a junior wing of the Royal Observer Corps. Wasn’t particularly useful but it was a great way to talk to older people about aircraft and things. As you know, the Aeroplane magazine published The Aeroplane Spotter, an advert free paper, fortnightly – price 3d - and we couldn’t wait for the next issue to come out. I have lots of copies but because it was printed on low quality war economy paper, they are browning and virtually falling apart. Shame.

A short distance from our house and just past the prison to the east was open country. At one time a mobile 40mm Bofors AA gun was stationed in one of the fields at night. One evening, silly boy me put his aeroplane books in a bag and took them along to the site, thinking that the crew would be interested. Any interest they might have had disappeared as soon as they found out that I not brought them girlie magazines. However, one or two were interested and I showed them pictures and silhouettes of various aircraft whilst they made guesses as to the types. I couldn’t believe just how many they got wrong! The term ‘friendly fire’ did not exist then but I hoped that the bloke that gave the order to fire was not one of those looking at my books.


Just before I leave the aviation part of this post I must mention the effects that 3 films (all English, all black and white) had on me. You must understand that in the days pre-television, the only moving images that you saw were via the cinema and because they were relatively infrequent, some could have quite an impact.

The first of these films was ‘Dangerous Moonlight’ (1941). Not much aviation in it but it did introduce me to orchestral music. Up to that time it had been big bands and daft/sentimental popular songs (which I still listen to with nostalgia). I remember the first time I heard the Warsaw Concerto on the radio and I began searching around trying to find the name of the piece. I finally located it in the film. This started me off on a lifelong interest in orchestral and classical music. We know that it isn’t a ‘proper’ concerto but I don’t know why Spike Milligan, an accomplished musician, hated it so much, referring to it as ‘that bloody Warsaw Concerto’.

The second film was ‘Target for Tonight’ (1941). I actually paid to see this film 3 times out of my necessarily meagre pocket money. What struck me was that on each occasion the cinema was filled with RAF personnel. I now know that most of the film was shot in a studio with a few clips from outside being thrown in, but in those days, this was unknown and it got me very interested in the subject of bombing.

The third film was ‘The First of the Few’ (1942). Now this one really affected me. It actually triggered an interest in aircraft design. As soon as I saw it, I knew what I wanted to do - never thought about flying. The story line is not accurate but we didn’t know that then and anyway it didn’t matter.

Everyday life was dictated almost entirely by the war, and as time went on the general tension began to ease. Of course what you ate was entirely dictated by it. Rationing applied to most of one’s diet but there was just sufficient for us to remain healthy. Indeed a recent investigation into this rationing concluded that the 1940 nutritionists were absolutely spot on with both the types of food and the amounts that they allocated. You don’t see many ‘fatties’ in photos of the 1940’s do you?. Unbelievably, rationing continued for another 5 years after the end of the war although I do think that it was a real benefit to the nation’s health. A series of British Restaurants was set up where you could get basic meals for a low charge and of course this didn’t affect your food ration. I used one of these only a few times because the food was terrible and I never had anything so bad until later when I was in the RAF under the command of the Army. People were encouraged to keep livestock for which they got some help with the feed and so we had half a pig on our allotment (2 families looking after the pig and sharing the feeding). This gave us a huge amount of extra meat and it lasted for months. No refrigerators in those days so it had to be salted. Other meat that was unrationed was horsemeat but I never tasted it because my mother could not face its yellow fat and refused to buy it. I am not sure when whale meat became available off the ration but it was called snoek, pronounced snook.

At home we followed the war in detail on the 2 large wall maps in our dining room. The maps were published by newspapers and were of several war zones. We had the North African campaign and the Eastern Front. We used to mark out any changes in the front’s position each day. As a result I got a thorough grounding in the geography of these areas and to this day can remember the names and locations of Benghazi, Mersa Matruh, Sidi Barani, etc as well as Kharkov, Smolensk, Rostov, Veliki Luki and even Dniepropetrovsk without reference, because they were continually cropping up.

Whenever you went into the town the majority of the people were in uniform and because of the wide variety of units that were local to Lincoln, Air force, Army, British, American, Empire, the occupied countries of Europe, men and women, these uniforms were in all sorts of styles and colours. I mentioned earlier that there was the Girls High School that I passed each day on my way to school. One of the girls was absolutely beautiful (I thought so anyway). She was about my age, around 16 at that time and I had only seen her in school uniform. I used to try and see her as often as I could, but over a long period of time I never plucked up the courage to speak to her. It was all very innocent in those days – or so I thought. It was a very black day for me when I saw this lovely, smartly dressed young woman with chestnut curls on the other side of the road, laughing and arm in arm with a soldier. It was my idol! My dreams collapsed. She was probably several years more mature than me so perhaps it was as well and saved me from humiliation. At least he wasn’t American.

Sometime mid-war I acquired a .303 round of ammunition. I think I bought it from another kid at school. They were about because I think the Home Guard had access to live ammunition and numerous boys had fathers or relatives who were in it. This bright boy thought he would try and fire it, but how? We had a wire fence with concrete posts and there was just enough space to push the cartridge into the hole beside the wire. I then hit the percussion cap with a hammer and nail. At the third strike there was this damn big bang and the bullet ricocheted off the wall in front and went whinging off somewhere as in a Western. I suppose I was safe behind it but I don’t know about anyone else in the vicinity. The case had split and some sticks of cordite were spread around so there may not have been much speed in the bullet. Stupid boy!

The school used to have a service in Lincoln Cathedral once a year and the school orchestra gave a short recital, so the music teacher was quite involved in the arrangement. After the service, we were allowed to climb to the top of the main tower where you could see across miles and miles of the Lincolnshire countryside. You climbed the tower via a stone spiral staircase that was reputed to have 365 steps to the top. The spiral was so tight that you could not see very far in front of you. I had been to the top and on the way down, went to look in the bell chamber that is a short way down from the top. As I went to leave my way was blocked by the music teacher who was standing at the entrance, pencil and paper in hand. The boys coming down couldn’t see him until it was too late Many of them were shouting and swearing, really effing and blinding and as they went past, he was saying ‘Jones! You are in a cathedral! See me tomorrow in the morning break! …. Wilson…Green …Robbins… He must have bagged about fifteen. But for the Grace of God…

I could go on about D-Day, VE-Day and VJ-Day and lots of events between those days but I must move on so I’ll finish this post on a rather bizarre note, which is very OT and a bit morbid but may be of some interest. It concerns capital punishment and it is set very much in a time long gone. Just after the war, when servicemen were being demobbed, some of them came back to find that their wives had been unfaithful. A few could not control themselves and ended up by being charged with murder. One such man was D. He was found guilty and sentenced. Between the time of sentencing and the end, usually about 3 weeks, the prisoner was put in the condemned cell and had to be accompanied at all times by 2 prison officers, round the clock. 6 officers each worked eight-hour shifts. Clearly no one wanted this task and so there had to be a method of selection. Every officer’s name throughout the country was put on a single list so that when you started off you were at the bottom. As your service time increased, more people came in below you and you moved up until eventually you were at the top of the list. When the next person was sentenced, the top 6 names were allocated to the task. You then went to the bottom of the list again. It was normal for an officer to have to do this only once. It was my Dad’s turn to be at the top of the list. He found D. to be an ordinary sort of chap who had seen a lot of action and when he got home things had just got out of hand. The three used to play Canasta a lot and one day Dad could see D.’s hand. He had ROPE spelled out in it but he didn’t put it down. Anyway, his appeal was successful and the sentence was commuted to imprisonment.

Next time, back to aviation.

Ralph

auster wrote:The first of these films was ‘Dangerous Moonlight’ (1941). Not much aviation in it but it did introduce me to orchestral music. Up to that time it had been big bands and daft/sentimental popular songs (which I still listen to with nostalgia). I remember the first time I heard the Warsaw Concerto on the radio and I began searching around trying to find the name of the piece. I finally located it in the film. This started me off on a lifelong interest in orchestral and classical music. We know that it isn’t a ‘proper’ concerto but I don’t know why Spike Milligan, an accomplished musician, hated it so much, referring to it as ‘that bloody Warsaw Concerto’.

Ralph, I have the "bloody awful Warsaw Concerto" too, and despite Spike's views, I really like it. Each to his own I suppose...but did you know that Richard Addinsell, the composer of the Warsaw Concerto, was a Bomber Command navigator who's real name was F.L Chipperfield and who flew on the disastrous Nuremburg mission on the night of 30/31st March 1944 ? Dangerous Moonlight indeed, as it turned out.