Evacuee Boys (26 page)

5
August
1944

My darling Daddy,

The closer two people are together the more difficult it is to express birthday wishes adequately. Conventional phrases are sufficient for acquaintances and very convenient – yet common use has subtracted from their value so that they remain but convenient phrases.

Today I find it as difficult as every to put down into words my birthday wishes. But the wishes are the same, old, good and fine ones all of which point in the same general direction – true happiness. Then I wish you all the things which will make you happy, love from your beloved ones, health of body, and personal comfort of mind, body and soul. And I hope that all things which will make you less happy – grief, worry, anxiety will keep far far away from you.

In the past year or so, God has been more gracious to us all. He has allowed us to recover financially to a certain degree – for this we thank Him. May this progress continue. But even as, financial and social state belongs to the superficial things which make up happiness, you know more than I do that our family life was very happy when our pockets were very poor. Equally you know many rich people who are unhappy. So my desire is that our home life shall continue to be happy in the future as it has always been in the past. Let us look to each other with the love and respect that meant so much in the past. There is no disagreement which love cannot bridge and if we remember that I see no reason why ever there should be a gap between us. I d[o] not believe that there is one now and I hope there never will be.

At this time of the year I like to remember the debt I owe to you. I have no hesitation in reaffirming my promise – one that I have made several times – that if I have anything to do with it at all there should be no reason for you or Mother to have financial worries once I am established in my profession. I hope my letter is not too disjointed – as I said before it is difficult to describe one’s feelings truly. All the same the good wish goes out. Many happy, healthy and long life for my Father.

Love and a million ‘puszi’
35

from Andrew

… continued by John

My dear dad,

This just a line to wish you the happiest birthday and coming year that any King can hope for, let alone you. That you live happily in health and in love with your dear ones for man[y] many more years to come. I am afraid this is a very poor birthday greeting but I hope you realise that my feelings are affectionate towards you and my loyalty to you as a son will always be true.

Love and everything good from

John

If only I could be a couple of years older – I would have given my right arm to fly a Spitfire like some of my brother’s friends. Finding an old wingless biplane in a farm shed outside Melksham when we were evacuated away from London and our family was a major coup. Safe from prying eyes, a friend and I would climb into the tandem cockpits and waggle the joystick, making engine and machine-gun noises till we were hoarse.

A Short Sterling bomber. (Public information)

The nearest I could get to this was in the Air Training Corps, which camped us at an RAF station for a fortnight each year. Yes, there was the interminable square bashing on the parade ground and eating in the airmen’s mess off tin plates, which had to be washed in a trough of boiling water on the way out. Too bad if you dropped a knife in – it had to be retrieved. Yes, kit inspections in our Nissen hut quarters were a chore, as we made neat stacks with the three ‘biscuits’ that constituted our mattresses and polished our boots. But we had sessions in the simulators with real bomb sights, pretending to drop bombs on dimly lit German targets – and then finally the real thing, a four-hour operational training flight in a four-engined Sterling bomber. Wearing flying suits and parachutes like the real airmen, we experienced high-altitude bombing on the range and machine-gunning at buoys from low altitude over the Wash.

An RAF Tigermoth. (By kind permission of Mr Phillip Jarrett)

Four hours was the minimum to qualify us for a ‘flying meal’ of two eggs with bacon and sausages – my favourite, at a time when egg rationing only allowed each member of our family one teaspoonful from Dad’s specially permitted egg ration for those with an ulcer. Unfortunately, corkscrew evasive manoeuvres to escape a mock fighter attack halfway through this adventure got the better of my stomach and I spent the last two hours retching into the Elsan in the rear, leaving no stomach for my coveted flying meal.

16
July
1945
– from Air Training Corps camp

Dear Mum,

Well here I am & I am having quite a good time. The food is O.K. & the whole thing is quite interesting. I had a short flight yesterday and piloted the ’plane for a while. We should fly again several times in the week.

Well, how are you enjoying your holiday? I hope you go out & see the sights. It should be nice there. Go and see the lakes and the mountains etc.

I am sorry I was late in phoning on Friday. Everything was all right and I had a lovely flight, about 30 minutes we did some aerobatics, and I took over for about 10 minutes.

Well cheerio for now and have a good time. Write & tell me how you like the place.

Cheerio & love from

John

Even more sought after was everybody’s ambition: the gliding course, when we would really learn to fly. The January to April 1945 period was not the best for weather, but there were enough hours over a number of weekends to get some excitement. Trouble was that there were only single-seat gliders, requiring us to fly solo from the first attempt. Today, this is regarded with horror by flyers and lay people alike, but then it was the norm and we were soon being winched across Hounslow Heath – long before it became Heathrow.

The Dagling looked not unlike the first Wright gliders; a pair of wings mounted high above a keel carrying a tail, a seat, joystick and rudder bar – all out in the fresh air. Initially with spoilers on the wings, we were strapped on and hauled rapidly towards the winch, bumping along the ground, learning to keep our wings level and to use the rudder without dipping them into the ground. Once mastered, the spoilers came off and we could take off for short flights low over the heath. This was beginning to get somewhere.

John flying the Dagling solo. (Author’s collection)

Next came the best part: converting to a higher performance machine, the Kirby Cadet. This actually sported a fuselage – still with an open cockpit and without instruments or wheels. Low hops started with two boys holding the wing tips and the instructor squatting down to be level with my face. He reached in to the joystick and said, ‘Hold it about there. Off you go.’ Thus ended the lesson and the winch hauled me along until the wing boys could not keep up. Now in control, I did what every boy of 16 who always wanted to fly would do – pulled back hard. The Kirby Cadet responded like a bird and leapt skywards, presenting me with this unfamiliar horizon situated well down below the nose, the ground rapidly receding. ‘Wow! I’m going up too fast!’ I pushed down smartly – causing the horizon to leap up high, as we rushed towards the ground. I pulled up again, repeating the first leap and then breathlessly down again as the glider porpoised across Hounslow Heath. After two or three such switch backs, the winch operator stopped pulling and coaxed me back to a reasonably soft landing. I had done a 50ft-high low hop.

A Kirby Cadet. (By kind permission of Mr Phillip Jarrett)

Since much of the day was spent retrieving gliders from the winch end to the launch point for other cadets, the next try was on another day. The porpoising effect was somewhat reduced as my ‘pump handling’ motions smoothed out. After a few more low hops I could cleanly climb to 50ft, put the nose down and glide down to land. Now we were ready for high hops to 100ft – about the height of a ten-storey building.

Confidence abundant, I could snatch the wing tips from the wing boys’ grip as they ran along and made the takeoff, except the Cadet kept climbing till the winch operator and I thought I had reached the 100ft altitude. Then I could put the nose down, pull the plug to release the cable and glide down, absolutely free and on my own. This was the real thing! A modicum of further advice came from the instructor below if I tried to ‘stretch’ the glide, when he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted a barely audible ‘stick forward’. Near the final weekend, instead of spending much of the time between flights retrieving gliders for other cadets, we were allowed to make two consecutive flights, rather than when flights separated by days or even a week, in order to better get our hand in and learn. For my first high hop, the instructor told me he would stand well down the flight path and I would have to land near him. This went fine as I landed some 20yd to one side of him – into a good enough wind to keep my wings level without the help of wing boys. ‘Right. Now make your second high hop – but this time, land nearer to me.’