The 81st Entry
RAF Halton Aircraft Apprentices
Sept 1955 - July 1958

ISSUE No. 4 - AUGUST 2005
81st ENTRY NEWSLETTER
Editor: Mike Stanley

'Me and Mr Funny Man from the KGB' by Willie Keays Eng Fitt(S) u/t

Do you remember the boring hours spent at Comedy Hall under the tutelage of National Service Education Officers? I remember particularly 'Tutti-Fruitie' Fraser, a nice boy very proud of his hairy battledress. Another one whose name I cannot remember, might have been somewhat of a leftie for he encouraged me to contact the Soviet Embassy to get gen for my 'Set Task'. I originally decided to do my so-called Thesis on Soviet Armour. Really good gen on the latest Soviet tanks was hard to come by. The helpful Education Officer in question suggested writing to the Soviet Embassy in London and asking them for details. Just before Whitsun 1957 I wrote to the Embassy. Back by return of post came a nice letter with an official letterhead from the ADC to the Military Attachè, Lt Col Nicolai Rodichev. The letter said that unfortunately he couldn't send me anything in the post but if I could visit the Embassy, he would put their library at my disposal. Wow!
I immediately wrote back and said I was staying in the Union Jack Club over the Bank Holiday and the following week and I could in fact call in. A letter was waiting for me at the UJ Club. Just plain paper this time, no heading but which gave a time and a day to visit 'the library'..

I had civilian clothes in store at Halton. So dressed to the nines in my best lurex-threaded £5 Burton suit with drain-pipes and equipped with secret-agent dark glasses purchased from Thomas's, I made my way to Kensington Palace Gardens. Two goons in the driveway gave me the once-over and took my invitation inside. Out then bounded this tall tanned figure who seized my hand a dragged me inside to his office. 'Sit down! Sit down!' he says. 'Coffee?'. A babushka who was as broad as she was tall stomped off to bring refreshments. 'Well,' says Nic, reaching beneath the desk, to turn on the tape recorder I suppose, 'tell me what RAF apprentices get up to at Halton'.

One of the senior entries the previous week had painted a zebra crossing at Main Point, so suitably emboldened by this friendly reception, I reckoned he wanted tales of jolly japes by brats in blue khaki. 'Hmm,' says he doubtfully, when I'd finished telling him about that one, 'we wouldn't do that sort of thing in the Soviet Forces.' I then really impressed him up by telling him the legend of the old German bomb some entry had hidden in road works near Wendover Station.

The coffee arrived. He poured us a cup each. Having read John Buchan stories about likely British heroes who allow themselves to be drugged by foreign agents, I waited until he has started his before following suit. Wasn't I having fun?

I then told him about my Set Task and my difficulty about getting gen on Soviet tanks and other armour. I mentioned the SU-100 tank destroyer and the T-54. He asked me to write done a list of what I wanted to know. Easy-peasy! Top speed on various surfaces, range, armament, armour thickness and other inconsequential details, like the turret stabilisation system. He asked me to read out my list, for the benefit of the tape- recorder no doubt. He then told me to wait and left the room. When he came back he had a huge collection of Sovier Army magazines. Lots of pictures of strutting phalanxes of soldiers passing in review and some rather fuzzy pictures of T-54s and T-34s dashing here and there.And quite a few pictures of glum Germans circa 1945. Useful stuff I suppose for illustrating my set task but not the gen I really wanted.

He had my list in his hand. 'I can't obtain these details straight away, but I know a much better library where you will find every detail about us in the Soviet Union.. It's not far from the Strand. I can meet you there.' 'OK', I replied, 'Where is it?'

He explained our meeting place and showed it to me on a map. It was a building at the bottom of Kingsway, near the Strand.. I told him it would have to be after our Summer Camp that was imminent. He had enough sense not to ask about what jolly japes we were expected to do at our Summer Camps.

On the appointed Wednesday afternoon, a sports afternoon you will recall, I skivved off and travelled to our rendezvous at the bottom of Kingsway. I waited and waited, and waited. No Nic. It was then light began to dawn. I was standing outside Bush House.It was from Bush House that the BBC and Voice of America broadcast to the Soviet Union. Nice one Nic. You really had me going! But I liked your sense of humour; unusual I suppose in a KGB officer.


Many years later I read 'Spycatcher' by Peter Wright. I know know that, as one might expect, the Embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens was under close surveillance at that time . (Probably still is) However nobody from MI5 bothered me afterwards. It must have been the secret agent dark glasses I had bought in Thomas's that fooled them. Or maybe it was that no-one who could wear such a ghastly suit could possibly be of any interest to MI5, or the Russians either.