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

ISSUE No. 6 - FEBRUARY 2006
81st ENTRY NEWSLETTER
Editor: Mike Stanley

The Continuing Story of.... by Martin McArthur

Leuchars and Luffing

Arrival at Leuchars coincided with a long weekend, there was barely time to start the arrivals procedure - remember the blue arrivals/clearance card that had to be signed by every man and his dog? I learnt the prime rules of arriving, first find your bed; get your bedding; find the location of the mess (and times of meals, especially over the weekend); locate the NAAFI bar. Having accomplished these basic procedures, you have somewhere to sleep, you will get fed, and you can get minimum entertainment - the rest of the process can take as long as necessary. By the time I had all the necessary signatures it had taken me 5 days, plus the long weekend.

It was nearly a week before I was eventually able to report to the Instrument Bay where I was given Station Standing Orders, Eng. Wing Standing Orders and the most recent Routine Orders to read. This took another day and I had yet to be told what I could contribute to the fighting efficiency of the RAF. Eventually I was given a job. To the relief of Jim Ednie, an ex Boy Entrant, who had been the junior member of the team until my arrival, I was given the task, done by all newcomers, of servicing the emergency oxygen bottles brought into the section by the WRAFs who worked in the Safety Equipment and Parachute Section. This was to be my main form of employment for the next few months; there were hundreds of them! The bonus part of this was that whoever serviced the emergency oxygen bottles also got to go out with the (better looking) WRAF who brought them to the bay. I did say 'go out with' NOT 'service'!

Before long (2 months and 6 days after graduation!) I was promoted to the dizzy rank of Corporal (acting, paid) and posted - not far, just to the next hangar, to 151 Squadron, one of the 2 Javelin (Mk 5) Squadrons at Leuchars. My life seemed to be going along without any real input from me, I was part of a sausage machine - I don't recall having done anything to merit promotion and looking back I am not at all sure that I was sufficiently mature for such a high and responsible position. I need not have worried; nobody expected much from the fresh faced, wet behind the ears ex brat who had been trained to file brass to half a thou!

Around about this time I discovered sailing, or rather sailing discovered me. George Gray (an MT fitter Corporal) appeared in our barrack room one Saturday morning and enquired if anyone wanted to go sailing? We went to the sailing club, on the banks of the River Eden estuary, on the south side of the airfield where he explained that he intended to take one of the 3 Albacore dinghies down the estuary and then round the coast to Tayport. By the time he had explained the ropes to me and we had maneuvered the dinghy down to the beach the tide had gone out too far to sail. 'Never mind' he said 'we can manage on the next tide. See if you can get yourself some oilskins and I'll see you back here this afternoon'. I drove to Edinburgh, bought the oilies from a Chandlers in Leith, and drove back to Leuchars in time to catch the tide. On the way back I had a minor skirmish with a bus that pulled out of a side turning in front of me. I was only doing 80 mph and skidded sideways past the bus and came to a stop on the grass verge. The driver claimed that I had hit his bus but all that had been broken was one rear light glass in the middle of the off side rear cluster!

Back at the sailing club we rigged the boat and launched into the estuary where the tide was ebbing once more. George steered us through mud banks as I hung on to the jib sheets and eventually we crossed the bar out into St Andrews Bay. As we turned and headed towards the north the wind came on the beam and the dinghy accelerated, soon we were planeing and there was spray all around us. I knew little about the mechanics of how we did this, my hands were sore with burst blisters where I had been hauling on the jib sheets, but I was well and truly hooked!

Life at Leuchars was good, I sailed as often as I could, I moved into a bunk in the Corporals Club, went on detachments to West Malling and Waterbeach where the squadron provided QRA for a couple of weeks. Some time after one of these detachments the SIB paid a visit to the squadron, scuttlebutt had it that a fishing boat in the North Sea had been hit by a (single) shell from an Aden cannon and our squadron was the only one airborne, and armed, at the time. Never heard the outcome. I did get bullet holes in my beret during one of these detachments, an armourer conned me into lending him my beret while he was unloading an Aden gun. The ejected shells came out with quite some force and were caught in the beret but also banged against some metal structure and where the beret was between them it got cut. Where was the armourer's beret? - safely tucked into his pocket!

Towards the end of 1960 I had to return to hospital, the result of the motorbike accident while at Halton. I hadn't known it but in addition to broken leg and arm I had also broken my nose, not very visible on the outside - I know, it is not a pretty feature at the best of times - but internally one nostril was partly blocked and this had to be corrected at RAF Nocton Hall in Lincolnshire. Not a major operation, I was only in for a few days but I qualified for 2 weeks sick leave, about the same time I was posted to Aden and had to take 2 weeks embarkation leave with some annual leave I was off for several weeks. I had to report to Innsworth, The RAF Records Office, a few days before Christmas to be kitted out and then transported to Southampton for embarkation on HMT Dunera. In the event Dunera suffered engine problems and our departure was delayed. We were sent home on 10 days special leave and had to report back to Innsworth on 1st January 1961

. What a rotten trick to play on a Scotsman, traveling on Hogmanay!

To be continued…………