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

ISSUE No. 7 - MAY 2006
81st ENTRY NEWSLETTER
Editor: Mike Stanley

T'was On The Good Ship Dunera!by Martin McArthur

On 2nd of January we were transported by train to Southhampton and joined HMT Dunera along with the Devon & Dorsetshire Regiment, also going to Aden, and several other odds and sods being dropped off along the route. We went first across the Bay of Biscay, the pongoes suffered badly from 'mal de mer' and getting meals was easy.

Once they had found their sea legs the brown jobs would start to queue for meals at least half an hour before the servery opened and the queue went round the mess deck and half way round the next deck below! I accidentally found a solution by breaking one of the fundamental rules of service life - I volunteered. The Ship's WO asked for a volunteer and for some unknown reason I stood forward. I really was lucky; the job was to be ship's librarian. An SAC Coxswain was the assistant librarian and we had to open the library at lunchtime and early evening. Consequently we were given special chits to go to the front of the mess queues! We also sold stamps, every day the purser issued us with a 5 pounds worth of three-penny stamps and we paid him from the previous days takings. First day we lost money and had to make it up from our own pockets. Thereafter we got our beer from the surpluses.

Our voyage took us to Gibraltar, just a short stop to drop a few people off and then on our way. Next stop was Malta where we were promised shore leave! This turned out to be a bit of a failure as we had only just got ashore when we were recalled to the ship. The Maltese authorities objected to anyone going ashore as there were some cases of measles or scarlet fever or something on board.

Next stop was Port Said, no shore leave here although the ship had to wait for 12 hours to join a south going convoy. We had plenty to keep us occupied and amused. Egyptian traders swarmed round the ship in a multitude of small boats, some were allowed on board and set up stalls on the deck and, the best bit, the Gully Gully man (a conjurer/magician) came on board in the evening. We were still in our UK uniforms at this stage of the voyage, early January and still quite cool, so when I went to see the entertainment I was wearing my battledress jacket, fully buttoned up - the Regimental Police would not permit any RAF slackness like unbuttoned uniform jackets! Part way through the show the Gully Gully man asked me if I liked chickens? I admitted that I did and he said 'Undo the top button of your jacket and put your hand inside your jacket' I did as instructed and as my hand went in I could feel something wriggling. I gently grasped and pulled out what turned out to be a fluffy yellow chick! Altogether he managed to secrete 6 chicks into my battledress jacket without anyone, including me, being able to see how it was done! He was a very accomplished entertainer and fully earned all the cash he collected and the cigarettes he conned from us as part of his final trick!

The passage through the Suez Canal was full of interest but all too soon we had passed the Bitter Lakes, about half way along and where we passed the north bound convoy, Port Suez and out into the Red Sea. We changed into our brand new KD for the rest of the voyage to Aden exposing our pallid white skin to the ever-strengthening rays of the sun. It was amusing to find that the pongoes were not allowed to wear sunglasses, whereas the RAF were issued with them. Regimental police found it really difficult to impose their rule on their regimental colleagues and ignore the 'blue jobs' apparently flouting their authority.

Aden, RAF Khormaksar to be exact, was a big culture shock. Hot, sprawling, gypsum everywhere, and everywhere all these sun tanned people watching cynically as we collected and carried our bedding from the bedding store to our allocated barrack blocks, white skin turning ever redder as the day progressed. The most often heard word was 'Moonies'!

To be continued