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

ISSUE No.9 - NOVEMBER 2006
81st ENTRY NEWSLETTER
Editor: Mike Stanley

Why Did I Join the RAF? by 681457 Dave Hunt Armourer

I'm sure many have asked themselves this question over the years, well here is one answer.

Thinking back to the time before joining the Royal Air Force, I have realised that there had been three main reasons to do so.

Firstly I wished to leave home. Well the RAF certainly granted this wish because I served for 36 years, ending my time as a Warrant Officer, and in all that time posted me nowhere near to my home county of Dorset!

Secondly I was very enthusiastic about aircraft. During my career I found that I came to service, marshal or control every one of my boyhood dreams, except the Lightning. However in the Spring of 1956 I did attain the dizzy heights of the twelfth position in the All England Aircraft Recognition Competition, which was held in the Science Museum, and that certainly embraced all of my knowledge as well as one projected slide that I did not recognise - a formation of Sturgeons!

Lastly I wanted to see the world; this ambition probably came from my favourite school subject Geography. Whilst at Halton, Scotland and Wales were seen at close quarters by touring both countries by bicycle. Then came my first posting to Marham on Valiants (truly El Adem with grass, provided you could see it through the fog and drizzle) for a period of 2 years. There I always seemed to be in the second reserve team, which did not go on overseas jollies to exotic locations like America, South Africa Rhodesia etc. However the powers that be wanted me to brush up on my UK geography (possibly because I upset the SWO and he delighted in seeing me wandering around with a blue chit - departure side); during those two years I found myself visiting Gaydon (Warwickshire), Melksham (Wiltshire), Wittering (Northants), Finningley (S Yorks), Sealand (CheshirelFlintshire border somewhere), Bawtry (S. Yorks), Yeovilton (Somerset), Tarrant Rushton (Dorset), Wyton and Warboys (Cambs) and West Raynham. (Norfolk).

In 1960 I left Marham for a brown knees posting to Australia - and this is where the whole point of this passage really begins. I remained an armourer (plumber/weapons) for the whole of my career, never going for a commission nor any aircrew position, yet with `Government Official' firmly written in my passport, the Air Force did me proud by showing me parts of the world that I had not covered in any of my studies. So for interest I have listed those countries visited, followed, in brackets, by the amount of occasions I got to that area and keeping in mind that at all times, the public purse covered the cost of it all

Aden (1)	Ascension Island (3)	Australia (3)	Turkey (1)
Canada (1)	Ceylon (Sri Lanka)(1)	Falkland Isles (1)	France (2)
Gan (2)	Germany (19. Yes nineteen)	Guam (1)	Hawaii (1)
Holland (6)	Malta (3)	Indonesia (1)	Libya (2) (Marham with sand)
Malaya (4)	Singapore (7)	New Zealand (1)	Pakistan (1)
Persia (Iran)(1)	Wake Island (1)	Turkey (1)	USA (1)

Of all the overseas places where I really wanted to serve, Cyprus would have been it, however this was not to be. On one occasion I was riding in the Bomb Aimers position in an Argosy (very comfortable lying on the foam mattress, a superb view and exhilarating during landing and take off with your nose about 2.5 feet from the runway!), en route to Cyprus with a Vulcan Sunspot detachment, when the bowser drivers went on strike, so we all ended up in Malta for 3 weeks instead. I did at last manage to set foot on Cyprus, when on the way back from one of my Australian trips in 1970, we stopped off for breakfast whilst the Britannia (aircraft, not Royal Yacht) was refuelled.

I started my epistle at that point when I had not yet joined the Brat Factory and have ended in 1986 on the occasion of a visit to Ascension, my last overseas journey, five years before leaving OM (Our Mob).