Around The World In 80 Delays
The continuing adventures of Tony Birchenough
The Mobile Years
1963
I didn't have long to wait, the New Year starting before the old one ended. With just a final weekend remaining of my leave I was recalled for an urgent sortie. At least that was the theory. I arrived back early on the Friday afternoon, on what I was told was the first bus from Swindon to Lyneham since the snow started falling on Boxing Day, then spent the next few days digging Brits and Comets out of the snow, a situation which I made very clear pissed me off somewhat as I'd missed a family celebration that weekend as it must have been obvious at the time of my recall that nothing would be able to take off from Lyneham for several days. We eventually got away on 9th January in Brit XM497 en route for Singapore via Honington, where we picked up our classified load. I recall that I had to fill the 50-gallon galley water tank via a top inspection plate with a hose from the Squadron offices some 100 metres away. This obviously took some time so we had to leave with the tank only half full as due to the nature of our load we had a fairly rigid time slot covered by Diplomatic Clearance to overfly the Continent, the result of which was yours truly hanging on to the galley support with one hand while refitting the 2BA bolts on the tank panel with the other as we lifted off and climbed out on the way to El Adem, Khormaksar, Gan and Paya Lebar. This time Air Amusements got it right so Mick Ortega and I stayed at the Changi Creek Hotel until leaving for home 4 days later on Comet 4C XR395, but only because I knew the crew from previous trips. By rights we should have stayed in the Transit billet on the base.

9 days later I was off to Singapore once more on a Brit with a Hot Load picked up at Scampton. This time it was a 2 aircraft sortie with one leg per day. I was in the 2nd Brit when we left El Adem and soon after take off we heard that the other had returned with engine failure. We carried on to Tengah. After offloading the Captain said that I was to remain there until the other Brit arrived, as I was the only rigger. He would inform Operations of the situation and I was to call them each morning quoting the flight number. This I duly did, only to be met with great consternation each morning asking to know how I'd come by this classified flight number! Great communication! 7 days later they arrived and I met them as they touched down that evening. Engine fitter Fred Pomeroy and I worked well into the night to clear a variety of snags before leaving the next morning. We actually had a slight hydraulic leak from a cracked pipe bell end on the port u/c selector valve but as it was in the return line and only losing about a pint on each leg the Flight Engineer and myself decided to ignore it until we got back to Lyneham and that I would take responsibility for the turn round servicing on route. All went well until we reached Khormaksar, where the VASF team insisted that it was their responsibility and promptly grounded us pending the fitment of a replacement pipe to come from UK. This would not have been so bad if there had been a hangar there big enough to house the Brit., because to carry out the mandatory retraction tests meant jacking the aircraft up in the open, for which there was a maximum permissible wind speed of 15 knots and it was gusting nearer 20 knots for the next 4 days. Every cloud has a silver lining, the saying goes and this unexpected delay actually had a very pleasant side effect for yours truly. My favourite, spinster, aunt was working for MMG (Missions to Military Garrisons - a sort of Salvation Army outfit) on the nearby Army Singapore Lines. A call at their Guardroom eventually persuaded them to give me her address, so off I went to visit her. The look of sheer amazement and delight when she saw me has stayed with me all these years and remains one of my most treasured memories, which the two of us were to share every time we met. I little knew that in the not too distant future we would be meeting on a regular basis. This 8-day trip had lasted 3 weeks and on retuning to Lyneham I was able to spend a few days at home.

A fortnight later I was off once again in a Brit, this time to Rivers in Manitoba, to bring back a load of Army gear after the aptly named Exercise Frozen Jump. Arriving late afternoon the air felt somewhat crisp but we didn't really appreciate just how cold it was until I tried to drain the domestic water system, only to find that the pipes were already freezing up after a mere hour on the deck, the use of a hot air blower being called for. I think the temperature got lower than -20 C overnight. Next morning we set off back to the UK, where suddenly that winter's extended cold and snowy conditions seemed much less serious.

It was soon after this that I and several of my colleagues received something of a shock when we were placed on PWR, as we were supposedly screened for 5 years, which still had at least 2 years to run. It was soon established that an Admin clerk had made an error, but we could find nobody to do anything about it. Our Flt Sgt boss was too wrapped up in his own personal agenda to take up our case with TCHQ, to who we all reported. As a result we were all prevented from being deployed on anything other than short term or emergency detachments from then on. I suppose that this is when I first really started to realise that the RAF was not the efficient organisation I had been led to believe, future events only serving to reinforce these views, such that I think this is when I began to consider that 12 years would maybe be enough. A very boring 3 months ensued before I next boarded a Brit and that only for an overnight foray to Fredericton to take out the advance party for that year's Exercise Pond Jump.

Then 2 weeks later I was sent down route, again on a Brit, to Paya Lebar, Singapore, for Exercise Dharanajata, setting out on the return journey a week later.

During that summer there was trouble in British Guiana, the Brit fleet being used to deploy our troops to Georgetown, staging through Kindley Field, Bermuda. Brit XM490 suffered acid spillage from an Army MT battery which had been loaded upside down and it was decided that an Enquiry team be sent out on Comet T Mk2 XK669. This being deemed an emergency of sorts I was informed mid morning of 8th July that I would be taking off that afternoon, along with engine fitter Pete Fryer, another who was on PWR. We set off at 18.10 for Bermuda via Gander with the Enquiry team comprising a Sqn Ldr and 2 Majors, arriving to refuel at Gander 5 3/4 hours later. After completing the climb the AQM distributed the standard meal boxes to our passengers and told Pete and I to set our trays up. A few minutes later we were served up with a delicious steak dinner, followed by apple pie and cream, which had been bought at Gander precooked and kept piping hot in the Comet's galley. At this point the Sqdn Ldr lit his cigarette, glanced down ruefully at the remains of his Lyneham produced chicken salad, then at the 2 scruffy Cpls and their repast and said, most good humouredly "It's true what they say, it's not what you know, it's who you know" before offering us a fag. 3 days later we filled the Comet with fuel and troops and headed back to Lyneham, landing at 17.50 on 11th July to complete what was to be the final flight of 5 memorable years on TCMSF.

Shortly after this I learnt that I was destined to spend the next 2 years at Khormaksar, not my 1st choice by a long way, but at least I would be able to see my dear aunt on a regular basis.
I only realised it as I wrote this that my globe-trotting days began and ended, fittingly I thought, with a pair of Comet T Mk2s, XK670 and XK669, the 1st two of the type to enter RAF Transport Command service, after the cancellation of the original BOAC order for which they were being built, in between which I flew in all of our 23 Britannias, 4 of our 5 Comet 4Cs, and examples of Beverley, Hastings and Argosy. Incidentally, for those of you who have wondered why the Comet 2 seats are forward facing, that's the reason, and also why you would see the BOAC Speedbird logo stamped into the galley urns.

This chapter of my career finally ended on Saturday 7th September 1963 when I took off from Stansted at 18.30, appropriately enough I think, in a BUA Britannia, arriving at Khormaksar almost 12 hours later after what had been marginally the longest single leg I had ever experienced.