How many days janks did you do? I may not have had the record score; legend has it some laid-back brat, having achieved 99 days at a hearing, asked for one more so that he could achieve a century. So I may not have that admirable record but I surely must have been one of the first of the 81st to undergo a regime that today would have all sorts of do-gooders sceaming at the gates of Halton.

My first misdeamour was the night that 'War of the Worlds' was on at the Astra. It was January 1956 and I was in Maitland Block 5 Room 3, I think. As me and my mate Jim Lee, went to the bottom of the stairs we saw a blackboard notice that said C/A Kent (74th) had decreed that evening to be a Domestic Evening. Now I had been in the RAF already for a long time before Halton, 16 weeks, having been a B/E who could do joined up writing, and so became a Brat. With the aplomb of a old sweat I scribbled BALLS! with my finger across C/A Kent's notice. Off we went to enjoy the film.

On our return to do our bit I was dismayed to see that C/A Kent had written:

"If the A/A who defaced the notice above does not report to C/A Kent by 22:00 the Block is on Domestic Evenings for a week"

Oh dear! This was not in accordance with QRs and ACIs.Collective punishment was not allowed, or so I believed for previous studies with B/E barrack room lawyers at Cosford. I went off to scrub the bogs or do some other interesting Bull Night task and agonised about my inevitable confession. Fortunately Jim was able to help me out of my dilemma because he confided to some that he knew who the culprit was. Luckily he confided this information to the whole room at the top of his voice. He could not but be overhead by L/A Al Payne(74th) who was in the bunk at the time and sent me to see C/A Kent. My very first F252! Flt LT Kerahan(I think), our Flight Commander, a fellow-Irishman said all the expected things, "letting the side down", "very disappointed" , 3 days Confined to Camp".

Jankers was not just a bind; it was a grinding bind, full of toil if not actual tears. I can't remember when the first parade of the day was. Was it 07:00 at the Guardroom in No2 with denims and side-pack? There was a similar parade at lunch-time. The fun really got going at 18:00 with a parade at Wing HQ followed by fatigues in the cook-house. I specialised in cleaning the 'tins'. Ugh! At 20:00 it was back to the Guardroom in No2s with all your webbing broken down. Another parade followed at 20:30 at the Guardroom, in skeleton webbing. Parades at the Guardroom were conducted by the snoops and were really only a roll-call and it was the rare snoop that gave you a hard time. However it was at 21:00 that things rose to a crescendo with the arrival of HRH The Orderly Officer to inspect the Defaulters. You only had ½ hour to polish the brasses on your webbing and reassemble it avoiding damage to its blancoed finish. Then polish buttons, boots and hat-badge and square off your side-pack and back-pack.

My first 21:00 parade at Maitland Wing HQ was a disaster. Flt Lt Sturgeon was the OO. He inspected every defaulter in meticulous detail. Boy, were my knees knocking? . When he had inspected the soles of my boots he told me to remove my hat-badge. "You have not cleaned this properly" he barked "look at the back of it. It's filthy! Sergeant, charge this man! " What words of doom he spoke! Could not not see that I was only 4ft 10½ inches? Could he not hear that I was still a boy soprano? Could he feel no pity?. The next day I got another 3 days CC. What a basket!

Six days jankers and not in even 6 months. I was ashamed and resolved never to put a finger wrong again. They call it training, the sort of thing they do to dogs, horses, seals and monkeys and it worked for I remained fault free until one day in 1957. We had a snap inspection in Block 10 Room 2 in Henderson, No 1A Wing. Flt Lt Edgington, our tall lanky Flight Commander visited us."Stand by your beds" was the cry. Oh dear.

There was a 3d deposit on every coke and pop bottle bought in the Tank. The well-heeled who lived in the two floors above us clearly didn't need the money for they were wont to sling their empties into the woods that came right up to the Block. It was my wont to do a daily patrol, collect the empties and when I had a lot of them, take them to Boney Moronie, the girl in 1 Wing Tank, and get my money and a pat on the head.

I don't know how many bottles there were in my tall locker when Flt Lt Edgington tried to open it. Now y'know how those doors on our tall lockers were? Never opened cleanly; always needed a second hefty tug. When my door finally opened it was accompanied by the sound of rolling pop and coke bottles. The surprised Flt Lt E stepped aside to avoid this cascade but regrettably stood on a bottle, and then another and so went A over T. Three more days for 'taking food or drink into the Block!. For C****'s sake, sir, they were bloody empty!

That ended my career as a member of the criminal classes. I even avoided WO Rich's infamous 'Change of Station Order' by which he meted out summary justice, without benefit of a hearing, to those who he found fault with on our daily trudge to work.

I did have a close call on one pay-parade,. being a 'K' and therefore amonst the dregs of a pay-parade, I was too busy day-dreaming when "Keays" was called. That's why, when answering "459, sir!" I produced not one, but two F1250s. One of these was the real one; the other was a rather clever and convincing forgery. You see, I was a real fan of RAF escape stories and fancied my hand at that game. The Flt Sgt confiscated my work of art and, it being a week-end, told me to report to him on the Monday. My heart was in my mouth all Saturday and Sunday. However Flt Sgt Earwicker, being a kind-hearted man and also a fan of escape stories, accepted my explanation and just gave me a good earwigging. (Geddit? A earwigging from Earwicker?) If it had been my previous protagonist, Flt Lt Sturgeon, I'd still probably be locked up.

So, in the end my score was 9 days janks. Can you beat that?