I must commence by saying that on reflection after I submitted the 'The Early Years' there were many events I wished I had mentioned. But where do you draw the line! However I must say that I was in the Armoury at RAF Wittering with Nye Gutteridge and also witnessed the scene after the detonator accident he mentioned in Journal No 3, not a nice sight!

My self, Betty and Maria flew out to Malta on St Patrick's Day in Mar 1969. By coincidence we moved into a flat in 'St Patrick's Street' but it will be remembered for the wrong reason. Betty was in the kitchen when I heard a scream. I rushed in and she said something had moved in a pot and on investigating I found the biggest cockroach I had ever seen; not a good start to the tour! In general we liked Malta and the 2 main events were the purchase of a new Renault 16 for £746 I believe, and which I had for another 21 years, and the birth of twin boys, Andrew and Paul. The occasion resulted in many visitors and for several months we were kept very busy indeed. That is not to say looking after twins is all 'beer and skittles'!

I worked in the torpedo bay with only the odd visit to the Shackleton Sqn (ex Ballykelly) and other Sections. My fame for success in preparing candidates for their promotion exams had preceded me and I was badgered to again continue the task. However 4 SACs wanted to take the direct J/T Board, as they could not go on the fitters until they had completed the tour. As the overall success rate was only about 2% the Armament Officer was not at all keen for them to do so. I believed formal training was essential in the long term, but to cut a long story short they studied extremely hard, one fell out and the other three passed. Not surprisingly there was no time for M/C or aero modelling but I played football at Section level and of course did a lot of swimming. In addition I played table tennis in the Maltese league with some success
Our tour was cut short as I returned to attend the OCTU at RAF Henlow! It all started when a friend who was applying for a commission told me that the pension for a Ch Tech after 22 years was £7-17 - 6p and that for an Flt Lt was £17 odd. In addition I had been considering becoming a 'Super Tech' by taking the other Trade Boards. Such action would have taken a hell of a lot of hard work and a year at Cranwell seemed a far better solution. I was certainly happy with the work of an Armourer but wanted to become more involved with aircraft in general, especially as I had planned to leave at the 22 year point. An added advantage seemed that finding employment as an engineer would be easier and with 5 mouths already to feed, that could be important!

I will skip over the events at the OCTU, not my cup of tea at all I must admit. The Engineering course at Cranwell was far more useful and with only 6 in the class, including George Lowe (ex 81st) and 2 New Zealanders, I enjoyed the time. Within the class there was a wealth of experience, which the lecturers utilised to the full and in general they treated us as responsible adults, a far cry from the purgatory of OCTU. My family enjoyed the area but the move to Marham did not suit Betty owing to its remoteness and seemingly incessant misty weather. My post was OC GEF but I went on detachment to Scotland a few times with the Victors and in fact on the final last visit I flew in the last Hastings in Service which at the end of that the day was scrapped, not before time I must admit.

I also took 4 Victors to Cyprus for a month and had a great time rushing around on the detachment 350cc BSA. Yet again I met up with Nye Gutteridge, who was working on Bloodhounds at a local Base, and our families often met up. Again I played table tennis in the local league but I was fast becoming a squash enthusiast; this interest continued until recently when the roof of the local squash court blew off in a bad storm.

My next posting was to the REU at RAF Henlow, just across the main road from the OCTU. I became a 'bean stealer' as we brought a house in the Republic of Ireland to get into the housing market. It was a pleasant tour and living in the Mess was interesting as I got to know many of the OCTU Directing Staff (DS) from the 'other side of the table'. I even attended one of the 'Camps' and owing to the sickness of one of the DS took a flight on an exercise. However it did not change my views of the 'training system' but one wonders how a system could evolve to train cadets from a wide range of backgrounds and experience, with ages running from 18 to 40. In addition they are being prepared by Officers whose own experience of 'Command' varies enormously. The only common trait seemed to be their arrogance and belief in the system but I accept they were mainly highly dedicated and worked extremely hard for months on end.
Alas I digressed onto one of my soap boxes!

Besides spending much time travelling home I played a lot of Tennis, Squash and Table Tennis.
I suppose I had better mention what I was paid for! The task of the Section was to make the 'mechanical components' (mainly in metal, wood or plastic) for ground and aircraft installations; these would later be fitted out with the wiggly amp installation somewhere else in the factory. There were about 120 machinist/metalworkers/welders, 12 carpenters and about a dozen support staff. One of the most challenging facets was to purchase new machinery. I can still remember the dilemma I always found when selecting the latest wonder machine. One would canvas the views on the merits of a particular machine favoured from one group of experts and then being the 'expert' I would approach another group of uses who would invariably say words to the effect that only an idiot would even consider such a purchase, such was life!

Each year RAF Henlow and the Biggleswade 'Round Table' jointly organised an Open Day to raise funds for charity and I found myself on the committee, a duty that occurred many more times in the future. Very interesting I must say but at least it led to me riding a Honda 4 round the Hangar Exhibition and I must admit my views of Japanese motor cycles changed, but again that is for the future!

The next posting was Way out West to RAF Brawdy where I spent 3 very challenging, interesting and busy years as OC Arm. In 1976 the M4 only reached Swansea as I remember, and the journey to Brawdy took forever, whichever way you went. I took the A 40 in my trusty Renault 16 and the main memory of then ever ending trip was Red Rum winning the Grand National for the second time on the trot, and I had backed it to win.

Brawdy was a very buy Unit and well over 100 sorties a day was common. One year 1,000,000 rounds of 30mm were fired by mid Sep. The Hunters were being phased out and the new Hawk was about to start its illustrious career. The diehards would not believe the Hawk could carry on the great tradition of the Hunter and the discussions often became heated! I suspect that 'Aircrew' did more than discuss the merits of the 2 aircraft! My view is that they are both great aircraft from different generations and I would compare the Hunter to my 1971 Triumph Bonneville 650 and the Hawk to my modern Suzuki SV 650. (Yes retirement has been good to me before you ask) Little did I realise that a decade later my own career would be centred on the Hawk for some 20 years, such is fate!

During the early days of the Hawk severe problems of gun stoppages were occurring, but getting the link chute officially modified, as was locally wanted, was proving impossible. I conspired with the resident H S Rep to get 2 Gun Pods modified at the factory. The mod worked and the stoppage rate on these pods improved to well over 2000 rounds per stoppage compared to about 100 rounds per stoppage for the other gun pods. Monthly stats were submitted up the chain in the form of a bar graph so it was clearly evident that 2 pods were consistently performing 20 times better than the rest. About 8 months later a call from on high asked were the stats correct and if so why? When I explained I was told that such action was highly illegal, irresponsible and he was going straight to the Stn Cdr owing to the heinous nature of the crime. Fortunately the Stn Cdr backed me and insisted on the other pods being modified immediately as the stoppages were seriously damaging the training programme.

Again sport filled my spare time and although on paper the trip home to Drogheda seems direct, the times of the ships and trains did not coincide and it was often quicker to drive to Holyhead. Alas on the return journey this meant a 4 1/2 hour drive from Holyhead after the ship docked at 0030 on Monday morning - I was young then! They say that lightning never strikes twice but in Aug 1977 Betty gave birth to another set of twins, Adrian and Barry. With 7 mouths now to feed consideration as to the future became even more important. I really could not decide what I wanted to do, especially as I wanted to work in Ireland, but in the late 70s the country was a far cry from the 'Celtic Tiger' of today. My attention was brought to a 'job ad' in the Flight magazine and to my surprise I could tick all the criteria.

An Irish Shipping Company were purchasing a Boeing Jetfoil and wanted a Mechanical Engineer to head up a maintenance team. After several interviews I got the job but they wanted me to go to Seattle on the West coast of America for 9 months in July 1979, but I was not due to leave the RAF until about Nov. Everyone pulled out all the stops and in late Jul '79 I travelled 'Club Class' over the pole to Seattle to a rather different way of life.

To be continued