wonwinglo

Poignant reminder of times past ( 1938 ) -think of the scene the person sitting on the horse and cart on the left is my father,note that he is in full R.A.F uniform,on leave for the very first time and obviously very proud,his father is the one standing,a coal merchant delivering his wares,the cart looks home made from the chassis of a vehicle,his two beloved horses were his pride and joy,he cared for them making up tinctures of dubious value for looking after the horses of the Gipsy community and anyone who needed his help as a quack horse doctor .

Well you asked for it,here is part one of my very own story,warts and all,so lets start seven years before I was even a twinkle in my mothers eyes-

To understand a little of my really early days we must go back to the year of 1938,war clouds were looming in Europe as Mr Hitler gathered together his arsenal,meanwhile the government were frantically trying to muster together personnel and crews for the Army,Navy and Air force,the carefree pre-war days with sports cars and lovely old biplanes gave a thrill to those with any interest in machinery,nobody really thought that the Germans would have another pot shot at our country,but how wrong they proved to be ? the hum drum of everyday life and need to feed the mouths of millions would mean that people would of necessity take jobs that they did not really like or want,well nothing has changed there ! my father was no exception,the frantic search for work had led him into an industry building gas meters,he absolutely hated it,the job lasted only a few days and he did a most extraordinary thing for the time,he simply walked out,however his dogged determination led him to get work in a factory building aero engines,the famous firm of Alvis,without doubt the company produced some of the finest pre-war cars in British motoring history,cars built to last,hand built with wooden and metal parts formed by true craftsmen,no such thing as production lines then,that would come much later when Henry Ford built his all black lookalikes in America and Mr Boeing built his B-17 Flying Fortresses,no these were limited run beauties.As he started his daily trips to work he could not but help looking skywards at the beautiful Hawker Hart biplanes painted all yellow with polished silver alloy cowlings gleaming in the morning sun,elite university air squadron students practised their daily formation flying,but my father was no elitist,far from it,he was born to a coal merchant who delivered his products by old fashioned horse and cart,who was a quack horse doctor much in demand by the local gypsy community,never missed a chance to make any spare cash,whether it be selling outdated tins of red paint clearly marked white ! or doing a deal in the local pub with a pint of beer thrown in,he really was a likeable rogue like many of his ilke.So my dear father who built aeroplane models made of bamboo with silk covered wings as a young lad,purchased the latest copy of the ‘Wizard’ comic to get the special cardboard parts of aeroplanes within its weekly pages was now in the real hard real world earning a living,he must have really wanted to fly as even during his early factory life he applied to the RAFVR,Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve at nearby Ansty aerodrome for acceptance in the air force,his first application was met with ‘Go home lad,you are too young for one thing,swot up on your maths and come back next year’ can you imagine the dis-appointment he must have felt ? and many would have given up at that point alone,but no he did go home,he did carry on working in the aero engine factory,and above all he did swot up on his maths ! the outcome was that the following spring he enrolled and took the required tough exams and passed,he went back home again and waited for his details,this eventually found him square bashing at R.A.F Cardington,then attending the famous Arcy-Dacy establishment in London ( having slept on a park bench overnight as he arrived too late ) soon he was posted after a crash course in aerodynamics,more maths,more square bashing and the usual things associated with military life in general.But it was the lure of learning to fly that kept him focussed and before long he was on the train to an EFTS ( Elementary Flying Training School ) in Lincolnshire to learn to fly on Tiger Moth aircraft.,during that year was to prove the worst winter for many a year which was so bad and hampered flying to such a degree that the Air Ministry had to think of a way around it,and before long my father was setting sail for the sunny climes of Florida where he would be pushed to the limit to get him to fly along with many many ordinary British citizens who had given up everything to join the armed forces…the story continues.

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'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
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