Welcome to the RAF!

Occupants of Hut 183, RAF Hednesford, plus two drill instructors, in July 1952. The writer is in the middle row, third from left.
Occupants of Hut 183, RAF Hednesford, plus two drill instructors, in July 1952. The writer is in the middle row, third from left.

When my two years of National Service began in the first week of June 1952 I became 2561562 Aircraftsman Second class Montague M (I have been told many times that you never forget your service number.

This was at RAF Padgate near Warrington, Lancashire (now Cheshire), the Recruit Intake Centre for that part of the Services, at which all conscripts were received to undergo a week of the various procedures of induction such as the issuing of the full requirements of uniform and equipment before being assigned to a Recruit Training Camp and the tender care of the Drill Instructors who then had eight weeks to knock into us a proficiency in drill and other military procedures.

The RAF had several such camps around the country, and which one you went to was determined by the day of intake – for example Wednesday arrivals were ported to Hednesford, Staffordshire; those of another day to Bridgnorth in Shrophire, and so on.

I was (and still am) intrigued by the military descriptions of some of the items of clothing issued, especially “drawers, cel-
lular, airmen”, and wondered if there were such things as cellular drawers for sergeants and officers, and what differences there might be!

(Several weeks later, while on fatigue duties at Hednesford, I came across a carton whose label carried the grim, unpunctuated description “Clock Hanging Airman”!).

At Padgate, recruits received instruction in basic drill to be able to move around the camp in a body as tidily as possible.

I had survived my first week in the RAF with only one drama – at Pay Parade I continued to salute with my left hand (wrong!) and a Warrant Officer pointed out my error at length and at considerable volume!

We “entrained” – a good military word -to travel to the scene of our next stage of military service, Recruit Training, where I was to find out that the roasting I had received from that Warrant Officer was nothing compared with the way. an angry drill instructor could tear a strip off a young recruit.

The location of RAF Hednesford can be seen clearly on a current Ordnance Survey map, the grid-like pattern of dotted lines
marking what was once the camp’s network of roadways just north of the Midlands town from which it took its name, at the edge of Cannock Chase.

Despite the intervening years, I can easily determine the position of several of the camp’s features, in particular the location of Hut 183, which provided living quarters for myself and 18 colleagues among the 1,000 or so for whom the camp was home. That hut provided the roof over our heads and we polished the floor beneath our feet!

Hut 183 was definitely a clean and tidy place. When its occupants rushed out on parade, they left their footwear – gym shoes polished top and bottom and walking-out shoes – aligned with a string held at each end of the hut, just like the beds, towels, mugs (resting on the towels), kitbags, clothes lockers and precisely-folded blankets.

Coal bins were polished, stoves blackened (the surrounds scrubbed white). Two grooms and a floor-polishing aid called a ‘bumper’ – like a heavy, oversized broom with a strip of thick felt instead of bristles -were also tidily arranged.

The handles and heads of the brooms and bumpers were scraped with a razor blade until stark white. I often wondered over the years whether those implements were ever scraped completely away?

There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere! Even the tops of the lockers and the underframes of the beds were inspected, so they had to be spotless too.

A friend of mine who had done his National Service in the army was scornful of the “luxury” of lockers seen in the photo “Lockers? You had lockers?”

“Naturally” I replied “we had to have somewhere to stack all our ‘Brylcreem’!”

When I was on leave and told my mother of the rigorous domestic chores we had to perform, she showed little sympathy.

“Does this mean I can get you to keep your room clean and tidy now?” she asked.

…Perhaps.

Maybe if she’d had stripes on her arm..! Michael Montague

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Welcome to the RAF!

Occupants of Hut 183, RAF Hednesford, plus two drill instructors, in July 1952. The writer is in the middle row, third from left.
Occupants of Hut 183, RAF Hednesford, plus two drill instructors, in July 1952. The writer is in the middle row, third from left.

When my two years of National Service began in the first week of June 1952 I became 2561562 Aircraftsman Second class Montague M (I have been told many times that you never forget your service number.

This was at RAF Padgate near Warrington, Lancashire (now Cheshire), the Recruit Intake Centre for that part of the Services, at which all conscripts were received to undergo a week of the various procedures of induction such as the issuing of the full requirements of uniform and equipment before being assigned to a Recruit Training Camp and the tender care of the Drill Instructors who then had eight weeks to knock into us a proficiency in drill and other military procedures.

The RAF had several such camps around the country, and which one you went to was determined by the day of intake – for example Wednesday arrivals were ported to Hednesford, Staffordshire; those of another day to Bridgnorth in Shrophire, and so on.

I was (and still am) intrigued by the military descriptions of some of the items of clothing issued, especially “drawers, cel-
lular, airmen”, and wondered if there were such things as cellular drawers for sergeants and officers, and what differences there might be!

(Several weeks later, while on fatigue duties at Hednesford, I came across a carton whose label carried the grim, unpunctuated description “Clock Hanging Airman”!).

At Padgate, recruits received instruction in basic drill to be able to move around the camp in a body as tidily as possible.

I had survived my first week in the RAF with only one drama – at Pay Parade I continued to salute with my left hand (wrong!) and a Warrant Officer pointed out my error at length and at considerable volume!

We “entrained” – a good military word -to travel to the scene of our next stage of military service, Recruit Training, where I was to find out that the roasting I had received from that Warrant Officer was nothing compared with the way. an angry drill instructor could tear a strip off a young recruit.

The location of RAF Hednesford can be seen clearly on a current Ordnance Survey map, the grid-like pattern of dotted lines
marking what was once the camp’s network of roadways just north of the Midlands town from which it took its name, at the edge of Cannock Chase.

Despite the intervening years, I can easily determine the position of several of the camp’s features, in particular the location of Hut 183, which provided living quarters for myself and 18 colleagues among the 1,000 or so for whom the camp was home. That hut provided the roof over our heads and we polished the floor beneath our feet!

Hut 183 was definitely a clean and tidy place. When its occupants rushed out on parade, they left their footwear – gym shoes polished top and bottom and walking-out shoes – aligned with a string held at each end of the hut, just like the beds, towels, mugs (resting on the towels), kitbags, clothes lockers and precisely-folded blankets.

Coal bins were polished, stoves blackened (the surrounds scrubbed white). Two grooms and a floor-polishing aid called a ‘bumper’ – like a heavy, oversized broom with a strip of thick felt instead of bristles -were also tidily arranged.

The handles and heads of the brooms and bumpers were scraped with a razor blade until stark white. I often wondered over the years whether those implements were ever scraped completely away?

There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere! Even the tops of the lockers and the underframes of the beds were inspected, so they had to be spotless too.

A friend of mine who had done his National Service in the army was scornful of the “luxury” of lockers seen in the photo “Lockers? You had lockers?”

“Naturally” I replied “we had to have somewhere to stack all our ‘Brylcreem’!”

When I was on leave and told my mother of the rigorous domestic chores we had to perform, she showed little sympathy.

“Does this mean I can get you to keep your room clean and tidy now?” she asked.

…Perhaps.

Maybe if she’d had stripes on her arm..! Michael Montague

More Stories

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