Adjutant 18 Squadron - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

It was much more fun being the Adjutant because it meant I had unrestricted access to all the squadron files and correspondence. That was when I first discovered that individuals’ personal files, kept in distinctive blue folders stamped top, bottom, front and back, ‘Staff in Confidence’, were far more interesting than the dark red, Top Secret files. I also soon learned that there is little real satisfaction in having access to all manner of confidential and often titillating personal information about your work colleagues if you cannot tell anyone what you know.

Wing Commander Denys Sutton was the squadron commander. He was always known as ‘Clutcher’ because whenever he saw you going towards the squadron coffee bar the shortest way via the path outside his window, he was likely to call you into his office and give you a job. To avoid being ‘clutched’ most of the squadron personnel used to take the long route to the coffee bar, around the four outside walls of the huge aircraft hangar that housed our squadron. It could be quite lonely in the Adjutant’s office!

Clutcher was a very conscientious and well-meaning officer and he gave me good advice from time to time.

"Tony, when you’re a squadron commander you can do things your way," he told me solemnly on one occasion when I'd
been trying to persuade him to do something he didn't want to do. "Right now I’m the squadron commander and so you’ll do things my way."

He was, of course, absolutely right and I used that very phrase myself several times later in my career when I was a squadron commander. It was Clutcher Sutton who one day got me to type a letter for his signature from the Officer Commanding Number 18 Squadron to the President of the Officers’ Mess asking for permission to use the Mess facilities for a Squadron function.

"But you are President of the Officers’ Mess," I said, rather impertinently. "Why do you need to write to yourself?"

"Because we must have decisions recorded on the files in the proper way," he replied patiently and without a hint of reproach. Thinking it over afterwards, I felt sure that he had been hoping I would ask that question.

A couple of days later I passed through to Wing Commander Sutton, on file of course, a handwritten memo from himself as President of the Mess to himself as Squadron Commander in which he regretted that permission could not be granted for the squadron function because the Mess staff were fully committed with other duties on the date in question.

"I guessed what the answer would be," he told me sadly. He initialled his own letter, closed the file, and placed it in the out tray.

Postcript January 2009. I had an email from the son of Denys Sutton in January 2009 - a family friend had pointed the son to this page on my website. The son told me that he did not know his father had been called Clutcher but he did recognise the reason. He added: "Obviously by the time he commanded 18 Squadron it had acquired metaphorical significance but its origins were apparently literal. John  advises that it dates from times he wished to attract attention on noisy flight decks and would grab the other pilot's upper arm. This technique for attracting or retaining attention continued. Probably because I was a victim of it from an early age,  I was never conscious of it, but my wife and daughter enthusiastically confirm that it was a frequent accompaniment to chat's, particularly on walks which were often the occasions for friend and family one-to-ones.'"

Denys Sutton died early in 2004 and his charming wife Eve in 2007.

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