Black Velvet - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

This page is an edited extract from my second book, published in 2001

A few days before we started practising our Graduation Parade in earnest, our Flight Commander announced to the assembled course something that he'd told me privately a couple of hours earlier. I would be the Parade Commander because I'd won the Sword of Merit for being the best cadet on the course. The Flight Commander then added that it was customary for the Sword of Merit cadet to pay for the Guinness and Champagne, equal parts of which make up the exotic drink known as Black Velvet that formed the basis of the traditional pre-graduation parties. I was a bit alarmed about this because I'd never heard of Black Velvet. I had no idea how much it would cost me but I soon discovered that the cost would not be excessive - a few bottles of cheapo Champagne - and the Students' Mess would pay for the Guinness.

The party took place in the Student Officers' Mess bar two days before our graduation. It was a great party - as great as one can be when the only folk there are your fellow students and most of the staff officers together with some invited officers from other parts of the Station! I retired hurt about midnight having drunk too many pint glasses of the black liquid.

I slept soundly until about 9 a.m and hadn't even woken when the rest of the occupants of our room returned from the party. It was, fortunately, a morning with no normal duties. A small group of my fellow students from another barrack room came in and surrounded my bed bursting to inform me that one of the station squadron leaders had been discovered in the middle of the night asleep in bed with one of the youngest male cadets. The cadet in question had, apparently, gone to bed very early after drinking too much, too quickly, of the fizzy black stuff and had woken up some time later to discover that there was an unexpected guest in his bed. The squadron leader had fled as the cadet woke up. When his fellow cadets turned in from the party some time later the young cadet told them what had happened. As I understood things, they all decided to wait for morning before reporting the matter.

My colleagues made it clear to me that, now they had formally told me of the incident, as Course Leader it was my duty to report the incident to the Station Commander. However, everyone, including the entirely innocent cadet whose bed had been violated, begged me not to do so and I regret to record that I acquiesced with their wishes. We were all just keen to graduate and get away from the island as quickly as possible and not get involved in what would undoubtedly have been a protracted and very embarrassing inquiry for all concerned.

We never saw the offending squadron leader again; he was not directly associated with our training anyway. We learned, by discreet enquiries, that he had left the Island for the mainland on the early morning ferry to Liverpool on urgent compassionate leave. As far as I know, the rest of the staff at Jurby, and the cadets on the junior courses, never got to hear about the incident. I heard some years later that shortly after the incident following our Black Velvet party that same squadron leader had been ‘outed’ and forced to resign his commission. In those days it was unthinkable that a senior RAF officer should be court-martialled for homosexuality. The RAF would have been the laughing stock of the Royal Navy and Army.

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