Square Bashing at Bridgnorth

‘Step off with your left foot,’ barked the Drill Instructor. ‘Take a full thirty inch pace – nothing less, nothing more"

RAF Bridgnorth camp was actually nearer to the Shropshire village of Stanmore than Bridgnorth but couldn't be called Stanmore because there was already a famous RAF station of that name in Middlesex. We could see the station’s water towers on the top of the ridge for quite a while before we arrived at the main guard room where we were ordered out. I wrote in my diary that evening:

‘When we arrived at the camp we were greeted by the raucous shouts of the corporals. I don’t think they are as bad as they sound; ours is quite decent anyway. Tomorrow will be the first of 55 days of hard work.’

After being shown to our billet, hut number 162 with 22 beds, we changed out of our best uniform, in which we'd travelled, and set about cleaning all our kit, and the billet, ready for the morrow’s inspections. (The image on the left was taken shortly before our graduation - I'm the one standing behind the corporal - click the image to enlarge) We learned that we were now 13 Flight, one of four flights in C Squadron. We wore a green disc behind our beret badge to denote that we were members of C Squadron. Our own corporal assured us that 13 Flight would be the best flight in the Wing or he would know the reason why!

I was vaguely surprised that we spent a lot of time in the next eight weeks sitting in classrooms listening to lectures. I think I'd expected that we would spend most of our time doing drill, firing guns, cleaning our kit and our barrack room, and generally acting like soldiers. Our first lectures, which took up most of the first morning, were given by a Catering Officer and an Education Officer and I didn't record in my diary what either was about. I do recall that throughout my service the RAF was always very keen on general education. In the afternoon we had lectures about the history and traditions of the RAF, the badges of rank, and how to recognise the corresponding ranks in the other Services. Then followed our first formal drill lesson.

Before we could start square-bashing on the move, we had to learn how to stand to attention: heads back, looking straight to the front, stomachs in, fingers loosely clenched, with the thumb to the front not tucked in and running down the line of the seam in our trouser legs. In the early marching lessons, long before we were issued with rifles, some airmen found it difficult to start off from the halt without getting themselves into a tangle. Time and time again we practised because it took some of them a long time to get the hang of it. The drill instructors were quite patient!

‘Step off with your left foot,’ barked the Drill Instructor. ‘Take a full thirty inch pace – nothing less, nothing more. At the same time bring your right arm smartly forward to waist height and push your left arm smartly to the rear to waist height. Don’t bend your arms at the elbow – that’s what women do! If you all take a full thirty inch pace and move your arms correctly, there’ll be no collisions!’

The RAF didn't go in for swinging arms shoulder high; some of the lads who had served in the Air Training Corps or Combined Cadet Force had to remember that. Others found it well-nigh impossible to keep exactly in step with the man in front and they were always very slightly out of synchronism with the rest of the flight. Some seemed to have an irresistible compulsion to swing their left arm forward in time with their left foot, and right arm with right foot. This was known as ‘tick-tocking’ and once started, it was extremely difficult to stop it and get back into sync with the rest of the flight. It looked highly amusing and inevitably caused those immediately behind to trip up, leading to a complete collapse of discipline. Fortunately I never succumbed to tick-tocking. The Warrant Officer at Cardington had been correct in one respect: there was very little gratuitous swearing, just a lot of mild cursing and haranguing.

The days passed surprisingly quickly and were mostly enjoyable. We quickly settled into a routine of early rising, cleaning the billet for morning inspection, and then off to breakfast. For this we had to form up into a flight in three ranks at the front of the billet, march to the Airmen’s Mess, mug and irons clasped behind our backs in our left hand, right hand swinging smartly waist high, to front and rear. Anyone caught going to or from the Mess separate from the main marching flight was in trouble. When we had eaten, we cleaned our knife, fork and spoon by dipping them into a near boiling cauldron of water at the exit. So efficient this was that at first we thought there must  be some sort of detergent in the water, but it was just plain water and nothing else.

We had to sign a register each time we had a bath. This was, we were told, to identify lads who tried to get away with never having a bath at all - and there were one or two. In the 1950s there were no deodorants or other male cosmetics so, with 22 men living in close proximity, bodily hygiene was important. There were about eight individual bathrooms in a stone-floored room just off the main ablutions area along the corridor from our billet, but there were no doors on the bathrooms. Whether this was an economy measure to save money when the bathrooms were built or to prevent ‘un‑airman‑like’ behaviour, we neither knew nor cared. Being un-airman-like was not permitted in any activity, as we were constantly reminded. Not being officers, most of us came from relatively poor homes where a bath was a weekly rather than a daily activity. There were a few showers but these were reserved for after PT or games. ‘We don’t want to waste hot water, do we!’ said the corporal, turning off the hot water supply one day early on when he caught some lads having unauthorised showers.

Most evenings, when we had cleaned our kit for the following day, we went off to the NAAFI canteen for an hour or so. We had to go in uniform because we had been required to send all our civilian clothes home from Cardington. We were allowed to march ourselves to and from the NAAFI as long as we did it in an airman-like manner. We were always short of money but as much as anything we went to the NAAFI for a pleasant break from the billet. Some airmen went for the beer but they were definitely in the minority. At that time in my life alcohol had never passed my lips, nor did it occur to me to try it and no-one ever tried to tempt me. The corporal drill instructors, most of them were acting-corporal-unpaid and had been in the RAF only a few weeks longer than us, had their own section of the canteen so we didn't meet socially. Neither we nor they wanted it otherwise.

At the start of our second week we had our initial inoculations, or jabs as they were always called. Recruits on the more advanced flights had made sure that we were all absolutely dreading the experience. We had to line up in alphabetical order with both sleeves rolled up. Two medical orderlies swabbed our arms and two medical officers gave us two injections in each arm. We were relieved to note that the MOs did not use the same needles for everyone. Four lads actually fainted and had to be lifted from the floor. The injections themselves did not hurt; it was the after effects that were most unpleasant. Late that afternoon both my arms started to ache and swell, and later still I developed painful cramps in my stomach. I noted in my diary, written the following day, that I retired to my bed at 6 pm, absolutely frozen and wracked with pain! By morning I had completely recovered apart from a lingering stiffness in my upper arms.

Our first pay parade was on 3 September. What a tedious and long drawn affair that was. Our entire squadron of four flights, over 200 recruits in total, paraded together in a large hangar. That alone took about 20 minutes to organise. Already seated at a trestle table was the Paying Officer, a very young pilot officer who was looking extremely apprehensive. In front of him were laid out many bundles of £1 notes held together by wide, flat rubber bands alongside neat piles of two-shilling pieces, 10 to each pile (20 shillings to the pound for those not old enough to remember). Perhaps the officer was shy at appearing before so many airmen or perhaps someone in the Officers’ Mess had told him that if any money went missing, or if he gave any of us too much by mistake, he would have to make up the deficit from his own pocket. The officer was attended by a flight sergeant, standing alongside him clasping a clip board. As soon as the four flight corporals had reported that we were all on parade the flight sergeant barked out his instructions in rapid succession without any pauses:

‘When I call out your name, come smartly to attention, shout out “Sir” and your last three, turn to your right, march smartly to the front, halt in front of the officer and salute. I’ll call out the sum that you’ll receive and the officer will lay it on the table. Smartly pick it up your money, salute again, turn to your left and return to your place in the flight. Make sure you collect the correct amount. Once you've left the table it'll be too late to make any changes.’

Our flight was the first to be paid and I was about fifteenth in alphabetical order. Under my breath I practised: ‘Sir, zero three five’. By the time it was my turn to perform I'd had plenty of opportunity to watch others going through their performances but I was so worried that I might make a mistake, I completely forgot to check that I'd picked up the correct amount. The most incongruous part of the whole parade was the flight sergeant’s act, which went something like this for every recruit:

‘AC2 Cunnane. Two pounds and fourteen shillings, Sir. That’s two one-pound notes and seven two-shilling pieces, Sir.’

Whether this breakdown was for our benefit or for the pilot officer I knew not but the same flight sergeant carried the same procedure, word for word, at all subsequent pay parades.

Back to the top         Advance to Part 2