Bridgnorth - part 2 - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

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 had the rank of 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 (there were 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 as he halted in front of the officer:

"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.

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