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On Tuesday 14 July 1953 at 8.30am I arrived at the RAF Recruiting Office in Leeds again, this time to be briefed about my visit to the Aircrew Selection Centre at RAF Hornchurch. In fact it wasn't a briefing about what to expect but a briefing on how to get there; the clerk simply issued me with a railway warrant and told me to catch the 9.50am Kings Cross train from Leeds City Station. At just after 10am I was able to look out of the carriage window on the right hand side of the train as we passed over the 99 Arches and see our house. From Kings Cross I travelled by Underground to Elm Park and there met up with some other candidates. We were then taken to RAF Hornchurch in an RAF bus.
It was only the second time in my life that I had spent nights away from home and I was totally unprepared for the entire selection procedure. Many of the boys in my group of about 50 had been in either the Combined Cadet Force or the Air Training Corps at their schools so they had been well briefed on what to expect. In my case the interviews and group activities were a nightmare. For a start, I displayed my total ignorance of the RAF and anything to do with aviation and that, of course, was my own fault. I suppose I had expected the staff at the Centre to tell me what it was like to be a pilot in the RAF and then, having given me time to think the matter over, I could have decided whether or not to accept their kind offer.
My strange Northern accent must have sounded very common to the Centre’s officers and to my fellow applicants who were mainly public school boys. Apart from me, it seemed everyone spoke what we used to call ‘BBC English’ and which I now know to be called Received Pronunciation. I had spent my childhood living in both Lancashire and Yorkshire and I had a strong regional accent that was a curious mixture of both dialects. Such an accent was simply not acceptable in 1953 for commissioned service in the RAF – but it did amuse some of my fellow candidates, who possibly had never heard a Northern accent before unless they had heard Wilfred Pickles reading the news on the wireless.
The manual dexterity tests, the Morse aptitude test, and the extensive medical examinations created no problems but the teamwork exercises in a hangar were humiliating, especially when it was my turn to lead. ‘We’re more concerned with the way you set about the task you’re given than whether you actually succeed’, said the supervising officer, presumably trying to be helpful. My attempt to get my team of five across a simulated electrified fence using only the poles and ropes provided, resulted in all six of us being electrocuted. I fared rather better when I was not in charge and had to do what the next leader told me to do.
Why had not the recruiting officer in Leeds warned me what to expect, I thought, angrily. I have always suspected that he had a quota to fill and I was the best prospect he had come across that week or that month. On the other hand I did eventually become not only a pilot, but a flying instructor, examiner, and senior officer, so perhaps he had recognised some latent talent.
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