The Interview

The RAF has always believed in what it calls the three-prong command system whereby each commander from the Chief of the Air Staff downwards ideally has three subordinates and so on, trifurcating down to the lowest level of the rank pyramid. The job at Scampton that I was applying for seemed to be based on an inverted pyramid: the title had been changed to 'Public and Community Relations Officer' and the incumbent would have three different Bosses! The objectives were listed under three headings: RAF Scampton, the RAF Central Flying School (CFS) – also based at Scampton, and the Red Arrows.

Under the first heading I read that the successful applicant would be responsible to the Station Commander for running visits to the station 'by ex-serving members of previous resident squadrons including 617 Squadron, for liaison with the local media, administration of Command sponsored functions eg aerobatic competitions, and involvement in station charities.' Under the second heading the appointed officer would be responsible to the Commandant of the Central Flying School for the coordination of 'visits by Royalty and senior overseas military personnel to CFS.' There must be a lot of those, I mused. Finally I learned that the appointed officer would be responsible to the Red Arrows' Team Leader for 'the coordination of visits to the Red Arrows, liaison with the media on all matters concerning Team visits, lectures, and celebrity flying, and dealing with the media on all matters concerning aircraft accidents and incidents.' I thought it a little curious that dealing with accidents should be a major component of the job description but at that time the Red Arrows had recently been through a bad patch with a series of spectacular accidents that had attracted much media attention and dented their public image. A very curious job specification indeed.

It looked as though there would be far more involved in this job than simply being the Red Arrows' public relations officer, the job that had caught my attention in the first place. I knew from my enquiries that because there were no other applicants and because I fitted precisely all the criteria in the job specification, the Interview Board was a formality and that I would have to be offered the job. There was, however, no going back. Having barely had time to read once through the document, I was ushered upstairs into the interview room by Mrs Kathy Fleckney, the Civilian Administration Officer.

There were, as I recall, three officers sitting in judgement on me: Wing Commander John Dyer, who was in charge of the Administrative Wing and was the Station Commander's representative, one officer from CFS whose name now escapes me but who was presumably looking after the Commandant's interests, and Tim Miller, Leader of the Red Arrows. Someone I fully expected to be a member of the Board in his professional capacity was missing, the Command Public Relations Officer, Keith Ansell, a professional civil servant employed in the Government Information Service. Keith had been the Command PRO in Strike Command when I had a short story read on the BBC in the 1970s; he had had to get MoD approval for my story to be broadcast. I had been looking forward to meeting Keith again and so I telephoned him shortly after my interview board and expressed my surprise at his absence. He told me that he had been given the wrong date for the board and he thought it had been done deliberately so that he could not have any input into the proceedings – an example of the RAF not entirely trusting the Civil Service. Discreet enquiries I made after I had taken up the post confirmed that Keith had deliberately been kept off the appointment board.

I was scrutinised intently by the interrogators before being invited to sit down. I felt rather like the little boy who was asked 'When did you last see your Father?' in the W F Yeames painting that had so fascinated me at St James' Junior School, Wakefield, in the 1940s. I had prepared answers to questions about the Red Arrows. I would explain, if the opportunity arose, that I had flown with the Team, admittedly just for one familiarisation sortie back in 1967 when I was a student on the Central Flying School instructors' course. That, of course, did not necessarily fit me for the job but at least it showed I'd had an interest in the Team – albeit 22 years earlier! As it happened, I knew quite a bit about the history of RAF Scampton from my own general service knowledge, and I could talk at length about the Central Flying School because I was one of its graduates. There were questions that I wanted to ask the panel, given the opportunity. I wanted clarification on exactly what the job entailed; I needed to reiterate what I'd put in my letter about not wanting to deal with the irate public on the thorny subject of low flying aircraft; I wanted reassurance about the difficulties of working for three masters at the same time. I wanted many things but my mind went blank as soon as I sat down and Squadron Leader Tim Miller launched his opening salvo.

'Why do you think you're the right person to be the Red Arrows' Public Relations Officer?'

For a few seconds, I stared blankly at Tim and I vividly remember the quickening of the heart beat and the rise in temperature that most people experience when caught out unexpectedly. I had a little panic. I had pondered that very question in the weeks between first hearing about the job and being invited for the interview but I'd never got around to thinking about the answer. Was I really the right person? Surely the public relations officer for the world's premier aerobatic display team should be young and – well – female? Be that as it may, I had no answer ready for Tim's question and I had to resort to waffle. It must have been obvious to the members of the Interview Board that they had scored first. It was not a good start. At the age of 53 and having already served in the RAF for 36 years, I was applying for a new job but I'd dismally failed to heed the advice I had given to countless young people by not preparing myself properly for the interview.

I can't now remember anything more about the interview but a few days later I had a letter from the Admin people at Scampton congratulating me and stating that I was 'the successful candidate' and asking when I could start. There was a form attached to the letter which had to be signed by my current Boss certifying that he was willing to let me go. That forced me into action; I could not delay any longer telling John McMinn what I was planning to do. The Group Captain was indeed very hurt when I told him that I would be leaving Sealand and I genuinely felt guilty about the way I had kept him in the dark about my plans.

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