MILITARY
We were then paraded outside the office and the attitude changed. We were no longer gentlemen but airmen. The polite method changed - it was now abrupt and official. We were now marched, not walked any more, to the clothing stores to collect our uniforms.
The stores was like a big supermarket. On entering, there was a long table the length of the store with long racks behind, one storekeeper per rack. You were given a sheet of paper with a list of everything you would have, then given a kit bag to put everything in. The first storekeeper took one look at you and disappeared into the racks and came back with three sets of underclothes - not asking for the size. He pushed them out to you, crossed them off on the list and moved to the next person. This went on all down the line; you received the clothes, put them in the kit bag and moved on. The only time a size was asked for was that of shoes. By the time you had your gas mask and tin hat you looked as if you had been to the spring sales.
We were taken back to the barrack room and had to lay all of the clothes on the bed while it was checked to see that it was all there. Then put it all away in the lockers and off to the canteen for lunch.
After lunch, we had to empty the lockers again. We were given stencil kits; all the clothes had to be marked with your service number and name. That which could not be marked had to be stamped with a metal stamp. This took all afternoon. The clothes had to be laid out for checking again, which brought us to dinnertime. After dinner the NCO was there again. We had to strip off and put on our service clothes. We found that the storekeepers had a good eye for size.
After making sure that everybody knew how to dress, we had to get down to shoe cleaning and button polishing because we had to parade in uniform the following morning.
After morning parade it was down to the tailors shop to see if any attention was needed to the uniforms. Then some lectures on the air force way of doing things. After lunch it was the medical centre for inoculations.
Everything was done after queuing up. In the centre there were six tables, so it was tunics off, and shirtsleeves up. At the first table you signed for what you were about to receive. At the second table you had the first injection, then the needle was left in your arm and the syringe removed. At the other tables syringes were attached to the needle which was already there. The final doctor took the syringe out and at the sixth table you had a vaccination. So you had four injections with your own needle. The people behind in the queue could see what was happening -quite a number flaked out and were kept to the end, but they could not escape the treatment. A warning was given not to go back to our rooms but to go and walk around the camp so that the blood would circulate and minimise the after effects. If anyone disobeyed they would be sorted out in the morning.
In the morning on parade the NCO walked around the parade sorting the culprits out - they looked like dead walking on earth. They had two hours on the parade ground running around to get the circulation going.
That evening I wrote a letter to the Army unit at DOVER and enclosed the Army call up papers expressing my regret that I could not join them as I was otherwise engaged.
I was at UXBRIDGE for ten days before being posted to Nol Technical Training Camp at HALTON BUCKS.
Leaving UXBRIDGE by train we arrived at WENDOVER which was the nearest station to the camp. No transport this time, a mile and a half walk. On arrival at camp the usual roll call, paperwork signed up and given to our escort consignment. We were delivered as ordered, like delivering a flock of sheep at a market. Being a pre war station the accommodation was similar to UXBRIDGE.
The station was where the pre war technical apprentices were trained; they had been moved to another wing of the station to make room for us. The training programme had not been fully organised yet. In five months they were going to teach us what had taken the apprentices two years to complete. We were to be divided into two sections - engine mechanics and airframe mechanics. We had a number of interviews, the engine mechanics to be sorted out first and the rest to be airframe people.
The first fortnight was spent:
Morning PT square bashing (marching)