RAF Basic Training

May-July 1966

At 10am on Monday 23 May 1966 I joined the random group representing the cream of Yorkshire youth at the Leeds RAF Recruitment Office. Our objective: to commit ourselves to the Royal Air Force for whatever term of service we had chosen. I had selected five years.


The enlistment officer gathered our group of around six in the large back room decorated by an RAF flag and a portrait of the Queen. We responded individually to his spoken oath of allegiance and were welcomed collectively as members of the country’s premier fighting force.


I am sure the tradition of “Taking the Queen’s Shilling” had long since been abandoned but I recall that, after the formal procedure, each new airman received a cash payment to see us on our way. We were also given travel warrants to take us by train to Lincoln, where we would be picked up.


On arrival in Lincoln we were taken by RAF coach to nearby RAF Hemswell. I had expected to be put in the back of an open-backed lorry by a shouting instructor, as I had seen many times in films. This was all so civilised. The shouting was yet to come.


It was a surprise to me that we were taken to Hemswell, as all the literature I had read stated that basic training for airmen would take place at RAF Swinderby, also near Lincoln. It transpired that, in this period of increased recruitment, the camp for initial training alternated by the week. The first tranche went to the No 7 Recruit Training School HQ at Swinderby, the following week to the school’s sub-site at Hemswell, and so on. The sergeant greeting us said “Welcome to Hemswell. You’re lucky to be here and not at Swinderby, because our food is much better”. Experience showed that he was correct – the Airmen’s Mess served up great grub – and introduced me to the established measure of the efficacy of individual RAF camps – "How good is the food?"


Settling In

We were first allocated our beds in a 12-men room of a WW2 vintage two-storey H-block barrack building. Our Leeds contingent was housed with recruits from Sheffield, producing an all-Yorkshire room. A drill corporal then came by to give us an introductory lesson in bedmaking (including how to form ‘hospital corners’) and the correct use and care of our allocated side drawers and single wardrobe. He then directed us towards the Airmen’s Mess, leaving with the warning that “A military conversion to make your mother proud will start in earnest tomorrow at 7am. In the meantime, make yourself comfortable, and don’t forget to shave in the morning”.


We were the amongst the first of the groups of new recruits to settle in. Newcomers continued to arrive until early evening. Then, around 10pm, there was a great deal of shouting and noise to be heard from the room opposite in the first-floor wing of our building. We went to investigate. It transpired that the room contained recruits from the Cardiff and Wrexham offices. The noise we could hear was from a skirmish amongst the occupants. The cause? A comment made to the effect of “You cannot call yourself a Welshman if you cannot speak Welsh”. Welcome to the Royal Air Force.


The Making of a Model Airman

Our drill training commenced immediately the next morning, even though we were all still in our civilian clothes. We ‘fell in’ outside our barrack block and, having been sized off and formed up in ranks of three, marched off for the first time as a flight of around 60 recruits. We halted – of sorts - outside the Airman’s Mess, to be told by the drill corporal “Get yourself a good breakfast. You’re going to have to fill up to fuel your efforts today. From what I’ve just seen, you’re going to need it”.


The next few days consisted of lectures; drill; medicals; more drill; issue of kit and measuring for uniforms; followed by even more drill. When being measured for my uniform, the civilian tailor commented to me “We always make your sizes slightly smaller than measured here, to compensate for the weight you will lose. If it’s wrong, we can always make adjustments”. And he was right; both my uniforms were perfect fits when they arrived days later.


We all remember the day we received our uniforms. We first took delivery of our heavy woollen dark blue No. 2 uniform, which was what we wore for drill practice and daily activity. The No. 1 dress, of a lighter Barathea worsted cloth and to be worn on special occasions only, came later. I couldn’t get over the coincidence that the worsted fabric used in our best uniforms came from the mills of my hometown Huddersfield, including Alan Priests Ltd where my mother had once worked.


Depending upon your trade, you were either given a hat only or a combination of beret and hat. As linguist was a non-technical trade, we received a hat only during basic training. (The basic rule was ‘if your job means that you’ll get oil on it, use a beret; if not a hat will suffice’). One of the first personal purchases I made from stores was a beret. I thoroughly disliked wearing a big hat.






Close-up from the flight photograph. Interestingly, the person in the hat behind me went on later to become a fellow linguist, whilst the person on my direct left is “Taff” Hockaday, a PTI with whom I was to play representative rugby later in my RAF career.


The white discs behind the cap badges were used to denote that we were recruits in training.  Our first task after pass-out was to ceremoniously discard these identifiers.

A few things stand out in my memory from basic training:

  • As collar-attached shirts were only introduced in the RAF around 1967, we had to cope with separate starched collars held in place by a metal collar stud. Even when in civilian clothing, you could still identify the recruits from the red spot constantly displayed in the throat area.



  • The toecaps of our boots had to display a mirror-quality shine. To achieve this, the leather surface of the toecap was first flattened with a hot spoon (heated by a lighter), after which small amounts of polish were added and worked into the surface in a circular motion. When nearing a satisfactory shine, a little spit was added to improve results. (Hence the phrase “spit and polish”). Thank goodness there were former air cadets in our number who could tutor us in this routine. It took hours of mindless application to achieve the desired finish, but we were all proud of the results we accomplished.



  • The camp had its own radio studio which played out on the loudspeakers located in every room. After a couple of weeks, we all lusted after the female disc jockey with the sexy voice, although no-one ever saw her. She played all the popular records from this plentiful time for music. Even now, I only have to hear “Monday, Monday” by the Mamas & the Papas or “Sunny Afternoon” by the Kinks and I’m immediately transported back to my Hemswell days.



  • 1966 gave us one of the warmest June months on record. I’m sure that we didn’t have a drop of rain throughout the whole of our training. Even our stern drill instructors allowed us additional breaks and gave permission to wear ‘shirt sleeve order’ (without jackets and with our shirt long sleeves rolled up) to counter the heat. As already noted, I was surprised how unfit the majority of my fellow recruits were. The hot weather affected them particularly.



  • After a few weeks of training, when two had already decided that military life was not for them and left, our flight room was joined by a most welcome addition to our ranks. West Indian Des Melbourne was a former RAF Regiment serviceman who, now on re-enlistment, was with us for a short period to pick up his uniform and revive his service knowledge. As an airman who had taken part in Winston Churchill’s State Funeral, there wasn’t a short cut or trick about ceremonial matters that he did not know. For instance, he showed us how to achieve permanent creases in our trousers: turn them inside out; run a bar of soap along the inside of the crease; turn the trousers back the right way; press the creases again using a damp cloth and a hot iron. It worked. I used this technique for the rest of my career.



  • Considering that we all started from the same zero point, it was fascinating to observe how some recruits immediately suited uniforms, whilst others consistently resembled a bag of spuds, irrespective of their peers’ attempts to help. One of my newly-made friends came into the latter category. I found that, if I stood next to him at inspections, I was less likely to be picked on for closer scrutiny.  I came to really like the heavy woollen No. 2 uniform, being one of the last to switch over to the crew neck pullover alternative when it was introduced. The old working attire – where the blouson top could be buttoned into the trousers – was comfortable. And I like to think that it suited me.



  • Just about all recruits remember their drill instructors with fondness. They were strict, of course. But everything they did was backed up with humour. Every flight had its fall guy, who despite his very best attempts, could just not seem to get it right. In our case, it was a Lancastrian named O’Brian. His marching was totally uncoordinated, plus he didn’t seem to know his left from his right. One time, when marching in a column, the drill instructor shouted out “O’Brian, you’re the only one in step!”. The rest of us then lost step from laughing at the comment.  Later, on the firing range, O’Brian managed to get only one shot out of twenty in the human outline target, though this single round landed smack in its middle. “With luck, if this was the real thing, that would have been your first shot” was the instructor’s laconic verdict.



  • Once we had been issued with our uniforms, we were then ready for our planned treat – an experience flight in an RAF aircraft.  Every RAF recruit was given the opportunity to fly at least once during training.  For the vast majority of us, this was our first time in an aircraft.  [In the RAF it was always an aircraft, never a plane].  We were taken by bus to RAF Waddington, where a Hastings aircraft awaited us on the runway.

This was the transport version, equipped with rows of seats, not the usual parachuting layout. I was lucky enough to get a window seat.  When boarding was complete, the engines were started up.  Everything rattled. Then the person in front of me called out “Corporal!" Our instructor came down.  “What’s the problem?” he asked.  “The wings are flapping” was the reply.  The corporal didn’t bat an eyelid.  He simply said “You’ve got a special task on this flight. Watch the wings.  If they stop flapping, let me know”.  My neighbour spent the whole of our twenty-minute flight avidly observing the wings.  We landed back and, on disembarking, the instructor said to my colleague “Well, did the wings stop flapping?”  “No, corporal” was his reply.  “Well done!” the instructor commented.  I swear that I saw the hint of a smile come across his face.  This exchange was just as memorable for me as my first time flying.  I loved both.
  • Soon we came to the end of our basic training, marked by our passing-out parade. It's a pity that my mum couldn't come to the event. In best uniforms, with rifles and bayonets, we displayed our acquired skills to a senior officer on the saluting base, all complemented by an RAF band providing a constant beat to follow in our marching. We did great, much better than we had done in rehearsal. Even O’Brian, who was near to me in line, seemed to get everything right for the first (and probably only) time. Our instructors were genuinely delighted. When the parade was over, the sergeant said to us “We’d love to go for a drink with you all, but we have to get ready for the next batch of recruits coming in next Monday. If they are half as good as you, we’ll be satisfied. We wish you all well in your RAF careers. Carry on like you started and you’ll succeed. Now hand in your rifles, get changed, and go off for a well-earned few days’ holiday.”  It was just about the first time in my life that I had received fulsome praise for my efforts, even if it had been applied to the group and not individually.



  • On the subject of acclaim, for some reason I had been led to believe that I was in the running for the intake’s Best Recruit award. I recall that I had tried extra hard to get everything spot on in the last week. In the event, the award went to our only Sikh recruit. I had no complaints about this, as he was a great lad, popular with everyone. I was later to salute him on a camp in Germany, as he had gone on to become an officer, but still instantly recognisable in his special blue turban.



I left Hemswell a much fitter person, carrying my distinctive large blue cloth RAF holdall for a few days’ break. A second travel warrant was already in my pocket. This time it was to South Luffenham, taking me back to the RAF School of Languages at RAF North Luffenham. I was now eligible to start my trade training as a linguist.



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