Flying Freestyle: An RAF Fast Jet Pilot's Story

Preface

The RAF I joined in the early 60s still retained many aspects of the Second World War – inspired professionalism and determination to achieve the operational task. Flying accidents were frequent, particularly in single-seat fíghters. As an example, just ten years previously, at the end of the massive expansion caused by the Korean War, the RAF had lost nearly 500 aircraft in one year’s peacetime training. In the early 60s the service was losing, on average, fifty to sixty pilots killed each year – in peacetime. These facts were well known to all of us aspirant pilots. In the main they caused no second thoughts or fears of mortality – rather they were seen as an exclusive and stimulating cachet to the overwhelmingly thrilling prospect of military flying. There were no non-volunteers among us.

This is unashamedly a story about flying and the sheer lust to get into the air at all costs. It is about everything to do with becoming a military flying professional and the adventures, sacrifíces and heartaches involved. It is about surviving the risks through sheer luck, guile and maybe some animal self-preservation instinct on my part. If my success was also due to any special flying skíll then that was also good fortune on my part. Many of my colleagues and friends were killed in flying accidents. Of my Cranwell Entry of about forty pilots who graduated in 1966, seven were killed in flying accidents, three of them while flying Lightnings.

By the end of my service flying career I had flown some 5,500 hours on the Jet Provost, Gnat, Hunter, F104G Starfíghter, Harrier and Tornado. I had also been an instructor on several of these types. I flew for twenty-eight years non-stop, without a Staff or Ground Tour. I flew overseas tours of duty in the Persian Gulf, West Germany and Belize. The majority of my flying took place during the Cold War, which was treated very much as a ‘Hot War’ by our commanders. I also flew low level ground attack and recce missions during the Falklands War.

Looking through my flying log books I can fínd only about eight complete months during that twenty-eight year period when I did not fly at all, most of those periods being taken up by various Ground School courses on new aircraft types.

This is not a career offícer’s story and it is written from the point of view of a relatively junior pilot. I joined the RAF to see the world from a single-seat fíghter cockpit, not to become an air marshal. A squadron commander whose opinion I valued, once told me that loyalty was something you owed to your subordinates as a bound duty, while getting it in return only if you had earned it.

I started writing this story shortly after completing my Falklands Diary, having discovered an enjoyment of writing for its own sake. I have concentrated on the flying, and there is scant attention to the domestic details of my life, for which I apologize to my loved ones, who may be disappointed not to find more reference to them. I hope this will not be seen as a sign of my indifference, rather as an indication of my total enthusiasm and absorption in the business of flying aeroplanes from an early age until the sad day in 1992 when I was stopped permanently from flying military aeroplanes because of ill health.

Jerry Pook

2008

The views and opinions expressed in this book are those of the author alone and should not be taken to represent those of HMG, MOD, the RAF or any government agency.

Chapter 1

Beginnings

30 May 1982. About 4 kilometres short of the target things began to happen very fast. I could see the target area clearly (the saddle of Mount Harriet) and realized that it was unoccupied, i.e. no helicopters were visible on the ground. At the same moment we crossed a dirt road on which several military vehicles were stopped. Within a couple of seconds I felt a significant ‘thump’ in the airframe somewhere behind me. I knew I had been hit. Having seen no tracer or SAMs, I assumed it was small-calibre stuff. JR, my wingman, had seen the vehicles and observed the hit on me. He transmitted straight away: ‘Jerry, you’re leaking fuel!’

This was a considerable understatement as I immediately began to generate a substantial ‘contrail’ of fuel which, of course, I could not see. A quick glance in the cockpit showed nothing amiss and a glance ahead confirmed that our planned target area was bare of activity. All of the above happened within the space of about ten seconds. Before reaching the landing zone, I decided to turn hard left immediately and try an opportunity attack on the artillery position which lay only a few seconds flying time to the west, before setting course for home with my punctured jet. I crossed over JR in the turn, calling my intentions on the radio. (JR did not hear this as my radio was packing up again.) I rolled out on a south-westerly heading and looked right to the saddle of Wall Mountain, where the artillery position was located. Within a few seconds I heard a garbled call from JR, who I picked up about a mile to my right, heading towards me in a dive onto the target, which I now saw clearly. Instinctively I hauled around to the right at full power on to the target, simultaneously calling JR to break out left after my attack, which was almost head-on to his. By chance we had achieved the perfect coordinated attack. I dimly remember JR flashing past me as I rolled out and fired my rockets from close range, aiming low to allow for the reduced gravity drop. (Naturally, peacetime firing ranges were only of academic interest with targets that shot back.) The first rockets were exploding amongst the gun positions before the last had left the pod After the attack, a hard right turn left me running out at maximum speed to the south-east. I could no longer see JR, who was almost back in position on my right, strafing the road as we passed to keep heads down. Barely two minutes had elapsed since I had been hit and now I settled down to check a few things. By now one of my two hydraulic systems had failed and, as I pulled up into the climb, several unanswered calls to JR demonstrated that my radios had packed up for good. The final twenty minutes of my sortie were to be flown in silence. In the climb through cloud I checked fuel again; before the hit I had over 4,500lb of fuel and, as previous small calibre hits had caused leaks from one side only, I was still confident that I could get back to the ship.

At 10,000 feet I pulled the handle. My first Harrier ejection was extremely violent and I clearly remember my head being forced down between my knees by the 3,000lb thrust of the rocket seat. After this the relief of hanging in the harness was overwhelming…

I dropped the PSP at what I estimated to be about 200 feet and immediately smashed into a large piece of the South Atlantic which rose to meet me. Now the panic really started. I was unable to release my parachute and straight away I was off, being dragged by the strong wind on a wild rollercoaster ride from wave to wave. Luckily I was dragged on my back or I would have drowned very quickly. However, try as I might I was unable to get enough purchase to release my parachute with my rapidly freezing fingers. I could not see what I was doing because of the bulk of my lifejacket and the Browning pistol stowed underneath. At last my chute collapsed, allowing me to pull in my life raft pack and inflate it, although I was still unable to release the parachute harness. A Lynx was already hovering overhead, but I realized that I had to get into the life raft first in order to get rid of my parachute. Although I should have waited for the life raft to harden up a bit, the urge to get out of the water was too strong. With all my remaining strength I managed to haul myself aboard, helped by the fact that the life raft was travelling steeply downhill as I entered. Temporarily safe in the wildly rocking life raft, I sprawled face down for several minutes, not daring to move in case I fell out. I knew that I would never be able to climb back in again should I capsize.

This and many more adventures are described in RAF Harrier Ground Attack Falklands, also published by Pen & Sword, but I’m getting ahead of my story…

With Hitler’s war just about wrapped up and the Japanese war in its final stages I was born in a nursing home in Teignmouth, a sleepy little haven on the sheltered south-east coast of Devon. My mother, Pam, had spent most of the war living either in Dawlish or in various ‘digs’ around the country while Dad was at sea with the Royal Navy. Dad had joined the ‘Andrew’ (a lower-deck term for the RN) as a writer in 1923, reaching the rank of petty officer at the outbreak of war while serving aboard the battlecruiser HMS Repulse. He had left the Repulse before her ill-fated voyage to the Far East and spent a couple of years aboard the heavy cruiser HMS Norfolk. In her he had taken part in nine Russian convoys, including the infamous PQ17, had chased the Bismarck and been shelled by her, and had witnessed the apocalyptic demise of the German raider at close range. After some brief shore postings in the UK Dad embarked for the Far East for a posting to HMS Maidstone, our largest Submarine Depot ship, then very active in the final stages of the Pacific war. Fortunately for us all, he finally arrived in Manila with the war just about over, to return safely home after many more adventures at the end of 1945.

My elder brother Robin and I were blissfully happy growing up in a small south Devon seaside town. We didn’t need much to keep us happy. There was little vehicle traffic to speak of, and we often played football in the street. School seemed to be a minor irrelevance whose only purpose was to interrupt play, and I have few memories of what went on within the walls of Dawlish Infant and Junior schools. I passed my early years in the sleepy seaside town in a hazy remembered glow of childhood happiness. To us children there seemed to be no end to our secure and peaceful existence. Even the outbreak of the Korean War affected us little. It all seemed so remote from our lifestyle.

With the Korean war in full swing Dad had been in contact with some of his old Naval pals and was hankering after a return to the ‘Andrew’. Eventually he was offered a job in the Reserve Fleet at Devonport, serving aboard HMS Berry Head. He commuted daily to and from Plymouth by train for a while but eventually there came the momentous announcement that we were moving to Plymouth to live. Mum had already taken us on a few visits to the big city and Robin and I were overwhelmed at the sheer size and busyness of it after our sheltered years in Dawlish. I remember exciting shopping trips to the bomb-devastated city, with the pre-war big stores such as Dingle’s and John Yeo’s housed in temporary Nissen huts amidst the rubble of the old city centre. In January 1954 the move was made and while Mum and Dad looked for a house to buy we took a rented house at 20 Winston Avenue, right next to North Road railway station. Robin and I were enrolled at the Public Primary school in North Road itself, a grim Victorian institution just a few minutes’ walk from home. Straight away we discovered that life in the big city was going to be different. Although this was by no means the toughest district, the streetwise working-class kids at Public Primary gave me, in particular, a hard time. Bullying was the order of the day, and I was usually the target of one or other bully in the playground. Although fairly weedy in body, I was doing well academically and was regarded, unfairly, as a bit of a swot. This was the beginning of my lifelong hatred of bullies.

At play in the local area life was one continuous adventure. At this time the city was still recovering from the devastation of the Luftwaffe air raids and there was evidence of recent apocalyptic destruction around every corner. This had a powerful influence on me, both at the time and in my future years, giving me a rather fatalistic attitude to life. Somehow the destruction and chaos of war never seemed far away.

A striking contrast between the old and the new Plymouth, the partly-completed blocks of the modern city centre development gleamed futuristically white amongst a sea of ruined buildings, temporary Nissen huts and bombed sites. These latter were the source of almost unlimited adventure and excitement for the small gang with whom Robin and I associated in the North Road district. The further you moved away from the city centre the fewer were the gaps in the once-grand stone terraces. However, there were still plenty enough ‘Luftwaffe car parks’ to provide ad hoc sports pitches and ready-built adventure playgrounds. On each side there would be severely damaged houses in some danger of collapse. Only the most paltry and ineffective measures had been taken to keep out marauding gangs of kids – i.e. us. The authorities were still snowed under with the gigantic task of re-housing the thousands of families made homeless during the war years. Vast estates of ‘prefabs’ were still being built as a stop-gap measure until the impoverished local economy recovered sufficiently to allow the building of new housing estates. To our delight many of these bombed houses still had panes of glass intact. With a home-made catapult or a handful of stones we did not shirk our self-appointed task of smashing every remaining pane of glass we could find. After all, we reasoned, the whole lot was going to be demolished anyway, wasn’t it?

Of even greater excitement, and even more dangerous, were the tunnelling expeditions into the semi-collapsed basements of bombed buildings. The greatest challenge was for a group of us to find a relatively unexplored ruin and, in an inside corner safe from the prying eyes of the local police, to dig as far as we could into the rubble-filled cellars. Sometimes we would break through walls from one cellar to the next and explore with the dim light of a torch. The aim was to find some untouched items of bric-a-brac or, far more valuable, a piece of wartime ordnance or shrapnel to take home and keep in secret. The whole exercise was quite ludicrously dangerous for a bunch of young children, (this being the main attraction) and I still marvel at how we survived without being buried alive or brained by falling rubble. When not vandalizing bombed-out buildings the most common team sport was the game of ‘King’, for which you needed just an old tennis ball, a bombed site, and a gang of enthusiastic kids. We would draw lots for who was to start as ‘King’, who would then be given the ball while the rest of us fled a suitable distance away. King’s task was to hit us (preferably as hard as possible) with the ball; those who were hit then being required to join with King in clobbering the remaining players until all had been hit, the last man hit being the winner.

The normality of being close to destruction and weapons of war spread its influence to children’s play, young lads being particularly keen to get hold of mislaid items of ammunition (of which there was a lot lying about, particularly on the Dartmoor gunnery ranges). These were then dismantled for their explosive content, to make lethally-dangerous fireworks. Many youths of the period had mutilated hands, missing fingers and thumbs from the unexpected detonation of items of live ammunition being played with.

There were regular visits to Gran and Granfer’s cottage in Morchard Bishop, a tiny, primitive farming hamlet in the wilds of north Devon. Granfer was a farm labourer, working mostly with horses and other livestock near the village. The train and bus journey seemed to be to the ends of the earth for one so unused to travel as I was. All of my Devon uncles were ex-wartime servicemen, none of them commissioned. Uncles Alan and John were ex-Army, Ken and Wally ex-Navy and Reg ex-RAF. All I ever wanted to talk about was the services, and what had happened to them in the war. Granfer had been wounded twice while serving as a farrier in the Devonshire Regiment in the First World War. He would never talk of his experiences but eventually I managed to persuade him to show me the bullet wound in his arm.

In this gentle pre-television, pre-space travel era, home entertainment was simple. We didn’t have a lot in the way of toys but there were Jennings and William books and the radio and we would sit for hours listening to Dick Barton, Journey into Space and the Goon Show. Eagle was the favourite comic by far, and very good value for money in those days, with excellent artwork and stories of derring-do in space. I was desperately in love with Wendy of the Peter Pan series, mainly because she was always whizzing about in the air with Tinkerbell. I started to have more and more realistic dreams about flying, in which I would hurl myself off a high building and just zoom around like a bird. The space stories of Dan Dare were just about the last word in excitement and there would be a mad rush to grab the comic and catch up with the latest serial when it came through the letterbox on a Saturday morning.

As we grew more adventurous we explored more of the city and were taken on summer boat trips across Plymouth Sound to the lovely beaches of Bovisand, Cawsand and Kingsand. Even better were the long day trips to the endless golden beaches of Whitsand bay, just across the River Tamar. Our favourite destination was Treganhawk beach, after a bus ride to Stonehouse, a trip on the Turnchapel ferry across the River Tamar to Millbrook, and then another journey through the impossibly narrow lanes of Cornwall on an antique little bus, before the final long walk down the cliff path to the beach. At the same time we were introduced to the delights of Dartmoor, by bus to Yelverton followed by long walks into the moors for picnics and epic climbs to the tops of the famous Dartmoor Tors. In the city the reconstruction of Plymouth city centre was almost complete and we felt the first swelling of civic pride in the smart new shopping areas and broad arcades. As well as the beach trips in summer there were regular trips to the unheated Hoe swimming pool or to Mount Wise baths, and the regular Saturday morning cinema show at the Odeon. The old Odeon cinema was at the civilized end of Union Street, (still a notorious ‘red light’ area) and there was pandemonium as hundreds of young hooligans shouted and fought and threw ice cream, gobstoppers (partly sucked) and any other missile which came to hand. On walking home I was always mildly surprised to realize that no child had actually been killed or maimed during the performance. There was still desperate poverty in many parts of the city, and the children from these areas were ferociously aggressive towards anyone of a different social class.

From Plymouth Hoe I loved to watch the RAF’s Sunderland flying boats making their majestic take-off and landing runs across the Sound. Additionally, with Dad now permanently based in Devonport dockyard, there were regular trips for us boys to see the sights of the yard and go aboard various warships, both on private visits with Dad and during Plymouth Navy Days. I recall going aboard HMS Vanguard in dry dock, the Navy’s last and prettiest battleship, already destined for the scrapyard. Moored alongside Dad’s base ship, HMS Berry Head, was HMS Roberts, a 16-inch gun monitor used for shelling shore targets in the Second World War. In one of the turrets Dad showed me the workings of the gigantic breech in which it would be quite possible to hold a small children’s party. I had always been impressed by his stories of serving in the gun turrets of various warships – his usual post at action stations. At various dumps around the yard there were more sad reminders of the once-grand scale of our naval power: dozens of large-calibre gun barrels were piled up in corners like so many rusty drainpipes awaiting disposal, each set of barrels the poignant reminder of yet another fine warship which had disappeared in the holocaust of scrapping which had followed the end of the Korean War. On several occasions Dad took us to see his brother, then serving aboard the Light Fleet carrier HMS Ocean, just returned from seeing action in the Korean War. Uncle Ken, a radiographer in the sick bay, showed us round and on one magical occasion I was allowed to sit in the cockpit of a Fleet Air Arm fighter parked in her cavernous hangar deck. Until then I had been determined to join the Seaman Branch of the RN, but this first insight into the wonders of a fighter aeroplane had me hooked straight away. I had never been close to any aircraft before and to me the sleek, shiny fuselage and tiny cockpit were pure science fiction, straight out of a Dan Dare story. A seed was planted and from that moment on I was overwhelmed by the burning ambition to fly jet fighters.

In early 1955 Mum and Dad bought a terrace house in Barn Park Road, Peverell, right next to Central Park. I was already used to playing in this splendid park which occupied a hilly site not far away in the northern suburbs. Offering a huge play area, the park was just like a large slice of the open countryside a few yards from our new doorstep. Across the allotments just 100 yards from our house lay the old disused Peverell reservoirs, now empty and overgrown with trees. This was another ready-made adventure playground, the floors of the various basins being several feet deep in rich silt which supported a jungle of luxuriant undergrowth. This was ideal for various adventure games, to the despair of Mum when we came home covered in mud from the more swampy areas. Our local Peverell ‘gang’ would spend hours roaming the park and looking for trees to climb out of sight of the ever-vigilant park keepers. These formidable guardians of public property would relentlessly pursue and wallop any child caught breaking the byelaws, or being cheeky for that matter. We had great respect for them. Another favourite sport (also strictly forbidden in the park) was the downhill racing of home-built ‘carts’ which were lashed up from bits of old prams. There were plenty of steep footpaths down which we would career out of control, scattering innocent pedestrians and piling up in a heap on the grass. With no television there was no incentive to stay at home, indeed most parents were only too glad to have the dirty feet of their offspring out of the house for as much of the day as possible. This in contrast to the modern-day obsession with the ludicrous concept of ‘quality time’ with offspring. At this time a child’s definition of ‘quality time’ would have been time spent entirely removed from the influence of any adult – parent or otherwise.

Time at home was usually spent reading, listening to the radio or doing homework. Favourite radio shows were The Goons (Still an all-time favourite: I’ve got all the BBC tapes), Journey Into Space and Dan Dare on Radio Luxembourg. I was still fascinated by the Navy and my favourite fallback for reading consisted of Dad’s two copies of the official RN Manual of Seamanship, which I read again and again. One copy was from pre-war days and the other post-war. I was fascinated by the details of knot tying, damage control, slinging loads, signalling, boat handling and other hows and whys of good seamanship. As a family we never missed a Plymouth Navy Days and I was in heaven wandering about the warships, dry docks and heavy machinery of Devonport Dockyard. In those days the Navy was not at all shy in letting off quite large explosive charges to simulate depth charge attacks and torpedo impacts in the huge Number 1 Basin where all the action took place. I was gun shy at this time and it was a constant source of shame to me, particularly after listening to Dad’s tales of sneaking out on deck during firing of HMS Repulse’s 14-inch guns (this was a foolish bravado – he confirmed that the concussion had knocked him flat). At the end of each display day huge crowds would gather at the playing fields for the Marines’ Sunset Ceremony, where hundreds of Marines and a full Marine Band would display for the spectators. Dad would never miss it and it always brought a lump to the throat as the Last Post played and the ensign was lowered.

Although Robin and I were sorry to leave the bombed sites and more central location of Winston Avenue, plans were already laid to get us both into Plymouth College, a minor Public School nearer to our new home. I arrived at Plymouth College with the intake of new boys in September 1956, to be placed in the ‘A’ set because of my scholarship results. There was a lot of snobbery at the school and an additional area of difficulty resulted from my generally ‘weedy’ stature. It was soon obvious that I would never succeed at ‘blood sports’ (such as rugby) which were held in such high esteem throughout the school. Plymouth College had an enviable sporting record and fielded a large number of teams in all the usual sports. If you were not in a school team you were a nobody and your chances of becoming a prefect were slim. Apart from a fitful start at the newly-introduced game of squash, I was a complete duffer at sports until I reached the Sixth Form. Naturally enough, the many social snobs in my year were joined by the ‘macho’ sporting snobs in looking down on us ‘rabbits’ as a lower form of life. Discipline was rigidly enforced by the masters and senior prefects by use of the cane or more subtle forms of GBH. After a painful initial introduction to the system I worked out that only the less intelligent boys were getting beaten regularly. From then on, by means of guile and a certain amount of fast thinking when required, I managed to maintain a low profile, to pass relatively unscathed through the school years.

As I had no bike I walked the half-mile to school each day along Peverell Park road. This meant I had to pass the newsagent’s shop which was a regular hang-out for some rather unpleasant local yobs. One in particular, a part-time garage mechanic, took an instant dislike to me and began to give me verbal abuse every time I walked by. He was a couple of years older than me, a fair bit bigger, and I didn’t fancy my chances against him one little bit. As he grew more aggressive I realized that I would have to do something about it.

Hoping to avoid a beating-up, I never responded to the taunts I received but I refused to change my route to school to avoid the newsagent’s shop. I joined the small group taking boxing lessons after school. The instructor was a wonderful ex-Navy boxer who now ran a pub, giving lessons to schools just for the love of it. In spite of his working-class and lower-deck background he was a natural gentleman, always polite and considerate with everyone he met. He taught us the old-fashioned skills and etiquette of the sport, plus some useful tips on techniques to use in a real-life brawl.

Unfortunately, no amount of exercise could make up for my generally feeble frame in such a physical sport. Additionally, I suffered from an over-developed hooter which could not take punishment. In my first serious bout during the boxing contest I ended up bleeding all over the place after the lightest blow to the face. This was a serious embarrassment and put an end to my attempts to become a boxer. However, I reckoned I had learned enough in those few months to have a chance of defending myself against the lout who was becoming more aggressive by the day. By now he, along with some of his mates – he would never act on his own – would regularly intercept me and drag me around the corner of the shop into a lane where I would be given a bit of a ‘roughing up’ and general abuse about being a ‘college boy’. I would just stand there and take the punishment in silence, trying not to give any sign of emotion to satisfy these scumbags I hated so much. I would stumble home in tears of anger and frustration that I was being picked on by these cowards. Eventually the day arrived when I had to go for it.

They had given me a particularly rough time, punching me about the body and banging my head against the wall in the alley. On arriving home I changed into old clothes and gym shoes and walked back to the newsagent’s. I knew that the lout was usually there on his own later on in the day. Sure enough he was, and I went straight up to him and challenged him to come round the corner and ‘sort it out one-to-one’. He refused. He wanted me to wait around for a bit. I knew his mates would be back soon, and he was too much of a coward to risk it on his own. I realized that I couldn’t win against these scum and walked home with a bitter heart. Strangely, the harassment stopped from that moment and I was left in peace on the way to school. I have hated bullies with a passion since that time, and I have always reacted very strongly to anyone who has attempted to bully me either physically or mentally. Unfortunately, this was to make life difficult for me at times during my RAF career later on.

My enthusiasm for flying was growing all the time and I was doing all the ‘right’ things for a lad with an overwhelming ambition to fly in the RAF. (My initial preference had been to join the Fleet Air Arm, but Dad had talked me out of that. He could see that I was determined to fly and that there would be far better opportunities for a long flying career in the RAF rather than in the Navy). By now I had built just about every KeilCraft model I could afford, including a Jetex-powered Javelin which made just one glorious high-speed flight before smashing into the trees. I had read and reread all the Biggles books, plus anything else I could get hold of in the library with the remotest reference to flying. (I had read The Dam Busters half a dozen times, although my ambition was to be a single seat fighter pilot – I had always been very independent and fancied the idea of making my own decisions all the time).

In the fourth year, aged fourteen, I joined the RAF CCF Section and went on as many courses and camps as I could. Annual camps were to Gaydon, Shawbury, Horsham St Faith and Wyton, and I went on courses to RAF stations Compton Basset (Radio School), Mountbatten and St Eval near Newquay, the latter a weekend gliding course where I gained my A and B licences in one glorious day’s gliding in the summer of ‘61, achieving over twenty launches before sundown in the old wood-and-fabric Sedburgh and Kirby Cadet. My first gliding licence was signed by Lord Brabazon, one of Britain’s pioneer pilots. This first taste of solo flying was a precious experience, although the ultimate thrill was my first powered flight in a Hunting Percival Provost at Shawbury. To a young cadet the machine looked enormous as I struggled up into the side-by-side cockpit. The big 550 hp Alvis radial thundered into life with a crash of the starter cartridge and we were off, taxiing at breakneck speed. After a very snappy take-off my pilot stood the machine on its ear just after liftoff and we exited stage left from the airfield, seemingly clipping the tops off a few low trees at the boundary. Then we were straight into aerobatics over the glorious sun-dappled Shropshire countryside, my head spinning from the intoxication of the g forces and violent manoeuvring. I didn’t feel queasy at all, just completely harmonized with the machine and the tumbling sun and sky which revolved gracefully around me. Now I had no choice – I knew that this was what I wanted to do for ever. The feeling that the air was my element and natural home was to remain with me as a permanent subdued longing for the rest of my flying career.

Back at school to my surprise I found that I was prepared to accept more and more responsibility in the school CCF, and by the end of schooldays I had reached the rank of Cadet Flight Sergeant in charge of the RAF Section. The cadet camp at RAF Horsham St Faith convinced me that I wanted to fly the Hawker Hunter. This was my first close- up view of the Hunter, and we spent hours sitting in the cockpit and crawling over the beautifully-proportioned airframe. One day we visited RAF Coltishall, then home to the RAF’s famous Air Fighting Development Squadron, plus a couple of the newly-formed Lightning squadrons. The armourers had laid on a demonstration of the 30-mm Aden cannon, at that time the RAF’s primary airborne cannon armament. Our group of nervous cadets stood in a half circle just a few yards away from the gun which was mounted on a fixed cradle and pointing into an enormous stop-butt some fifty yards away. The compressed air lines and electrical leads were connected and the armourer cocked in an ammunition belt which was yards long. The sergeant warned us that ‘this would be a bit noisy’ and reached for the firing button. We pressed our hands over our ears and leant forward into the fierce muzzle blast as the gun hammered out a stream of ball ammunition at twenty rounds per second into the stop-butt. After a few seconds the firing stopped, leaving us literally stunned in a cloud of cordite fumes. The dispersal behind the gun was littered with scores of gleaming shell cases. The power of the weapon was awesome and our daily contact with the RAF’s front-line fighters reinforced my determination to get into the single seat fighter business any way that I could.

In the Sixth Form I teamed up with various layabouts a little older than me who were heavily into guitars, Bob Dylan, 12-bar blues and rock ‘n roll. We played and sang Bob Dylan and blues stuff and a friend taught me to play some Merle Travis picks and rhythm guitar on a tatty old steel-string which I had traded for my much-loved bike, although I was never much good at it. I deeply regretted not making more effort to get into the choir in the early school years, as most of the local rock group singers were ex-choirboys. (In those days you actually had to have a good singing voice to be accepted as a group singer).

In spite of being permanently skint, my social life in Plymouth seemed to get better and better as we entered the permissive ‘60s. You didn’t need much cash to enjoy yourself. Favourite hang-outs included El Sombrero, a coffee bar in the old Drake’s Circus; La Roca, another coffee bar on Mutley Plain, handy for a clandestine cough and a drag during school lunch break; The Minerva, a famous old pub on the Barbican for Saturday night drinking; plus any number of superb country pubs out of town on Dartmoor. A friend was often able to borrow his father’s Wolseley 444 in which a regular team of us would roar out of town on drinking sprees, accompanied by various girl friends. Drinking and driving was very much the norm, and I am amazed that we survived without major accidents as we reeled along the narrow Devon lanes. Parties and drinking expeditions seemed never-ending. A typical Saturday night out would start in El Sombrero to meet some girls, continue to the Minerva for as much cheap beer as we could drink, and we would then wind up scrounging drunken sailors’ pass-out tickets from the YMCA so we could get in free for the last half of the jazz. Kenny Ball, Alex Welsh, Ken Colyer and many other high-class bands would play every Saturday night at the YM. The dance for jazz was called the Stomp, a laid-back, jive-like hop which was done on the ‘on’ beat. A party at someone’s house merely required a