set and match. Five minutes later I was breaking the good news to the lads, asserting that as I’d gone out on a limb for this leave I would be one of the first pairing, and the other lucky erk would be drawn out of a hat. Folding up the names, I put them into my glengarry, and with all the mob following I took it into the next hut and asked one of the squaddies to pick out a name. Holding the cap at arm’s length above my head, the army lad reached up and fumbled around and came out with a bit of paper, which I handed over to the nearest of our mob. Unfolding it, he read, ‘Hoppy Holden’. Immediately there were cries of ‘Fix’, ‘Stitch-up’ and ‘It’s a fiddle’, etc., because it was no secret that Hoppy and I were close mates. Then one of the lads blurted out, ‘All the pieces of paper have the name Hoppy Holden written on them,’ but when I upturned the cap on the bed they could see that this was not the case—it was perfectly legitimate. However, there was a trick in it. Inside our forage caps was a ridge and having had a few words with the army wallah, backed up with a packet of fags, I’d made sure that all the other names were on one side of the ridge and Hoppy’s name was on the other, et voilà!
When I walked into our house they wanted to know if I’d deserted as it was only a few weeks ago that I was on seven days’ leave, and to be quite honest the days dragged by. I was keen to get back to the rough and tumble of Swaffham. Sadly, when I returned all future leave was cancelled. There was a flap on and we were all issued with travel warrants for a place called Gatton Park just outside Reigate. Into my third year in the air force and although there were plenty of aircraft whizzing about the sky I had yet to see a plane on the ground, and I’d never even seen a WAAF.
From the bustling, busy little market town of Swaffham to the quiet gentility of Gatton Park—what a difference, what a contrast! As the lorry deposited me inside the gates, I was deeply moved by the rolling splendour. Perhaps I was dead and this was the first staging post to heaven. Acres of grassland surrounding a wood, stately trees from the saplings of Elizabethan days—I was enraptured. There wasn’t a tree in sight in the part of Oldham near Featherstall Road. Had there been one we would have been up and down it like a squirrel with its tail on fire. The centrepiece of Gatton Park was an elegant Georgian mansion and, just a few strides away, a private chapel, the whole bordered by shiny manicured lawns, and I couldn’t get over how green the grass was, a totally upper-class strain of the greyish blades sprouting from cracks in the Mucky Broos like the tufts of hair in an old man’s ear. For the moment a wave of nostalgia swept through me, but it was only a moment. I just stood by my kitbag, pack still on my back, lost in wonder as I took in a section of bright sparkling water almost hidden by the house.
The home of the Colman’s mustard family, Gatton Park, was their fiefdom. This I learned later from one of the estate workers who lived in a row of much humbler dwellings a discreet distance from the big house. This local, who turned out to be one of the gardeners, added. ‘Isn’t it amazing that all this splendour was built by the little bit of mustard you leave on the edge of your plate?’ This I didn’t understand. I’d never left a bit of mustard on the edge of my plate—in fact mustard and I had yet to be introduced.
With a sigh of content I accepted the fact that once again I’d fallen on my feet. Granted it wasn’t the operational flying station I had been eagerly expecting, but then again there were more things in life besides the war. I was shaken out of my reverie when a voice yelled ‘That man there.’ I whirled round to see a sergeant beckoning to me. He was with a group of new intakes, milling around, kitbags at their feet, packs still not offloaded. To me they were all strangers and to each other, the only thing we had in common being the badge sewn on to the sleeve of our uniform of a fist clutching bolts of lightning denoting that we were all wireless operators.
After a meal, which would be better described as iron rations, suggesting that the cooks were new as well and didn’t yet know where everything was, the sergeant led us down to a row of tents by the side of one of the roads. Eight of us were allotted to each one. It was only when we crouched in a huddle underneath the ridge pole that we realised that eight of us in the tent was going to be a tight squeeze; three of us would have been one too many. Perhaps if we left our kitbags outside?
It sounded like a good idea until one miserable git said, ‘What if it rains?’
We looked at each other in dismay—there’s always one in a group.
Then someone else piped up with, ‘What if one of us is taken short in the night? Unless he’s by the tent flap he won’t be able to get out.’
Somebody else suggested getting a bucket, but he was overruled when somebody else said, ‘There isn’t room for a bucket.’
In the event it wasn’t as catastrophic as we’d made out. Half the tent would be on watch while the other half slept. Had they told us this at the outset it would have saved a lot of aggro.
The Colman family were not now in residence, as the whole area of Gatton Park had been commandeered by the RAF for the duration of the war. Already there were several air force bods established on the estate—mainly administration, cooks, general duty men. Naturally officers had commandeered the beautiful home of the Colmans and, of course, the officers’ mess, leaving the other ranks to occupy the cottages. Trust the base wallahs to get their feet under the table while the lads at the sharp end presumably had to make do with tents. We were under no illusions: when we were sent off to join the action they would remain at Gatton Park until they were evicted by the cessation of hostilities.
After a few days we were organised into watches, as we would be in wireless contact with satellite stations twenty-four hours a day. More menacing still, the transmissions would be made from the backs of Bedford trucks equipped as well, if not better, than a static wireless office. Another week passed and still we didn’t have a CO, but our luck couldn’t last for ever; nor did it.
I was on duty watch. I wasn’t actually at my set—in fact I wasn’t even in the truck. Stripped to the waist, I was sitting on the steps, face upturned to the warm sun. I wasn’t entirely out of touch with my satellite stations: inside, the volume on my set was full up. Headphones hanging within earshot, I dozed gently, when suddenly a shadow fell over me.
Sleepily, I lifted my hand to shade my eyes when a harsh voice said, ‘Where’s your shirt?’
‘It’s in the van,’ I replied, settling down again.
The voice, now affronted, spoke again, ‘Well, put it on at once, and say “sir” when you address an officer.’ My heart sank: it was the end of the holiday.
The following morning we were paraded to hear him make his commanding officer speech. He was only a flight lieutenant, a middle-aged man who had a perpetual look of surprise on his face. He wore an officer’s peaked cap but he’d taken the stiffener out of it so that he would look like Jack the Lad, but he addressed us all as if he was expecting a raspberry at the end of each sentence. From now on there would be discipline; any misdemeanour, no matter how minor, would be punished; he was going to lick us into shape, etc. Most of it was delivered at me and I knew from that moment that he was going to be a problem, the enemy within.
Throughout my life I have followed courses of action on the spur of the moment when two minutes of rational thought might have dragged me back from the abyss. This was the case when one Sunday morning in Gatton Park we were marched down to the chapel to attend the service. We halted opposite the arched door-way, and we were straggling forward, dragging off our headgear before we entered, when for some unknown reason I put my cap back on my head, broke ranks and stood at ease until the others were all inside and I was alone. I was motivated by a barrack-room lawyer memory that taking part in a church service was not obligatory, and if on religious grounds you objected to entering a church you would be excused. Why on earth did these idiotic ideas catapult me into situations beyond my control? But the die was cast.
One of the real sergeants sauntered over to me when all the rest were inside sorting out their hymnbooks. ‘What’s up with you?’ he said in a world-weary voice as if I wasn’t the only one that morning to come out with some crackpot notion.
‘I’m not going into church, sergeant,’ I replied with the assurance that I had a good case.
‘Aren’t