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ELECTRICIANS (Part 2)Yet a third encounter with predatory electricians occurred towards the uncertain end of a two year Service career. The time of demobilisation was in the laps of the gods in the Air Ministry. All had been called up into the Forces for’ the Duration of the Present Emergency ‘- a very variable feast. However, much to their surprise after a year and nine months they were told that they had only two months to go and as their education had been interrupted the Air Force would pay up to five years college and maintenance fees. For the remainder of their service no kit could be exchanged for new unless paid for. As the charge would be deducted from pay and this process took three months this was a no go too. |
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It was clear from past experience that standing there in front of the Flight Office with hands in my overalls pockets, watching aeroplanes; I should have shown more sense. The Flight Lieutenant i/c R & I (Light), who had been doing the same, turned to answer the telephone. He then stuck his head out of the office window and shouted. “There’s a Mosquito coming in with one of its engines on fire. Go and have a look at it if it gets here and see what the cause was!” On one engine the aircraft had landed safely, but the good engine had overheated in the attempt to breast the grass rise from the runway to the hard standing by the hangar. It now stood on the grass with a heat haze rising above it. Picking up a ladder, short, engine inspections and window painting for the use of, I walked down to the aircraft, climbed up and opened the cowling. If the bottles containing the extinguishant had been fired the extinguishant would have evaporated immediately, but it would have left behind a pink telltale dye. There was no sign of pink dye anywhere Ergo the bottles had not been fired. This fact was remedied within a few seconds of lifting the cowling by an electrician who had entered the cockpit by the small door under the belly of the aircraft and had experimentally pressed the firing button. Dye and extinguishant exploded into the nacelle. The extinguishant was icy cold and the pink dye used to indicate that the bottle had been fired, was expelled with it under pressure, and entered every nook and cranny. The shock of it disturbed both the physical and mental equilibrium of the one doing the investigation and a multi-coloured bundle came to earth in a welter of blue words and pink overalls, hands, face, hair and forage cap. Comments from colleagues about pink fairies, elephants and the like did not restore the disturbed equilibrium. The colourful figure staggered back to the hard standing wiping the pink dye from eyes and one side of the face. There was no help from those observers who were clinging to one another for support, laughing at their own jokes. The laughter turned to howls when the owner of the pink and white tearstained face had to join in. The laughter started to subside, but restarted again when the Flight Lieutenant, whose daily tussle with the paperwork was being disturbed by the hysterics, stuck his head out of the window to see what the noise was about. He blinked, shuddered and said that he would take more water with it in future! An evening of vigorous scrubbing restored the exposed bodily parts to near normal colour. Little could be done with the forage cap or the overalls which had protected the uniform. On the next morning’s working parade the overalls were rolled up inside-out and held under the right arm. The forage cap was put on the head at a none-standard angle, pink side down. The right marker (always the tallest airman around was ‘fell in’ and on the order the remainder fell in in three ranks on his left. I chose the middle rank. If all had gone well any Orders would have been read (a euphemism for bellowed) and the parade dismissed. The men were about to be dismissed to their duties by the duty Flight Sergeant. However something in the centre of the middle rank caught his eye. He marched quickly down the line and came to a halt with a stamp of his military feet. With two more earth shuddering stamps he turned smartly to face the ranks. His chest expanded against buttons and belt as he drew in an excess of breath. “THAAT MAAN!” he bellowed. Everyone looked in the direction that he was staring. In my blue uniform and pink forage cap, hoping to look invisible in the middle rank I tried to look nonchalantly ahead over the Flight Sergeant’s head. “I told you that you wouldn’t get away with it!” whispered Tony from the rear rank. By now the Flight Sergeant was standing slightly in front of the front rank looking at the object of his ire from between two of these airmen. These two were getting the full benefit of this blast of decibels “AIRMAAN, WHY AM YOU IN FANCY DRESS?” “It was caused by a fire extinguisher when....” “WHERE WAS THE FIRE?” “It had gone out.....” “GONE OUT! THEN WHY WERE YOU PLAYING WITH A FIRE EXTINGUISHER THEN? MY OFFICE - NOW! YOU ARE ON A CHARGE! YOU STAND FAST! THE REMAINDAH, TO THE RIGHT DISMISS!” A smart and lonely arm-swinging march across a now deserted parade ground was followed by a long dissertation given whilst standing to attention in his office. With several interruptions and a couple of telephone calls I managed to convince him that he was charging the wrong man. Nevertheless he had to have his pound of flesh, as his sense of humour appeared to be none existent and ordered that the offending cap and overalls ‘ and them boots’ should be changed immediately. “But Flight Ser....” “That’s an order! Get out!” For a couple of days the owner of the cap and boots became the meat in the sandwich between the man in charge of the working parade and the man in charge of the stores. One would not have a pink cap and dirty boots on parade and the other would not change the offending cap as the owner was being demobilised in the next six weeks. There was no chance of getting it changed by any colleague who was under no such restriction as the cap was now notorious. The problem was solved by the Flight C/0 who signed a chit authorising the bearer to wear’ a non-standard issue headdress ‘, excusing him from working parade and, after some persuasion, signed another one for ‘stained boots’. The latter had been soaked in aviation kerosene when filling the belly tank of a Meteor and defied all efforts to raise even a dull polish. The offer of experts to use the well known technique of raising a polish with a fire heated desert spoon had worsened the situation by setting fire to a residual patch of embedded kerosene around one toecap. All this time there was another spare issue of cap, uniform and pair of boots, but these were “Best Blue” and were not, repeat not, to be used for work, In the few weeks remaining the chits became very worn due to the demands of eagle eyed RAF Military Police who had nothing else to do. At this time the forces were allowed to travel off duty in uniform, which many did as it was an aid to thumbing a lift. Army police took no notice of a strange headdress as different sections of that organisation wore forage caps of many different colours to denote their special affiliations and perhaps they assumed that the RAF were starting to do likewise. “So what do you think, Ted?” The question pulled my attention back to the meeting in hand. To me it was clear that the modification was essential as I had pressed the aerodynamicists to specify it. Now, how to let the electricians down lightly without showing too much bias? Experience had shown that they were in the main a reasonably sound bunch. After all, Dad was one. Ted Talbot |