Open Writing

The time came for all of us to leave Tonbridge; in the words of the school leavers' song, 'Farewell, Mother of Sons'. Most of the boys went into the armed forces but I was destined, by family decree, to follow in Dad's footsteps and study medicine.

My heart was not in it and I had no enthusiasm for the subject at all; it was the wrong time. Furthermore, there were twice as many students sitting for the examinations than usual, and I felt that this was because the category of medical student was a reserved occupation and exempt from any call-up for the armed forces.

Nearing the end of the year, I had a big quarrel with Dad over dropping out of medicine. Tom had been studying it at Oxford University, dropped it and joined the navy. I wanted to do my bit like all my friends. I had always been interested in flying. I wanted to be a pilot and so I volunteered for Air Crew with the RAF.

It was a tough medical. Into every room that I was sent, there was another doctor to thump, prod, listen to my innards, explore parts of me that I never knew existed, or asking me to fill a bottle or blow up tubes of mercury.

Then there was an education test in maths and English and, finally, an aptitude test. Sitting in a cockpit, a small dot had to be kept in a central position on a screen, by means of a joy stick and foot bars, at the same time, hitting buttons whenever side lights came on.

I was ushered in to the Selection Officer. "Well, congratulations. You have passed all your tests with top marks; you are accepted for training as a pilot."

"Fine, that's great; I'm ready to start now, when do I go?"

He smiled at my enthusiasm, "Ah, well, not yet for a while; there is a rather long waiting list; maybe in a month or two."

"Oh Hell! Can't you push me up the list a bit? I've given up a reserved occupation as a medical student especially to join up."

"No, I'm very sorry, but you can join tomorrow if you wish to be a navigator, bomb aimer or an air gunner. How about it?"

"No, I want to be a pilot, so I'll just have to wait a couple of months, I guess."

'A month or two,' he had said? Months and months or two. I waited in frustration. As the months passed I bombarded them with letters and telephone calls; I even went back to the Recruitment Office to hurry things along, but without result. And so 'I gnawed the nail of hurry" and did casual work to pass the time.

Being now of call-up age, I was obliged to join the Home Guard or 'Dad's Army' as it was popularly known. This entailed three tedious, boring, evening parades a week as Private Powell.

During the whole time, the only interesting happening was when some old fool of an officer told us that to do street fighting it was necessary to be able to jump from heights, such as a first floor window. Why, I could never understand. He then demonstrated in the Drill Hall, by climbing onto a balcony, then, explaining how to land without hurting oneself, hurled himself from the balcony with a great show of confidence and unparalleled bravery. We watched as they carried him away with a broken leg, his screams echoing and bouncing off the Drill Hall wails as he left.

The only part of my training that I enjoyed was when another antique officer explained to us how to use a sticky bomb. The bomb had a very sticky glue over it, and the idea was that directly we saw a German tank coming along, we would dash out, stick the bomb on the tank and blow it to bits. Presumably, to be sure of success, one learnt sufficient German to request the tank to stop a minute, giving you time to do the sticky bit.

The officer then gave a word of warning. Waving the bomb about with nonchalance, to show his incredible expertise and dexterity in handling this war-winning weapon, he said, "But of course..." (ha-ha-ha — laughing uproariously at the thought of his impending witticism), "But of course, make sure you don't get the bloody thing stuck on your arse."

Alas, he misjudged his dexterity and to everyone's delight stuck the sticky bomb exactly where it was never intended and about which circumstance he had been so careful to warn us. At once he was surrounded by all the Dads as they broke ranks to witness his performance at close range and gave him not only unlimited advice on various ways to extricate himself from his predicament, but also very helpful suggestions indeed on where the best place would be to shove his bomb should he ever be able to detach himself from its clutches. The last suggestion seemed to be unanimous.

We never saw him again. There was considerable conjecture and debate about his fate. For that matter, we never saw the sticky bomb again either.