The First Seventy Years: 19 - Goodbye to Civvies
...Cardington was where it all began. Boys to be turned into men, men into tough men, the tough into even tougher men. At this stage there was no distinguishing between those destined for the RAF Regiment, a kind of RAF army, clerks, radar operators, firemen, cooks, policemen or airframe mechanics...
Eric Biddulph is called up for national service in the Royal Air Force.
To read earlier chapters of Eric's autobiography please click on The First Seventy Years in the menu on this page.
A few months after I had joined MB & M we moved house. After fourteen years in Birrell Road we made the move to Alnwick Close in the district of Bulwell. Situated on a Nottingham council estate, it was slightly smaller but it brought great improvements in our lives.
First and foremost it had a bathroom and an inside toilet. It had lawns both back and front. It was totally dampfree. No longer would we be living in rooms showing patches of wetness whenever anything more than a shower was experienced. Such was the difference in 1953 between privately owned rented property and that owned by local authorities.
The road was a quiet cul-de-sac. The absence of car ownership meant that the only regular wheeled traffic was the daily milk delivery, the weekly refuse collection and the greengrocer, who arrived with his horse and cart every Saturday morning. Mr Lord's weekly visit with his faithful horse was a favourite of the local children but not of the householders living behind the hedges which our four-legged visitor loved to chew until loudly bellowed at by his minder.
I was given three weeks' paid leave of absence to revise for my GCE examinations in the summer of 1955. Despite such generosity by MB & M, I only produced a pass in geography. I re-sat the history paper in the autumn of 1955 but failed it a second time.
I had sought exemption from my two years' military service in the February of 1955, my eighteenth birthday, in order to pursue my studies. Following this failure however, I came to the conclusion that I could no longer live with the threat of military call-up lurking in the background. I informed Mr Scothorne that I was going to register for military service. After thirty months at MB & M I left for two years' military service with the Royal Air Force.
On the morning of 30 January, 1956, I boarded a train at the now long gone Victoria Station in Nottingham bound for Bedford. Alighting at the station I was soon made aware of my imminent change of status when I found myself grouped together with several dozen fellow national service recruits.
We were herded onto a bus which took us to the RAF Reception Centre at Cardington. Two extremely cavernous hangars which had accommodated the R100 and R101 airships during the 1930s were to be the scene of action for the next seven days. Thousands of pairs of boots and shoes, trousers, tunics, hats and berets filled the hangars.
Cardington was where it all began. Boys to be turned into men, men into tough men, the tough into even tougher men. At this stage there was no distinguishing between those destined for the RAF Regiment, a kind of RAF army, clerks, radar operators, firemen, cooks, policemen or airframe mechanics. That selection would come later after the aptitude and trade tests. The latter applying to those who already possessed a skill, usually as a result of having served an apprenticeship.
We were moved around the hangars in accordance with a very strict sequence of events and timing.
As we had all recently gone through a medical examination in our home district, little time was spent on further bodily inspections,except for our penises. I recall being paraded in a long line of recruits standing on a bench. A doctor went down the line stopping in front of each one and unceremoniously, lifting the owner's future or current wedding tackle with the aid of a short wooden stick to conduct a cursory inspection.
The purpose of this visitation was to establish whether its owner was displaying any symptoms of what in those days was referred to as VD, venereal disease. Today, it is more commonly known as STD, sexually transmitted disease. Scare tactics were employed to educate us about the consequences of what later came to be known as sleeping around. In 1956 it was packaged under the heading of 'no sex before marriage'.
Posters were on display showing the private parts of assorted males in various stages of distress. These were backed up by compulsory viewing of films showing suffering males and their subsequent treatment.
A quick visit to the barber was also on the itinery. No 'How would you like it, Sir?' Short back and sides was the order of the day. Many of my fellow recruits had been showing off their Elvis Presley, The Hollies or some other pop star idol of the 1950s hairstyle up to this point. They soon appeared as inconspicuous as myself amongst hundreds of male teenagers parading around like recently cropped sheep in summer time. Given the crop of hair adorning some guys, it was just as well they were shorn prior to being fitted out with a beret and round topped hat.
After collecting all my RAF clothing I was instructed to pack up my civilian clothing into a parcel and place a label on it giving my home address. Goodbye to civvies for the next two months.
