The RAF chapter

Having had a very restricted upbringing, joining the RAF was an eye opener; joining up as a 17 year old who had never had a boyfriend, no parental chats about the birds and the bees, a crowd pleaser with little experience of fighting back and even less knowledge of how to fit in, in a group situation, things were never going to go smoothly.

I was sworn in at the careers information office along with a few others, one of whom was a more mature young lady in her early 20’s, let’s call her Jackie. She was almost the same height as I, but wore patent heels and a tight skirt on her well-formed size 12 figure, she had short dark stylish hair and a little too much make up.   I think I girl crushed on her style and looks, little did I know that she was not impressed with my childish enthusiasm and took a deep dislike to me almost instantly.

A few days later we all boarded a train and set off for Newark where we would be met and taken to RAF Swinderby for basic training. We were herded off the platform and squashed onto a bus, with people shouting at us indecipherable instructions and ordering us to move our luggage, not block aisles, sit down, shut up, do a roll call. Wimp that I am, I was almost in tears before I even got to camp.

The next few days were a blur of being assigned accommodation, getting uniform, being told how to arrange it all, how to iron to the required standard, how to ‘bull’ shoes, and learning where everything was. Mustn’t forget the marching, group marching, solo marching, turning whilst marching, swinging arms, getting the stride the correct length, marching, marching, marching. I remember being tired, so comically exhausted I could have literally used matchsticks to hold my eyelids up, I fell asleep mid meal once.

By the time we were permitted off camp for our first weekend in Lincoln, three weekends in, we were desperate to escape for at least a short while. After a few hours of wandering aimlessly and revelling in the bliss of being let out my parents appeared from nowhere, complete with a massive bag of junk food. Not only was this out of character, they were finally proud of me for doing something they approved of, but this was in the days pre mobile phones so how on earth had they found me? Apparently, they had stopped young females who were unnaturally pacing around swinging their arms and asked whether they knew me, tracking me down and taking me for lunch. They then left me with the bag and headed off. Stunned as I was with this generosity, I was also aware that I would not be allowed to keep the food in our dorm room, so in good old fashioned 1950’s boarding school style, we had a midnight feast in the block that night.

Other than that, the training was hard, physically and mentally, they worked us day and night, broke us and built us back up. Some people were more suited to it than others, and some fell by the wayside. I loved some of the comradeship and we had great times sitting together cleaning shoes, swapping stories and singing our hearts out, but there were other times when the bullying and physical tiredness just became too much. Long nights, early mornings, getting shouted at literally all the time, it’s hard to take, especially when you are still just an immature teenager. I know it sounds strange but my relationship with my Dad grew closer over the years, I think as I got older he found it easier to communicate with me and I stood my ground a little more with him. I would often use him as a sounding board for what was right or wrong, what I should do or just to offload sometimes. I called him one evening whilst at Swinderby to say that I couldn’t hack it and I wanted to come home, he talked me round and told me to just get through this bit and it would all get better, which is the only reason I stuck at it.

My Passing Out parade was one of the best moments of my life, I felt like a giant I was so proud. I’d made it, I looked smart, I felt smart and I was going on to trade training with my head held high. As soon as we’d changed, packed and said farewell to our families, we were bundled back onto buses and ferried across country to wherever our trade training was going to be. Mine was at RAF Hereford, home to the SAS, and hundreds of grunts learning to be Admin, Supply Chain and Chefs. Sadly, for me, that one girl from my attestation was going to be the same trade and was on the same course as myself. We arrived late at night and found that the station was on an exercise, a simulated situation usually a war threat or event, and the whole camp was taking part. All of us new recruits were sent to a training block where we spent our first night sleeping on the floor clutching our kit bags and wondering what the heck was going on.

It’s quite hard to put into words the next couple of years, not because I don’t remember them although I’m only human and I tend to remember snapshots, or due to any great secrecy, but because they were raw and emotional. They made me grow up and are a difficult story for me to tell. People who know me now may be stuck somewhere between pity and horror both at the things I did and the things that were done to me, or maybe, like some, they won’t recognise these incidents as anything special because everyone views things differently This won’t stop me writing it, but I hope that the reader keeps in mind, this was a very long time ago, I was a teenager not an adult, and a lot has changed for all involved.

Having arrived at Hereford we were mixed together with a much wider group of people than we had been used to at Swinderby. At the first training base it had been trainees and instructors, at Hereford it was basic trainees coming into their trades, Station staff, Instructors, individuals who were based at other stations coming for additional training, refresher courses, and possibly hundreds of other reasons, not to mention the secret squirrels inhabiting the other end of the Station. This meant that there was a wide age range and degrees of experience. We were divided into a mixed group, male and female, and although we had all been at Swinderby for the same period I knew very few of the others.

Every day we formed up outside our accommodation blocks and marched as a group down to the canteen, the gym or our course rooms. We had quite a little routine going on after the first couple of weeks and whilst it was a blur of new information and education, we all settled in quite nicely. In the evenings we were more relaxed than before, there wasn’t so much cleaning expected although kit still had to be kept up to standard, and we were permitted to go out to the ‘on camp’ bar and disco, where we could play pool and just basically ‘hang out’.   I keep saying that I was naïve, what I actually was, was a very immature 17 year old from a sheltered and strict upbringing, who only thought of boys as friends and had difficulty fitting in. This meant that I treated the male elements of our group as I would the females and just ‘mucked in’ with whatever was needed, or any conversation that was going on. I probably made a few inappropriate remarks or went ‘over the line’ a few times, but I meant no harm and generally the guys accepted me for what I was. The girls were another matter, there were 15 of us and only 4 were female. Two of the others were quite nice to me even though we didn’t socialise together, they had their own friends on different courses and did things together. The final female was my arch nemesis Jackie, well, not quite the anti-hero, more like a female with a bit more experience than I had, and a bad attitude toward a ‘suck up’ teenager who was desperate to be liked and be her pal. I hung around her like a puppy, wishing she would befriend me and lapping up the occasional kind word or small inclusion. When she made friends with a group of older guys I joined in and hung around with them as well. My deep desire to be part of the group and get on with people forced me into drinking and smoking when I really shouldn’t, staying out past the under 18’s curfew, and generally flashing about parts of me I didn’t know how to use.

In October 1984 my Grandfather passed away. I hadn’t been aware of the fact that he had been poorly, and I was lost in my own self-centred little world. His funeral was in Lancashire, so the RAF gave me a one-day pass and a rail pass to get up there. I had to get up at 5AM, almost missed my lift to the station, but made it onto the right train. I had to travel in civilian clothes, these were the days of the IRA after all and change into my number 1 uniform at the last station before getting a taxi to the ceremony. I couldn’t stand Lil, but Grandad, well, he was our ally, the man who ‘had to take the dog out’ and get the kids out of Lil’s way. He never stopped her, but he did divert her sometimes. I stood next to my sister and sobbed so much that she had to give me her light scarf to blow my nose on. Luckily for me, the reception afterwards, an awkward affair where Lil literally sat on a throne and people paid their respects whilst eating finger sandwiches, was avoided by my having to change and dash off again to be back on camp for curfew. I arrived back, all cried out, exhausted and still self-absorbed.

On a Thursday night, on every RAF station across the world, the club that is run by the Navy, Army and Air Force institute have a disco, colloquially known as the NAAFI Bop. Back in my day it was a poor man’s night club, smoky dark rooms (you could smoke indoors!) with a long bar and a reasonable dance floor. The DJ was usually a local airman with a passion for music, and the idea was to get drunk and dance, preferably a slow dance with someone nice at the end. Sometimes, there would also be a fight, but that was fairly normal as well. Whilst half the guys couldn’t be bothered to dress up, for the girls it was an excuse to go all out and do their hair and make-up, wear a dress and some heels, and dance the night away. I wasn’t really a dress wearer, I have and always had fairly average looks, as my Mother would say “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”, or my favourite alternative “you can’t polish a turd”, I didn’t bother as much as some. We spent ages getting dolled up (or not), having a drink before we went, playing music and having a laugh.

Toward the end of the 10 week course, we all went out. On this particular night, I had tried a bit; I know I was wearing a skirt or a dress of some sort, instead of my accustomed jeans. I can also remember that I was wearing a T-shirt, it was white with some kind of swirly pattern on the front, very colourful and 80’s. I had probably been egged on by Jackie, as she was being particularly nice to me. We joined some much older (to me) men who were playing pool, Jackie was all over one of them and the pair of them kept laughing and looking at me, sharing some fun little comments. I started getting fed up and feeling unwelcome, unsettled and uncomfortable I took my leave. I’d had a fair bit to drink, although I was only 17 and unused to it, but no one was looking out for me, and I think some of the guys had been slipping doubles into my drinks because looking back, I can see that I was more unsteady than I should have been. One of the men followed me out. I remember him being much taller than me and probably in his 30’s, slightly spotty and with sharp features, but well-muscled, he started asking me how I was, telling me I should be careful, and he would help me back. He steered me into the shadows round the side of the NAAFI where he stood me against the wall, and as he talked to me he started moving one of his hands up under my skirt and into my pants. At first I was just surprised, how could someone like him want someone like me? Then I started panicking about how to extricate myself, I had no words, no clue how to get away. I know that I said No, because I remember him leaning closer, putting his elbow on the wall beside my shoulder and his strong forearm across by upper body. His mouth was all over mine, wet and slimy feeling, I could barely breathe and then he was inside me, pushing and shoving and grunting. It hurt, his knees were forcing my legs apart, I just stood there, squashed, trying to breathe and just hoping it would be over soon. As soon as he was done, he turned his back, sorting his clothing out and walked away. As he re-entered the club I could hear laughing and a comment of “well? Did you?” from a voice that could only be Jackie.

I ran, all the way back to the block. I locked myself in one of the showers and just sat there in my clothes, while the water ran all over me. I hurt, I was bruised inside and out, and in pain.

The next day I just carried on as if nothing had happened, the thoughts running through my head were very confused. It didn’t occur to me to report what had happened, what could I prove? I was just a child, so I still didn’t want to get someone into trouble. I guess I kind of thought it was my own fault for drinking and getting into that situation and not knowing how to get back out of it. I had very few days left there, so thought I could escape and put it behind me. I never saw the man again, but I had to face Jackie, with her sniggering looks and pointed comments.

The day before we all left Hereford we were told who had passed and who had not, the one girl who had not passed left immediately and we never saw her again. The rest of us hung about and that afternoon we were told where we were to be posted. The course instructor read out the name and the station for each individual, we had been asked to put down areas we wanted to go to so were hoping to be sent to places we knew. My name was read out and RAF Binbrook, I’d never heard of it and was quite confused, then Jackie’s name was called and the same camp. I missed that fact at first, but she didn’t, she swore out loud and people laughed before I caught on and just started crying in front of all of them.

Binbrook

What can I say about Binbrook, known as ‘The hole on the hill’, 25 miles from the nearest big town and even then it’s only Grimsby. The first hill the winds hit when they come off the North Sea, and a dumping ground for the waifs and strays of the Royal Air Force. Unlike other stations, this one seemed to be Last postings, first postings and holding postings awaiting dismissal, such as anyone gay.  Due to its relative remoteness without having to travel too far off the beaten track, it held a lot of exercises, detachments and training events.  There were also a few, a very few, people who had chosen to be sent there, either because they were local or because it was the home to the English Electric Lightning Jet. I’m not an aficionado of aircraft but I have to say this one was noisy, and fun and people loved it, pilots, engineers, all sorts.

The atmosphere on the camp was chaotic and undisciplined and mainly alcoholic, I find a lot of people remember it fondly. As per normal, we arrived late at night, in the snow, just as the Station went into lock down for a Taceval (Tactical evaluation, or big Station war game). So, Jackie and I spent our first night on camp sitting in the guard room waiting for things to calm down before we were taken to the WRAF block. It was two days before we could report to the Station Supply Chain and receive our assignments. We marched in, stood to attention and received a welcome chat, then Jackie was told to report to SCAF (Supply Chain Accounting Flight) a nice desk job sitting in an office all dolled up, and I was told to report to Tech Stores, where I would wear a boiler suit and work in a warehouse environment. Yet again, I was hurt and angry at the unfairness of it all. At least Jackie and I had been split up so I should have been happy at that, but my silly childish brain just saw the fact that I had been given the dirty job. On a day to day basis I counted, picked, packed and shipped ‘stuff’, really it was a good job. Most of the guys I worked with were decent and I got to wander around and chat, I probably learnt an awful lot more doing that than I would have in an office. There were ugly times too, like the time one of the guys tied me up with the ropes from a flag and then ‘tickled’ me all over, for too long, intimately, until I begged to be released; or the time when I was left on a roof overnight because they took the ladders away for a laugh.

On every RAF Station there are a group of people, usually all male, who sit on the bar stools in the junior ranks bar all the time. Most are raging alcoholics and everyone knows it, this obviously may have changed since my time in but you know the type. I have always been an idiot nice person who tries to be kind to others, so I was always polite to the ‘stoolies’ and they were good to me. I used to sit with them sometimes and with other groups, but I was never really part of any crowd. To be honest I still think my age was against me, until the next year, when the YTS started coming through, I was always going to be a lamb amongst the wolves. I know a lot of the others who were there at the same time would say that the young men were similar ages, but lets face it, no sane and responsible parent would leave their single female child of 17 alone in a room with 100 18 year old boys, we all know what would happen.  I drank too much, and had little to no protection. I was passed around so much I thought I had to be pissed to sleep with anyone. By the time I was 18 I was already known to be an easy target, even by the senior ranks who should have protected me.

In an age pre social media, and mobile phones, where you had to queue up to use the pay phone in the block, there was very little contact between myself and my parents or sister. This meant I had no-one to turn to for support, comfort or basic questions, although my family were never the type to discuss anything intimate. It was my sister, and the book Carrie that taught me about periods for heavens sake, so I was hardly going to ask them much about mental health (not really a thing in the 80’s) or anything vaguely sexual.

After about a year I was moved into SCAF, where I had wanted to be in the first place, it wasn’t as grand as I had imagined. Nearly everyone smoked and my habit took a firm hold as well, we all sat in rows on high swivel chairs with headsets on taking calls and keying data. It must have looked like something out of the 50’s in reality but we thought we were the bee’s knees. My Flight Sergeant was a nasty fat old letch who was always inappropriate and spewing innuendos, I kept going back to see my old sergeant in Tech stores to complain and ask for advice. I’ve said before and no doubt I will say it again, because my opinion is low, that I am no looker. I am about 5ft 9inches tall, at that time I would have been about a size 14 but mainly because of the boobs. I have always had ridiculously large boobs. I hate them, with a vengeance. When I was growing up and everyone else was wearing little triangle bikinis I had to wear a one piece which flattened my breasts and just made me look awkward and fat. The only bra’s you could buy in my size were called Doreen and were a hangover from WW2. They’ve always been the bane of my life and my sister has the same problem, except in her case they are the same size on a petite 5ft frame.

Anyway, the Flt Sgt’s party trick was to come in each day and flick the girls backs so their bra straps came undone. This he could not do with my 3 hook monstrosity, so one fine morning he came up behind me and reached under my arms to lift them up in both hands and bounce them up and down shouting “wahay!” to all in the room. My instant reaction was to push off the desk with one hand and swivel round, the other hand coming up and hitting him, half clenched, right across the side of his head. I was charged with striking a senior officer. I was taken through the motions of a disciplinary and sentenced to 2 weeks ‘Jankers’, which meant reporting after evening meal for several hours of work assigned by the Station Warrant Officer. I washed pots and pans, worked in various kitchens, met a lot of people I wouldn’t have otherwise met and actually quite enjoyed it.

At this point I was very lucky to run into a woman in her early 20’s called Louise, she was tall, blond, strong jawed and in your face. She became my ‘block mother’, which all sounds a bit like prison but is much the same I guess. She was my friend, my confidante and a bit of a protective big sister. She kept some of the wolves from my door and Jackie at arms-length. We hung out together, went away to families at the weekends and spent many an hour with her and friends talking about anything and nothing. She saved me from drinking so much and introduced me to a gliding club. The Gliding club was wonderful, an absolute godsend, I loved it. We went on a Friday night, to a disused airfield where the old station buildings had been left to rot back into the vegetation, the club house was attached to one of the hangars and we used an old converted double decker bus to serve food from and generally hang out, out on the airfield. They were the best times, there was also a lot of drinking and partying, but very rarely did anything nasty happen.

I had, on and off, tried driving lessons since turning 18, but I hadn’t had many when a young man tried to show off to me by getting me to drive his capri back from the airfield to the club house. I said that I wasn’t sure I could do it, and not to leave me alone, but he left me on out on the airfield alone with this car and no other way to get back. I absolutely know that an intelligent mature individual would have walked back or sat there and listened to music in his car until someone came to get them, but I was a fool. I got in the car and carefully drove back across to the hangar. All went OK until I got to the single car width road that swung around the garages, I over steered, then rather than brake I accelerated, everything happened in a blur and before I knew it his car was embedded in the now crumbling brickwork with me inside it. I got into terrible trouble for that and did my second lot of jankers for it.

Finally, I met a lovely man, we shouldn’t have seen each other because I was a junior rank and he was an officer, a pilot in training, but he liked me and took me out and I liked the idea of actually being wanted as a person. We saw each other for a few months before I discovered that whilst he wouldn’t touch me because I was so young, he was sleeping with Louise behind my back. From that moment on, even though they both apologised, I couldn’t even stand the sound of him breathing let alone bear to be touched by him. So that was that, I stopped going to the gliding club and lost the one thing that made me happy back then. Strangely I forgave Louise, I needed her far more than I needed him, so I had to make friends again. By this time, I was 19, my sister had also joined up, but this was still not enough for us to be close again. I spent most of my time at work drinking black coffee, I no longer wanted to show my face in the junior ranks mess, so I used to go to the NAAFI and buy a packet of biscuits, eat the lot and then go back to the bar. Where I would drink 8 or 9 bottles of lager before falling back into my bed. I must have done this for several months before it all got too much. I had a few friends at this point, nobody close, but people to spend an evening with and some of the evenings were fine, but I was back to drinking in excess and didn’t always manage to avoid trouble. Life was not good, I was sad, and lonely and up to my ears in debt. I needed money to drink, so I got store cards, bought stuff, then sold it to people for half as much as I’d paid just so I could gain the cash to spend in the bar. I put up a front of being OK and partying along, but I was so unhappy. There was a guy at work called Mick, in his mid 30’s for some reason he was seen as the cheeky chappy, the one who got all of the girls, looking back I can’t see for the life of me what anyone saw in him, but I wanted him. I went along to some events with him, I want to say clubs but that gives the impression of nightclubs, these were the ‘Buffalo Lodge’ or the Rugby club, mainly male drinking clubs with a few hangers on. So, I hung on. He and I shared some intimate moments, and all was going well until he introduced me to a couple of guys who were on detachment, the phrase was ‘what happens on detachment, stays on detachment’ and these full grown middle aged men were up for a bit of fun. Seriously, these people were my Dad’s age, all I really remember about them was that one must have had a last name like ‘Ray’ because he was known as Sunny. They got me drunk at the Buff lodge and helped, half carrying me, back to Mick’s room, I didn’t feel unsafe because I had been there before and everything had been OK. When the door closed they slumped me down on his bed and laughed and joked about who would go first, and who couldn’t do it if they were being watched. Mick sat at the top of his bed and pulled my arms up, stroking my head and telling me it was all OK and could his friends ‘play with me’, I was incoherent. I remember very little for the next couple of hours but I know they did what they wanted. I passed out. They’d gone when I came to, it was way past midnight but not the morning, it was raining outside and I didn’t have my bag or coat so had no key for my shared room, but I needed to get out. I remember walking outside and sitting on the kerb, no shoes on my feet and watching the rain-water flow down the road into a drain. Then one of the ‘stoolies’ appeared, he held my hand and took me back to his accommodation. Some of the guys lived in an old Nissen hut, and this is where a small group of the drunks lived. They carefully put me to bed and then sat up in shifts all night to watch me and make sure I was OK. I will never forget that kindness and it still makes me want to care for those types of people, even when they are a bit scary the least I can do is fund help in some form.

I went through a very bad few days, until several days later I called my Dad as he was on a late shift at RAF Cottesmore and told him I was sorry, but I just couldn’t do this anymore. I went to my room, locked my room mate out and took every pill I could find, drinking spirits to wash them down and then sitting on the second story window ledge in the hope that I would pass out and fall. I woke up in Grimsby hospital, my Dad had cottoned on very quickly and called for help, diving into his car he was already by my bedside when I awoke. The station fire service had brought me down and I’d been rushed in for a stomach pump and a charcoal wash. I don’t think he ever told my Mum what had happened, it was our secret, but Dad knew everything, I told him the lot and he came with me to every psychological review. He was my best friend after that, no more barking or hitting, just the person I could always call when I needed someone.

I need to walk away from this for a while now, the memories are making the tears flow and I need to wipe it all from my mind again. Before I do though, I’m just going to jump ahead to a point about a year ago when on a Facebook page someone mentioned ‘did anyone remember that mental WRAF who tried to kill herself’ the almost all male audience then started chiming in with their recollection of how batshit crazy she was and how much time and energy was taken up with dealing with the aftermath. I’d just like them to read this, hear the story, understand and look at their own 18 and 19 year olds and ask themselves how they feel about it now.

After the disaster that was the end of my time at Binbrook, my Dad managed to get me a Compassionate posting to be with him at RAF Cottesmore. This Station was much more normal, disciplined, structured and much larger, people looked out for each other and for me. I can only imagine the brief the senior staff were given regarding me, but they were supportive and encouraging, suggesting that I take further education and look at my career and future. One of the Officers even managed to see that underneath my craziness there was someone fairly intelligent, he put me in roles that stretched me and taught me how to be indispensable. Most of my time at Cottesmore is marked with only the normality of life, steady routines of individuals and places, a childish dislike of my room mate and a deep desire for love but no wish to go out looking for it. Instead I took the opportunity to use the Forces to my own benefit. There was a wonderful tradition of going on ‘Expeds’, so called expeditions. Basically, find a place that is owned by the joint services and book it, then get a group of people together and cash in your daily meal allowance for ‘cash in lieu of rations’ (CILOR) and get a rail pass. Then go and do stuff. I went skiing in the Cairngorms, walking in Derbyshire, Puffin spotting on Lundy Island and Canoeing on Loch Tay. There were others as well, and we had so much fun on all of them. No doubt we smelled disgusting, we used to create something called ‘all in stew’, by purchasing 1 or 2 tins of whatever per day and putting £1 per day in the pot. Each day the ‘chef’ would add a tin per person to the pot and buying several loaves of bread. The stew would then be heated, and we would eat our fill before spending the rest of our CILOR on a night out. It all sounds fine until you realise that there are always some twats who buy tinned peaches or rice pudding, to add to everyone else’s baked beans and chilli. People left a wide berth around us at the disco in Granton on Spey that’s all I can say.  

I kept in touch with my old friend from Binbrook, Louise, and she invited me up to her wedding taking place in Morecambe. I knew Morecambe from the old days with my Grandparents, so I wanted to go up and have a look at it, which meant I said yes. There was a Hen party and a Stag party all staying in a couple of back street guest houses near the pleasure beach. On Day one there were to be the Stag and Hen parties and Day two the registry office wedding and back to a pub then a Chinese restaurant. No massive reception because nobody had any money and all in all I think there were less than 20 of us all told. The Hens started at one end of the prom and the Stags at the other, due to meet up in the middle at a nightclub. It was a really good natured night, we had a whale of a time and all ended up back at the guest house at a, not unreasonable time, a little bit ‘merry’ but not too drunk.

We all said good night and went our separate ways until the morning. My room was a tiny one single bed affair, not far removed from the style I slept in on camp, the only downside was that the toilets and ablutions were down a corridor out in the main hall. I was getting ready for bed and had no clothes on when I decided that I urgently needed to pee, so I slung on my little dressing gown and ran down the corridor. This dressing gown was a shorty, mid-thigh white towelling affair which I’d bought for a holiday and was good for an overnight bag. I did what I needed to do and then returned to my room, only to find that the yale locked door had slammed behind me and the keys were on the side table. Back at Cottesmore my room was on the ground floor of the WRAF block, and there had been occasions when I had used the window to climb in and out. So, I thought this may be an option here, I was after all on the ground floor and the windows were ‘sash’ so shouldn’t be too hard to open. With this idea in mind, I headed for the front door, another Yale lock and no seeming way to put it on the latch, hey ho, out I go. I’m now standing outside a guest house in nothing but a tiny dressing gown at something like 2AM, lucky it wasn’t raining. Having no choice now, I walk around the corner to where my room should be, only to discover that this side of the building has the stairs down to the basement where the landlady lives. I’m now standing alongside railings, looking down to a 10 foot plus drop with my room window across this chasm about 4ft away. OK, looking around I notice that there is a drainpipe running below my window that has been cut in half and planted with flowers, I go to the far end, open the creaky gate and enter the domain of the landlady. Carefully, and thankfully I’m not yet too fat, I edge, flattening myself against the wall like a half-naked white ninja, across the drainpipe, knocking mud and flowers everywhere. Eureka! I make it to my window; I carefully start pushing it up whilst trying not to lose my balance. Disastrously it sticks, she’s hammered in nails to stop it opening far enough for burglars, or so she thinks. I manage to turn my head sideways and get it through, thinking if I can reach the keys on the table I can backtrack and go in at the front. I can’t quite reach so I manage to get one shoulder in, then the other, and then the boobs plop in over the sill. Now I am in serious trouble because the boobs won’t fold the other way and won’t let me back out again. So, I am going to have to push my way through. I lift my legs and try to get my toes onto the railings on the path, at the top of the drop, so that I can push against them. It’s at this point someone speaks to me. “I assume you are breaking in and not out?” I turn my head sideways and I can see a policeman on the other side of the railings trying desperately not to laugh. I have to try to explain what is happening, all the time knowing what his view must be at the other end. He kindly, and with dignity, pushes my feet so I can slide the rest of the way inside. Then says good night and slowly walks away. At this point I hear a round of applause from other windows around me, where I had obviously made so much noise others had come to have a look. I think I will chalk this one up to ‘you have to laugh afterwards’.

We all made it to the wedding on time, and the service went without a hitch, apart from the one they wanted of course. Then we drove back out of Lancaster and found a pub to stop at. At that time around the area it was common to have food in a basket. In those days they weren’t plastic baskets either.  We went up to order 20 somethings with chips in a basket, the gentleman taking the order tells us that it’s a big order and they are busy so it might be some time, are we willing to wait. At which point someone tells him that it is a wedding and they have nowhere else to go, so yes everyone will wait. At this point he smiles and says that he can probably do something for us. We have no idea what is happening but sit down with a drink and start celebrating. After about an hour the Landlord comes downstairs and announces that the “Bride and Groom” should make their way up to the dining room, where he has laid out a top table and all of the food. There are some lovely folk up North, we had an amazing afternoon, followed by rides on the pleasure beach in our fancy wedding gear and a Chinese meal at the end of the day. It may be one of the cheapest weddings I have ever been to, but it was brilliant.

It’s around this time that I get posted again, this time not going very far at all, just across Rutland Water to North Luffenham. I also take the opportunity to move out and live in Peterborough and re-join the Gliding Club. Life seems to be changing for me, things are looking up. I still have to contend with double entendre stupidity at work but being 22 year old I am much more able to deal with it. I also avoid all contact with the opposite sex by moving back in with my parents for a while. My Dad has now left the RAF and my mother has a management job at a home for the elderly, so things all seem to have changed and we’ve all grown up. Sheryl is now married but living in Cyprus where she is having a little boy, his whole birth is a bit traumatic and he has some issues afterwards, but our parents make no effort to drop anything and go out to help or visit, we just keep on with our own little lives. Then I met Nigel, I know, anyone of our age laughs at the name, it’s a pop song thing. He was a stud, gorgeous dark eyes, square jawed and deliciously smouldering. He was amazing and for no apparent reason he wanted me. The Gliding was fantastic, I really enjoyed the whole experience and whilst some of the main faces had changed it was still a recognisable crowd. The lifestyle was still the same and I remember long warm days laying out on the grass watching people take off and land, going up myself sometimes and talking about anything and everything. I spent most of my weekends that year at the Gliding Club, we got a crappy old caravan and parked it there. It was our little hideaway and he was the first person for years that I could be with and not need to be drunk first. In December 1990 he was sent on detachment to Bahrain to assist during the first Gulf War, I woke up at my parents’ home one morning and he had shimmied over the wall and posted a Christmas present through a cat flap, and gone, bearing in mind this was a good couple of hours out of his way it was quite impressive. We exchanged ‘blueys’ air mail, several times a week until he returned in February the following year. In the meantime, because I had taken more exams whilst at Cottesmore, I had put myself down for Air Loadmaster selection. I thought it would be an amazing job, I still do to be honest, and they sent me to RAF Cranwell to get tested and assessed for the role. I was called in front of my Station Commander and informed that I had been selected for Officer Training, I let out an involuntary ‘What?’ in his office, much to his amusement. I’d previously started the process to leave (Premature voluntary redundancy PVR) and I went home to discuss it all with my Dad. Should I leave and take a job in Preston with British Aerospace or stay in and take up the offer of Officer training. I’d never considered the possibility, and let’s face it I hadn’t met many I liked. He told me to go for it, stay in and do the training, because I’d always wonder whether I could have passed, I withdrew the PVR, told BAE I wasn’t coming and stayed on.   By the time Nigel came back I was in the middle of my fitness regime, running around the airfield at the Gliding club and eating well, just trying to get into good shape before I went to Cranwell. He, on the other hand, came back desperate for a chill and lots to drink. I gave him some leeway because I knew where he’d been, but this was the RAF support services, engineers do not serve in the front line. He’d been at some awful hotel in a desert, then in a tented compound, servicing aircraft and whilst I know it was a hard time and stressful he was hardly getting shot at. He was so busy being a ‘war hero’ he spent most of his time in the bar getting beers bought for him by the retirees.

One of the early weekends, when he’d just returned, he got so drunk he wet the bed. I got up, went to the club house and showered before napping on the benches until people started coming in. I hadn’t been able to wake him up so I’d left him, but when he appeared he was so angry with me, it was all my fault, I should have woken him up, I should have got him to the toilets, I should have done a lot of things. So, I got in my car and drove home. After that he was apologetic without actually saying sorry, we made up and things went back to normal. Then, one night, he got incredibly drunk again, this time he came to the bed after me and started snuffling around like a pig rooting for a truffle. He started climbing on me and I batted him off, I know he was drunk, and I know he probably didn’t mean to, but he hit me across my stomach so hard I fell into one of the cabinets and scraped my back. I ran out of there and slept in my car; I assume he just passed out in the caravan because I didn’t see him again until the morning. This time he was very apologetic, and we talked about the fact that I was going to be an officer and he a corporal and that it wouldn’t work out long term, but in the end we made it up and said that the following week we would take it easy on the booze, have a caravan picnic and it would just be the two of us. The next weekend I carefully dressed in silky underwear, bought special snacks and a bottle of fizz and went to the club. Nigel met me at the caravan and told me that he loved me, that he was sorry for everything over the last few weeks, and he would leave the RAF if I became an officer then we could get married. I was so happy, I was overjoyed, this handsome, lovely, liked man wanted me, and I loved him with every bone in my body. We went back over to the club house and told everyone, at which point celebrations started. At around midnight I told him I was going back to the caravan and if he would come we still had the picnic, the fizz and he could probably get a little more….. I sat there for the next 5 hours, waiting and breaking my heart. He never came. I packed all my stuff and put it in the car before heading over to the club house. There was always a ‘survivors club’ or people who drank until dawn but there were also people getting up to check the weather and start making food. I asked and asked until one of them told me that Nigel had gone off with someone else last night, she was well known for screwing around and everyone’s assumption was that as Nigel had been there before he would have gone there again. I got in my car and drove home, where I cried solidly for the rest of the day, snotty and headachy and generally pissed off. I never saw him again, and I left for Cranwell the following week to start my Training.

Cranwell  

For as long as I could remember I had been told that Officers were ‘Hooray Henrys’, jumped up little ‘Ruperts’ or ‘Zobs’. Basically, posh boys who got their positions through an ‘old boys network’ and rarely had much common sense to go with their wonderful education. I’m sure for some of them, this is true, but for a short while there was a push for the Ranks to go for Commissions, and for the intake education standards to be reduced all the way down to 5 ‘O’ levels. This meant that for a while there were fairly ‘normal’ people going through the system. This made it possible for people like myself to have a shot and was when I was sent through. There were probably around 100 of us when we arrived, males and females on the same course. The 24 week course saw recruits moving up across 3 different ‘messes’, spending 8 weeks at each one, undertaking challenges and training during each period and losing cadets at each stage until less than half finally graduated. The majority of the cadets were from Universities and aiming for Pilot and Navigator roles, with the majority of the female cadets directed toward Admin and support roles, but there were a few strong minded females aiming for the front line roles as well.

Although I had been in the RAF for over 6 years, my joining age meant that I was almost the same age as the ex-university candidates. The first 8 weeks were very hard physically and there was a complete flashback to Swinderby, with the lack of sleep and the ‘bull nights’ cleaning everything in sight. This time though, I made a couple of really good friends and we spent our cleaning time singing songs and having a good laugh. Even though times had supposedly changed, there was a lot of bullying going on, especially aimed at the lower echelons, those who had not attended University or did not have the correct accent. We would spend the day being physically challenged, running, marching, playing at being in charge, being set exercises, war games, as well as classroom activities, before being expected to dress up and attend the ‘mess’ for evening drinks and a meal, acting as if we were at a dinner party, hosting guests and making small talk. There were evenings when my legs shook so much I was glad to be female because they would let me take a seat. All the time we were there we were being judged, not just through our daytime activities but listening to our conversational skills and seeing what we wore, and at the end of the first eight weeks some course members were dropped and did not move up to the second ‘Mess’. I had already been to sick bay a couple of times with leg pains but was told to ‘get on with it’. During the second period of 8 weeks we started working harder, running farther, and sleeping less and less. There were exercises out at a place called Clumber Park, where we had to work as groups from dawn till dusk locating bright yellow painted ammo boxes. These boxes were hidden around the 3,800 acre parkland and woods, we had to run and find them as groups, orienteering and then pretending they were voice activated bombs. At the end of the day I was struggling to stay upright, my knees were shaking, and my legs were on fire. I had been told, constantly, to carry on, keep going and stop being a wuss, so I just kept trying to go on. The next activity was up in the Cairngorms, climbing, walking and snow holing, there were far fewer of us at this point, and this time away felt much more like a school adventure trip, or one of the old expeditions I used to go on. I was actually enjoying the whole experience, we went out in the evenings, in the town, and took part in the local karaoke, it was as if it had all turned a corner. I remember we had been out on a mountain hike; we had visited a bothy and were on our way back down when one of the Physical Training Instructors (PTIs) noticed that I was struggling, my knees were practically bending backwards as I walked down the hills. He refused to let me carry on, and when I got back to Cranwell I was put onto Medical and Special Holding (MASH) with cartilage issues in my knees and stress fractures throughout both legs.

MASH was something completely different, our lessons were non-physical, we learnt a lot more than we would have otherwise, we were taught how to carry out public speaking, did a little drama, organised events and attended the gym for physio. It was actually quite good fun, even if we were a bit unwell, some were worse than others. There was a little bit of drinking and rabble rousing but not a lot, it was all far more grown up. Once deemed well, we were added back into courses, I finally joined back into an ongoing course and made it through to the final 8 weeks, but there are a few more tales to tell about the time at Cranwell. There’s the one about the men from the Qatari Air Force who were training, but could not be placed in a group with any females as they couldn’t take orders from women. The time when they sent us all to Catterick training ground during the worst winter in years, where people were coming down with hypothermia, but they said we should stay and get on with it. The doctor who told me I was a hypochondriac and stress fractures were nothing. Etc. etc. At the end of it all I made it into College Hall Officers mess, the final goal, the place from which one would graduate. The final hurdle was a camp that every course is sworn to secrecy about, nobody was permitted to tell the next course what it was all about.

Somehow, the rumour got around that this was all about keeping up morale. We were taken out to a field in the middle of nowhere, we were given some canvas tape and picket posts and told to mark out a 25 by 25 meter square with an entrance in the centre of each side. Then we were told to place a fire bell at the centre. One quarter should be our sleeping area, one quarter our cooking and eating area, one quarter the command post and general duty area, and the final quarter the toilets, which were just a hessian windbreak with a plastic bag-lined bucket in the middle. The guys hardly used the bucket because they were free to pee over the boundary, unlike the females. We were put on ration packs which bunged us up, they’d taken our watches and any extras off us, and then for the next 2 days they sounded alarms at irregular intervals and made us go out on patrol, switch quarters, lift and shift the whole thing 10 metres this was, 5 metres that way, rotate clockwise and move etc. etc. throughout all of this we all told ourselves it was about morale. On the evening of the second day the training staff brought us a wonderful big pan of warming stew, full of pulses and vegetables and we thanked them gratefully. They then watched us from a distance as we queued for the bucket as our ration packed stomachs reacted to the constipation curing goodness. Then it all carried on again for another day. At the end of it all, after we had packed everything away, we were taken to a barn and sat on the floor.

In walked the training staff, and we were told that we were ‘shit hot’, smiles all round, ‘99% shit, 1% hot’, what? How come? Apparently the whole point was about cleanliness and ensuring good health and safety practices. After about 12 hours we had been sleeping where people had pee’d the day before, by the end of our time in the field we had sat, slept and eaten on the same ground where either the toilet bucket had been or the guys who didn’t use it had been. I learned a lot; I think we all did.

There was another camp, run by the RAF regiment, where we had to pretend we were out in the wilds acting as a forward operating base. I enjoyed that one immensely, we were designated roles to play, the camp commander was a youth fresh out of University who basically just told everyone else to get on with it and assigned one of the youngest and prettiest girls to be his PA. They spent an inordinate amount of time behind closed tent flaps. A young man and I were put in charge of the camp, and afterwards one of the Regiment SNCOs said that he would have been proud to serve on any camp I ran. Which I think was the best compliment I ever received in the RAF. At the end of it all I passed and was told I could graduate, it was, of course, carried out in a cruel manner where we all started out in one room, were called in to see the instructors who played the old “I’m sorry to say……… you’ve passed” routine, and then those who passed were sent to one room and those that had failed to another. The ones who passed went on to a lecture and food, those that failed went to pack and leave. I, on the other hand, ruined the whole system by being told I had passed and heading to the Flight Sergeant's office to say that I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to anymore. I know my Dad had told me to give it a go because I would always wonder whether I could pass, but now I knew, I also knew that I didn’t like these people or their stupid jokes, their attitudes and their bullying. I kind of wanted to go back to where I had been before, but it was all too late. Don’t get me wrong, when I graduated I was as proud as punch, and my Dad was as well, but I was very uncertain about what I faced from that point on. The evening do, after Passing Out, was a grand and lavish Ball held in College Hall. My Mum was so out of her depth, it looked like she hated every minute of it. My Dad made a big thing about not paying for the official photographs and bringing his own camera, turned out later that he’d forgotten to put a film in it, so I have no photographs of the big night. I also took the opportunity to confess, after 12 years of doing so, that I smoked. I think they already knew because apart from a few snide comments from my Mum about slowly killing myself, they let it drop.

In the days that followed people were leaving to wait for their training courses to commence, when a group of us were told that our had been cancelled and that due to ‘cut-backs’ we had a choice of Air Traffic or Fighter controller and given 24 hours to decide! I chose Air Traffic Controller, figuring that above ground would be better than below, and then had to wait for the next course. I was sent to RAF Finningley to ‘hold’ awaiting my course, I don’t actually remember much about what I did during the daytime, they must have given me work to do but I have no idea what it was, probably some admin seeing as I was female. I lived like the rest of the officers in the full-time Mess and attended the Summer Ball and other functions. It was, at that time, another training camp, full of mainly eager young men trying to become pilots and navigators. The male to female ratio in the Officers mess was approx. 1:20 and there were many nights when they’d had a lot to drink, when I barricaded my door so nobody could get in. At least on a normal station the accommodation used to be separate for the junior ranks, the Officers were supposed to be more responsible so were mixed, but the drunken twattery still went on.

In the middle of all of this I managed to get an ‘experience flight’ out to Berlin, it was within a couple of years of the wall coming down and it was an amazing time to visit and see what was there. Our guide also took us to a place called the Klo bar, a really strange little bar full of gizmos and gadgets and urinals, and then around a corner to a seedy strip club where we saw some very non-hand-related dextrous feats with ping pong balls before escaping. Not being a very good traveller and having had a few too many beers and little sleep, on the way back they had to ‘expedite’ the landing before I threw up everywhere. There was something on one night just before I left Finningley, it was some kind of fancy dress affair and involved many of the pilots from the training courses. I was with them and had been drinking but wanted to leave and go up to my room. As I left one of the men asked whether I still had a crate of lager in my room from the German trip, and could they have it, as the bar had closed. Stupidly, I said yes and allowed him to follow me up to get it. As soon as the door was opened he pushed me inside, said something about me wanting it, and bent me over the desk. He ripped down my bottom half and thrust himself into me. I did and said nothing. I wholly and utterly hate myself for not doing anything. I let him get on with it. It had been several years, but I expect at this point I had just decided that getting it over and done with was the best way. He finished, picked up the crate and left, closing the door behind him. Apparently, when he returned downstairs he was hailed as the conquering hero. When I was asked next day whether I had sex with him I just said yes, if that’s what he told you, yes, it was simpler than trying to defend myself. Looking back it's strange that I my first thought is that I need to defend myself and my actions (or inactions), not that it was yet another #MeToomoment.

I left soon after that and headed off for the training course. There is very little to say about Shawbury, I was a terrible Air traffic Controller, absolutely zero aptitude and failed miserably. I tried to wilfully drop out a couple of times before failing because I knew I would never be able to do it, but eventually they got the picture. Once I had failed at Shawbury I was sent to Brize Norton to ‘Hold’ while they decided what to do with me. I led a very quiet life, I worked in an Admin and Legal office for a few months until called back to Cranwell for reselection interviews, this time staying in the Officers' mess designated to the normal Station staff. I kept my head down, attended interviews and was finally marched in to receive the news that the RAF no longer required me. I was standing there, at attention, in front of the man whose son had been on one of the camps with me. His son had been a nasty piece of work, shagging his way around the pretty young things and telling everyone who Daddy was, and I was disgusted at the ‘old boys club’ sitting in front of me. The only person who was reselected, that I knew of at that time, was a University graduate male, none of the ex-rankers got through. To be honest I was just so screwed up it was probably the right thing to do, but it seriously didn’t feel like it at the time. I removed my hat and walked out, refusing to put it back on and letting the tears flow all the way back to the Mess. Why should I bother now that I was being kicked out? I’d lost everything, my job, my home, any friends I had, everything. I returned to Brize and signed off on all my kit and headed back to my parents’ place to start over.