Page 9 - Demo

17and we used to go to Cornwall with them in the summer staying at the Watergate Beach hotel. Dad drove back in the snow. No breathalysers in those days. I also caught up on a lot of sleep before going back to Cranwell in the new year. In the Junior Mess we were now in single rooms in a large block and this was more comfortable than in the Lines. There were of course communal toilets and bathrooms as in most RAF Officers messes in those days. The rooms were not inspected so much but we had parades each week and so a great deal of time was still spent cleaning and polishing our kit. We all got charged from time to time for some infringement of the rules. This meant turning up a couple of times a day to be inspected with full kit. The chances were that this would lead to another charge. We had been issued with Lee Enfield rifles that we had to keep padlocked to our bed frames. The bolt had to be locked in a drawer separately. The rifles had a hole drilled vertically through the barrel and so could not be fired but if one was found unattended you would be in real trouble. We had to keep the black metal bits painted and the wooden bits varnished. We sanded the wooden bits down a little so they rattled. This meant that you got a very crisp crack when you did the present arms.We were a strange entry in that they had decided to reduce the course length from 3 years to 2%u00bd. We were the first course to do this and so we did 2%u00be. Part of the problem was that in the past the flying training on the Jet Provost came at the end and several people failed that. This of course meant all the previous training was wasted. Cadets were offered a branch change if they failed their pilot training, but they could also leave the RAF. Earlier courses had done some training in Chipmunks, a light piston engine trainer but it was not taken very seriously. And so,after 6 months in April 1965 we started our Jet Provost training, beforethe course senior to us. This created a certain amount of ill feelings.