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223an excellent record I felt that my apparent lack of preparation was what was going to blight any career chances that I had. I was not very happy with my new QFI but there we go.Looking through my log book I have noticed that I must have been the only pilot at Church Fenton who was not checked by anyone. I checked both the Station Commander and the Chief Flying Instructor. I also checked our Engineering Officer. All the Station Executives at Church Fenton at that time had wings and I think that OC Eng Wing was keen to fly as was his Sqn Ldr. In fact OC Eng gained an instrument rating and I authorised him to fly several of the air tests with his Sqn Ldr. Some Engineering Officers went through flying training and did one flying tour before going back to be full time engineers. And as they had wings I felt that it was good for everyone to see that we were all in it together. Church Fenton also used to fly air experience flights in Chipmunks for the Air Training Corps and so I manage to fly these from time to time. While at Church Fenton, I became very involved with our Scout group, the 1st Kyle Valley. We had been given the use of a field by an old farmer, Bill Webb. He had apparently been involved with making the grand- slam bomb during the war and may have been a metallurgist. But to us he was an old bachelor farmer who kept a couple of cows and that was about it. He let us have the field on a 99year lease for a gallon of beer a year. This was much to the annoyance of some of his relatives who knew that the field would one day be a building plot and be worth a lot of money. Part of the accommodation for the old airfield had been there and there were air raid shelters and some hard standings where huts had been. We bought an old hut from somewhere near Hartlepool I think. We spent a year rebuilding this hut. There were 4 of us involved, myself, Tom Thompson, Richard Clark, and Mick Rawlings. We worked every weekend for nearly a year. This put a huge strain on my