Page 75 - Demo

71wake up down the back and offer a cup of tea and perhaps breakfast. The whole crew would slowly wake up at that point. I loved those sorties, looking out over the wing as day dawned. Anyway, on this occasion Dewer eventually called Steve forward and said he would check him out for landing at Gib. The runway there was a bit short and both ends were in the sea. It could also be very turbulent if there was a wind over the rock. It was designated as a psychological runway as was Hong Kong. Steve was pissed off at being checked as he told me Dewer had done this twice before. I went down the back and fell asleep on the bunk. I was woken by a thump and looking out through the small window by my head saw a house go by. I thought that we had crashed but of course we had just landed. The siggies said they tried to wake me before landing but could not. Steve lived out which was unusual for single officers. He rented some rooms in what was a sort of stately home. One day he asked the captain if we could go and photograph it and Tom said yes. We seldom did any air to ground photos but there was no real reason why not. We found the house which was in a dip in the ground and ran in for the first shot. The siggy with the camera said that we were going too fast, so we tried again with the same result. There was an audible stall warning in the Shackleton but only the pilots could hear it. Steve slowed down at the top of the dip until the stall warning sounded and then more or less carried out a stall recovery. At the bottom we used full power and I think the vipers to climb out. I call it a dip in the ground because many years later I flew over it in a Jet Provost and that was all it was. We had a crew fines system in the crew and if someone made a mistake, they were fined half a crown (12.5p) which went into the crew beer fund. At some point the siggy taking photos announced that he owed the crew fund half a crown. This was very odd as no-one usually owned up to an error. Indeed, Steve and I just sorted out cock ups between us. Anyway, it turned out that he had dropped the light meter out of the window. At