Boy Entrant; The Recollections of a Royal Air Force Brat Read Online Free

street. Included with the glossy books and pamphlets was another form, longer than the first one—four pages this time. It seemed the RAF wanted just a bit more information and some references. I filled out the form in my neatest handwriting and then took the form to my former headmaster, Mr. Murphy, known fearfully as The Boss. I’d been in his class during my last two years at St. Malachy’s school and he had given me more than my fair share of a tough time when I was there, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
    The Boss squinted at the form through his bifocals for a few minutes, then took out his Parker fountain pen, the one with the solid gold nib and filled with royal blue Quink ink and scribbled something in his sophisticated, grownup, educated, professional-person handwriting. As he handed the form back, he icily told me that he didn’t approve too much of an Irish Catholic boy going into British military service and that I should remember my religion and go to Mass on Sundays.
    “Don’t be like all the others who go to England and fall by the wayside,” he said and with that he went back into his classroom. I left too, but as soon as I got around the first corner I opened the form to see what The Boss had written. It took me quite a while to decipher his writing, but when I finally managed to read words he’d scribbled I was pleasantly surprised. He said something to the effect that I was a very intelligent boy and would excel in anything and everything that interested me. He had me to a tee and yet I never dreamed that he held that opinion of me: in fact he had told me once that I’d probably end up being a member of a gang. But when I think about it, maybe he wasn’t so far wrong about that after all—some gang!
    Paddy Corning wrote up the other reference for me. He told me that he was sorry that I was going to leave my job and go off to the RAF, even offering me a rise if I stayed on with him and promising to eventually promote me to work behind the counter in the shop. Of course, the prospect of staying in Coleraine and working in Paddy’s shop for the rest of my life just didn’t fit in with the mental picture I had of my future. The siren song of the glossy brochures and the exotic lure of faraway places had me in such a stranglehold that chains and leg-irons couldn’t have held me back from going. I politely turned down Paddy’s offer, at which he sighed, shook his head and wrote out a glowing reference. This greatly surprised me after the Gypsy Crèmes incident and the fact that I continually raided the expensive biscuit tins at tea breaks, instead of being contented with one or two of the more economically priced Rich Tea biscuits that seemed to satisfy everyone else.
    In August of 1956, just a few weeks after I’d returned the completed form, including the references, another brown envelope from Her Majesty plopped through our letterbox. Inside was a letter inviting me to present myself on a certain date for intelligence and education testing at the RAF Recruiting Office in Belfast. A voucher for free rail travel was included with the letter. I could hardly wait to tell John Moore, but for the first time since we’d talked about it, I detected a hint of sadness that he couldn’t quite disguise as he tried to be enthusiastic for me. In the following days, word soon got around and before long I heard that two other boys from Coleraine had also applied and that they would be travelling with me to Belfast.
    The day finally came and my friend John came to the house to say goodbye. Then he decided to accompany my father and me on our short walk to the railway station, where I was to catch the morning train. I exchanged my travel voucher for a return ticket at the ticket window and then showed it to the ticket collector at the platform barrier. He punched a neat little hole in it and then all three of us made our way onto the station platform. The other two Coleraine boys, Melvin Jackson and