Royal Air Force Halton Aircraft Apprentices 105th Entry

18 Sept 1963 - 3 Aug 1966

3 Squadron, 3(A)Wing

18 September 1963

The day finally dawned, when we were to 'sign on'. I remember that we were woken by a bugler outside the window, at 6:30 in the morning. The previous night , we'd been getting to know each other, visiting the NAAFI and having our first taste of service cooking.:( The NAAFI was of course a non alcoholic venue, as most of us were only 16 at the time. It was quite strange really, because there was no being shouted at from our NCOs, everyone was most pleasant, and we were herded about like little flocks of sheep. Same thing again in the morning, chivvied along to breakfast, and back to the blocks. Then on to Block 8, the block with all the lecture rooms in, and where our attestation was to take place.

We were lined up , in seats, in alphabetical order, and by trade. Quite how it worked out I'll never understand. But it seemed to be Dental, followed by Engines, Airframe and E&I mixed together. So I ended up between John Moody and Barry Nelson. I can't remember if they gave us a folder each to carry round, or if the folder appeared at one of the tables, but there were loads of papers to be filled in. Next of Kin, RAFBF donation slips ( quarter of a days pay per year), Permission to Smoke, and all kinds of Personal Details, and we are handed a slip of paper with a six digit number on it. The same number stamped on every piece of paper in the folder... Your SERVICE NUMBER ... MEMORIZE IT.

Then came the attestation itself: About 50 of us at a time, standing before the RAF Standard, swearing our allegiance to Queen and country, and then back in to actually sign on the dotted line. I guess they took us in blocks of 50 because the rest of the 'milk run' would have been like a major traffic jam. From Block 8 , the next stop was the supply counter, where a complete kit was issued, the tailor in attendance to mark up alterations and whisk off the uniforms for adjustments. This lot all had to be carried back to the Blocks, and then sorted out, but there was now a catch. We were no longer treated like little sheep, but were now raw recruits, and the first thing a recruit gets after his kit.... is his haircut. Thinking back .. we WERE still treated like sheep, because we were just sheared. No short back and sides for us, All OFF was the only option. At least that's how it seemed. We all only had a little hair left on top. And that was the start of it .. from then on it was BULL, BULL, BULL when we were in the Block. Alternating sessions of Drill and PT when we weren't in the block, and for the first three weeks, we wore nothing but RAF Overalls. Not the type they have now, that are quite comfortable, but the old rough denim ones, with the large pocket on the side of one of the legs.

One thing I hadn't been aware of before I joined up, was that we would spend all of the first year in Uniform, No civilian clothes allowed. After the first year, you could wear mufti at weekends, as long as it met with the approval of your flight commander, and in the third year we would be allowed to wear a lounge suit during off duty periods. That was the official line anyway - but you can see from the photos in the gallery that the letter of the law was well twisted at times. Ah well - boys will be boys !!!!!!

Although we spent every night cleaning the block, during those first weeks, Every Friday night was classed as "Bull Night", as on Saturday Morning, there was either a kit inspection or a parade, or a block inspection. As was usual, there was a lot of messing around on these nights, as well as a lot of "bulling". Erik Farr-Voller sent the first two of these two pictures, Taff McCarthy sent the others, obviously taken on one of those nights.... Further study by me and it looks like two of the pictures are very similar. Fortunately , either Taff had a very good memory or a sharp pencil back in 1963, as he has supplied names to his picture. Anybody want to own up to being any of the characters in the first two pictures?

We learned to hate that phrase: "STAND BY YOUR BEDS"

Erik also sent on some photographs taken outside Block 2, which I had forgotten (until I saw these pictures) was Building 105, I recognise Erik, and I think 2nd from left is Bruce McDowell,but who are the others?

November 2001I've been looking back over these pages, adding stories in and gathering photographs for inclusion in the pages, and I noticed that while we were a very sombre bunch ON DUTY (see the Winston Churchill funeral practice), we were also a good group of jokers. Something that really stuck out when 7 of us met at the 2001 Tri-ennial reunion, was that we all shared the same sense of humour, obviously something else we have to thank RAF Halton for !!!!!

Practising for Churchills Funeral - recognise anyone?

The actual funeral - some known faces here too

Some of the people I remember from those early days, and those I met during my service days are:

Paddy Armstrong, Chris Base, The 2 Kennedy's (I later met both of them at RAF Swanton Morley, Short Dave K was a Chf Tech, and the other was a Flt. Lt), Mike Littlejohn, Fred Lejeune, Laurie Poulter, Johnny Haines (I later met him at BAe Warton, after he left the RAF), Malcolm Allen, John Dorrington (an ex-BE from St. Athan who had transferred over), Eric Pettigrew, Dave Bills, Ian Sloss (I last saw Ian in the RAF News as a Air. Cdr.), Bill Race, "Fitz", John Horrocks, Jock Crocker, Bernie Grix, Johnnie Keys, 'Smiler' Miles, Bert Wilkinson (I met Bert playing Hockey in 1980).

There's a complete list of those who graduated on the InTouch page. It also includes indications of those I can contact both electronically (e-mail) and by snail mail.

I would like all ex Ton5s to send in their details, just e-mail me. I would prefer to keep the details more secure so that only the names, service numbers and minor details are actually available through the web site, and anyone wanting to contact someone else can contact me and I will forward mail on to the relevant person.

Here is a photograph sent to me by David Lea,(who is in the picture , front and left), but can you name the others? For me. the faces jog the memory but names fail. I now recognise that this was taken on our "Passing On" day, when we would normally have moved on to Senior Wings (see below), and was taken outside Block 4 (Building 107 number is just visible in the picture). Alongside is a colour picture sent by Dave Young, and I think this may have been taken on the same day, but under more formal pose !!!!. Thankfully Dave also sent the names with the picture.

You can judge for yourself, the formality of the riggers and the informality of the "leccies" :)

One of the things we had to get used to was 'Service cooking'. if you can imagine having about 500 apprentices in each wing, all clammering for breakfast at 7 am, out by 7:30 am and then back for lunch (in those days I called it DINNER) at 12 noon, out by 12:30 and back again for tea at 17:00, the cookhouse was a veritable hive of activity. It fell to the entries to supply the serving staff for each meal and this was arranged on a rota system. Obviously you had to be there before opening time, with the serveries ready for the onslaught. Breakfast time was no problem, but you had to leave workshops (or schools) early to serve at Dinner and Tea times. This was the dangerous times. Naturally, being aircraft apprentices, our hands were always in grease and oil, and it gets under your nails. To serve food, even in those days, your hands (and under the nails) had to be spotless, and the Orderly Officer (especially Fg Off Crawford, our Squadron Adjutant) was happy to charge anyone with the slightest speck of dirt under the nails.

For the first time ever, an entry was to spend more than a year in 3 Wing. This was brought about because of a change in the RAF training policies, originally envisaged for the TSR2 program, but after the aircraft was scrapped by the Labour Government, the whole Training scheme was drastically and totally re-arranged.

Some of the training was 'adjusted' to fill in some gaps created by this change in policy, but a lot of us still ended up sitting around, just studying for 'finals'. (I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek)

The 105th were to be the second to last entry of Aircraft Apprentices, with a revised schools schedule, which actually started during our 3 weeks basic training. The idea was to test us, by having us sit the normal end of 1st year exams before we actually started training at schools and workshops, and to accelerate our training so that we would complete what had been a 3 year training period in a little under 2 years. One of the benefits of this , to us , was that most of the entry would be doing their ONC. Previous entries had only had a small percentage of their apprentices in the ONC stream. The benefit to the RAF was that we would be the pilot scheme for the Technician apprentices, who would be multi-traded, and start 1 year behind us, and would all pass out as Corporals. We would still pass out as Junior Technicians, with some Corporals and some with accelerated promotion, ie promotion to Corporal would occur within 1 or 2 years instead of the normal 3 after promotion exams. It seemed somewhat unfair to us , but once you'd signed on the dotted line...there was little you could do about it. At the same time as the Technician apprentices started, so too did the first entry of Craft apprentices, the 201st, who actually started their life in 2 Wing, in the place that would have been ours under the old system. They were to be the two year apprentices of which we were also the pilot.

We progressed through schools and workshops at quite a gallop, quite a few of us taking extra 'O' levels on the way. But it was the non scholastic training which seems to stick in my mind most.

GDT or Ground Defence Training was the category which seemed to cover almost all aspects of being an airman first and a tradesman second. We learned how to shoot weapons, hike over most of the Halton woods (who doesn't remember Pimple point or Coombe Hill). I looked the area over on a map recently and was quite astonished at the distances we must have covered in some of our Saturday morning jaunts. It was under this banner that we also spent two weeks in the Brecon Beacons, near the village of Llangurig, doing our R&I training, For some reason, I was made a Team Leader. I remember Frank Bowron was in my team as well as another band member. I know we didn't win the inter team competition, but we didn't come last either. :)

The pictures below were sent in by Dave Young ("A" Flight) and Paul Theobald ("B" Flight). If you click either of them you will be presented with a larger version in a new window, and for "B" Flight, the signatures on the reverse. Where I can remember faces and names I have filled them in on the grid. If you know any of them, or are one of them, please let me know.

One thing I noticed when I looked at these pictures, if you look at Tim Slaney ( "B" Flight, Center, 2nd row down), he is still wearing denims. Tim's size was such that there were no standard uniforms to fit him, and so his were specially ordered. (In fairness to Tim, I have to add that the term Standard Uniform left a lot to be desired, as everyone had to be altered)

***** If anyone reading this can help out with pictures, documents etc., please contact me. Photographs can be either scanned or, if you can't scan them I can arrange that. If you only have negatives or slides, I can arrange to have them digitized too. *****

By W.H. Morrison and C.A. Morrison