Ex-Derbeian John Rigley , who now lives in Little Harrowden, Northamptonshire, looks back on his days with the air cadets in the early 1950s.
THE school summer holidays where fast approaching and my pal Brian Newby – known as Snowy – myself and a few mates where hiding behind the woodwork classroom at Spondon House Secondary School smoking fags and wondering how we were going to pass the time.
You can get into an awful lot of mischief over a seven-week period.
Bob Winfield suggested we join the Army cadets. "They visit Army camps twice a year, receive a free uniform and fire real guns. And, most importantly, when you go to the Army camps you get to eat plenty of food."
He had joined during the previous year and loved it. "But," said Tony Dowy, "don't you have to do a lot of marching and drill?"
Bob admitted that you did have to do quite a bit of marching but added: "That's why I joined. Our doctor said it would help me to lose weight and so my mam made me join."
Warming to the subject, Snowy said: "My older brother used to be in the air cadets. They get to go up in aeroplanes and get to stay on RAF stations."
Snowy, Tony and myself, who had also been together at Morley Road School, Chaddesden, chewed it over and, the following night, we rode our pushbikes the three miles to RAF Alvaston – a camp that had been used during the war as a barrage balloon base and also for the Royal Engineers.
As the camp was still active, an RAF sentry stood guard at the gate. He told us we would have to come back on Thursday, as the 126 RAF Alvaston squadron of Air Cadets only met on Thursdays and Sundays.
As it was now Tuesday. We had bets on who would back out and not turn up on the night.
We all did turn up and were soon kitted out in smart but not the least ill-fitting blue uniforms.
And, for the first time in my life, this lad who lived in Wollaton Road, Chaddesden, mixed with posh kids, kids from private schools and big houses who had dads who drove Bentleys and Jaguar cars, who were doctors and company directors. And I learned a valuable lesson as a result – people are just people.
We all mixed and, away from home, the posh kids were just as daring as the kids from my neighbourhood.
One of them, Alf Vick – a lad you would maybe on first sight call a wimp – grew up to be a motor engineer and went to work for a Rolls-Royce dealership in Singapore. He worked over there for a few years and at the end of his contract had to return to England.
He owned an MG sports car and decided to drive overland from Singapore to England. This "wimp" of a boy, who was now a man, later told me about driving through the infamous Khyber Pass – a lawless mountain pass connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan – and of being chased by Afghan tribesmen who, in those days, still had muzzle loaders and old Enfield rifles, rode on horseback and, as he was alive to tell the tale, were obviously lousy shots. How the world has changed!
Our first summer camp was at RAF Binbrook, a Bomber Command station in Lincolnshire. As this was 1952, it was littered with Lancaster and Lincoln bombers and also Spitfire and Hurricane fighter planes.
The planes looked like they had just returned from a bombing raid in the Second World War, even though the war had finished seven years earlier. They had been parked up by long since departed airmen – men who would have dispersed and returned to civvy street after the end of the fighting.
However, this RAF station held something more exciting than the now unused aircraft for us young boys – the whine of the jet engine could be heard: Canberras, Vampires, and Meteors were landing and taking off and screaming overhead.
Snowy and I wanted to be pilots, not realising at the time we were both too thick to be even considered for air crew – ah well, it was nice to dream.
At this camp, we had our first trip in a plane, four kids at a time. The plane was a twin-engine Anson. Snowy and I both suffered from airsickness.
Back home in Derby, I joined the air cadet band and received my own (on loan) bugle, a white belt, with a brass buckle, and a white braided shoulder-to-shoulder sash, adorned with fancy tassels. I used Blanco on the belt to make it whiter than white and Brasso on the buckle and the bugle. I felt very proud, marching with the band.
Even though I never really got the hang of blowing the bugle, I was passable but nowhere near proficient.
We were once asked to play on the stage of one of Derby's top cinemas as an opener for the Derby premier of the film, Reach for the Sky.
The following year, during our summer camp at RAF Hemswell, also in Lincolnshire, we were asked to do a march past for the station commander. Following that, we were entered into a band competition, again at RAF Hemswell.
I can remember we were excited at the prospect of perhaps bringing back an award.
However, after a three-hour bus journey, as we were putting the final touches to our equipment and ourselves, the bandmaster went into a flat-out panic.
It turned out that our star bugle player, John Barlow, had left his mouthpiece at home and we had no spare.
However, because this lad could play ten times better than I could, I offered my mouthpiece and said I would pretend to blow my bugle.
The band went on to win best marching and best overall playing. The drum major won the best drum major award but the crowning glory was the lad using my mouthpiece playing the Last Post. We cleaned up with all the awards.
On the way home, the coach stopped at a country pub and the bandmaster had this huge silver cup filled up with about a gallon of beer.
He called me to the front of our crowd and, although I was only 14, gave me the first drink, saying that, without my mouthpiece, we would have no cup to celebrate the occasion.
However, I was soon to discover that fame can be short-lived. A few months later, our band was to lead the air cadets during the Derby summer carnival. The parade would consist of all the different youth groups from the area – the Scouts, Girl Guides, sea cadets, Army cadets and Boys' Brigade.
Various floats had been dressed and entered by the many firms based in Derby. It was a huge event.
The day came. The sun was shining and the town centre was packed with crowds of onlookers.
The Market Place had been cordoned off for the various organisations to assemble in readiness to march past the mayor's stand.
I spent the morning whitening my belt, polishing my buckle and new trumpet – our bugles had been replaced a month earlier with trumpets.
I had missed the last two band practices and was about to pay the price.
It was a proud young man who caught the bus into town and marched proudly over to the band. And then the same bandmaster, who a few months earlier had given me a pat on the back and a drink out of the silver cup, first gave me a deserved dressing down for missing band practice but then, in front of the crowd gathered at the barrier, told me I was out of the band.
He had another boy lined up to replace me. He ordered me to remove my white belt and shoulder sash and hand them back to him, along with my brightly polished trumpet. I was devastated and felt humiliated in front of the crowd, which included my parents.
Not wanting anyone to know how miserable I felt and holding back my tears I marched along with the ranks.
I stayed in the cadets a few more months until both Snowy and myself started work at Sanderson and Holmes on London Road.
One of the lads went on to be among the last National Service men serving in Germany and another lad, Tony Weaver, went on to run his dad's a furniture shop, called Porters, in East Street.
