I
joined the Westminster Bank in 1954 and having concentrated on
languages during my schooling was soon transferred into an office which handled the restitution payments being paid to families of holocaust victims. Ironically this was called the SS department- or more correctly Special Services Dept.
T
hen at the tender age of 18 along with a whole load of other miserable lads I was summoned to report to RAF Cardington to be fitted out with my new RAF kit. The uniforms were new and the boots had to be ―bulled‖ to a high gloss and the
new shirts had to be washed before we could wear them as they were lice infected. Then on to Hednesford for a few weeks ―square bashing‖ to be put through all that pain by the sadistic NCOs, really enjoying making us suffer trying to get us fit; in fact it worked well.
N
ow being kitted and fitted it was off to Middle Wallop to learn
how to be a Fighter Plotter. With that knowledge it was the luck of the draw where we would be transferred to – Germany, Singapore, or Hong Kong perchance? Well for some, but not for me – it was off to the wilds of Essex for the next 18 months or so, to North Weald to be exact, working shift-work underground in the so- called Secret Bunker at Kelvedon Hatch controlling the many squadrons of Fighter Command in our sector of the UK from East Anglia down to Portsmouth. While there the Russians suppressed the
Hungarian uprising and Anthony Eden took us into Suez. Lots of worries then that we would have to serve 3 years National Service but luckily that was not to be.
T
he Black Arrows Hunter F4 111 squadron that was based at
North Weald for most of the time I was in the RAF was a sight to see practicing for their displays. Our Flight Sergeant Dorling, nick-named Shag (probably because he had 6 children) is the only person I have met whose character really did change with the fazes of the moon, maybe due to his having been shot down three times during WW2.
S
o in 1957 at the age of 20 back to the City with our weekly boxes
of stiff white Collars being delivered to our offices and we lowly clerks being addressed by our surnames by the managers who arrived around 10am and left by 4pm. One I remember lived in Barnet and had a live-in maid. I worked in a depart- ment, close to the foreign exchange dealers, handling all incoming payments from abroad for UK residents. The dealing room buying and selling currencies, or arbitrage dept, had 6 men and two girls and as French bankers refused to speak English they needed another French speaker, so they asked me to join them. 2 years previously no woman was allowed in the room and in the hot weather the glass door was covered with brown paper so that the ladies wouldn‘t see the men working in their shirt sleeves.
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