Mid-morning, August 10th 1943  . . .  nearing the end of the fourth year of the seemingly interminable war.    The sound of the 'All Clear' siren echoed above the bustle of Marylebone Station.    He leaned from the open window at the compartment door of the war-grimed third-class carriage, a slight fair-haired youngster of some fifteen summers. His mother, who today had accompanied him to London for the first time since he was about eight years old, stood on the platform trying to appear nonchalant.

"Take care, Mick.   Write as soon as you can".    She struggled to force her last words above the general hubbub.    The admonition was almost drowned by the clatter of hob nailed army boots, hissing steam from leaking hose connectors, the rattle of iron-wheeled luggage trucks on the uneven platform, and the babel of a hundred similar farewells.    The shrill blast of the guards' whistle cut through this bedlam of sound like the blade of a guillotine.    A loud abrupt snort from the old 4-6-0 steam locomotive, followed by a quick series of echo-like coughs and the sound of steel wheels spinning on the damp tracks, signalled the start of the journey north.    He staggered slightly, struggling to regain his balance as the carriage suddenly lurched.    The platform receeded  . . .  time for one last wave to his now tear-stricken mother, and  . . . the apron strings were finally cut !

Mick settled down on the bench seat next to the window and let his eyes roam over the other occupants of the compartment  -  all service folk.    He was the only civilian and by far the youngest.    There were a couple of scruffy RAF "erks", a rather tired looking Sergeant Air Gunner, and a gaggle of young "brown jobs" apparently in the charge of a father-like RTR Corporal sporting his distinctive black beret.   The kid sized up each passenger and duffle in turn;
four years of war-accelerated adulthood told him the Brylcreem boys were, in all probability, either returning from, or going on leave.    His best guess was that the army types were fresh out of basic training, and with a re-tread instructor as mother hen, probably in transit to their first operational unit.

As the train headed northwards through the London suburbs, his eyes took in the familiar dismal scene.    London, then the largest city in the world it was claimed, stretched to the horizon with its' endless orderly patterns of smoke-blackened Victorian rowhouses, interspersed with railway sidings, dilapidated factory buildings, and the occasional green of a park.    Periodically the rowhouses disappeared, reverting instead to orderly heaps of brick and wood rubble, seamed with canyon-like clearings indicating the continued existence of a city street  . . .  grim reminders of the 1941 Blitz.    Gaunt structural skeletons, still uncleared, some still smoking lazily, served as indicators of more recent threats;    the roar of an intruding Dorniers' engines, or the staccato throbbing of V1 buzz-bombs, and the eerie silence before final impact.

He shuddered, remembering his fathers' 1940 decison to move the family from the village in order to be nearer his work in Luton;   those earlier boyhood nights during air-raids, spent in the old damp-riddled Andersen shelter.    In his mind he smelt again the improvised "flower-pot" heater, the all pervading hot-wax stench of its' burning candle, that left ones' eyes red-rimmed and watering each morning. He recalled the whistle of falling bombs at the nearby SKF bearing factory, and the terrifying crump of a drifting aerial mine landing in the next street.   There were the nights he spent pedalling his bicycle, without lights, through the darkened streets of Luton relaying requests for assistance between ARP posts and AFS stations during the German bombing raids.    Like most of his fellow Boy Scouts, he had served over the years as a Messenger, with occasional Fire Warden or First Aider duties thrown in as the situation demanded.    Then had come the Air Training Corps  . . .  his first flights in an old "DH Dominie" biplane, a Lease-Lend "Fairchild Argus", and the faithful "Wimpie" bomber  . . .  the night classes in aerial navigation, the Morse Code, and airframe sheet metal repairs.    He had learned to march, to perform basic drill formations, and had fired his first shots with a real-life Enfield rifle, albeit at paper targets.

To clear these sobering thoughts he turned his attention to the fading photos displayed on the compartment walls.    Taken in those halcyon days before 1939, they depicted popular railway travel spots of the period.    Most included speeding passenger trains well to the fore as subtle advertising  . . .  stately hotels such as Gleneagles, the curving Tay bridge, and the more picturesque mountains, glens and lochs of the Scottish Highlands  . . .  all were displayed.

"I well ken the waters of that Loch, back afore this madness   . . ."    The tired Scottish brogue reached softly to his ear.    "The salmon were most obliging that last time  . . ."    The voice trailed off . . .

The Air Gunner, seated next to him, had caught the direction of Micks' gaze.    The boy turned his head, the better to see the source of the comment.   He faced a young man, old before his time, with the expressionless features he would come to know so well as the "grey look".    The look of a man with 20-plus night bombing "ops" under his belt.    A man who, if one believed in the mathematical correctness of Bomber Commands' operational statistics, was already dead  . . .   . . . and accepted it.    The Yanks he met later on in life would refer to such characters as "Zombies".    The two of them chatted softly, the one reminiscing of pre-war fishing excursions and game shoots at his fathers' estate in the Highlands;    the other telling of a boys' life growing up in a small Bedfordshire farming village.    Confiding in the older man, Mick told of rabbiting adventures in woods and fields . . . of the first secret "Dogbine" smoked in the hedgerow "fort" . . . of his being caught by the old Duke of Bedford while fishing His Lordships' private lake preserves at Woburn Abbey.    He regaled the elder airman with tales of the time he had paddled his first home-made boat on the old brickworks pond . . . the scaled down Lillienthal hang glider he and his grandfather had built so that he could "fly" from the roof of the Dutch barn, and of his endless fascination with exploring the wonders of London.
Recalling the receipt of a very special book, "Modern Boys Book of Aeroplanes", his parents gift on the occasion of his eighth birthday, and of the chapter in that book which told of RAF Halton Apprentices and Cranwell Cadets, he explained the mid-1930's boyhood decision that ultimately led to this present journey.

Time passed.    The steady "ki-mi-na-noosh" clacking of the wheels on the rail joints ticked off the seconds.    Uneven breaks occurring in the rhythmic clatter as the train scurried over the points at sidings, caused heads to rise in startled anticipation of   . . .  What ?    More stops and starts at suburban stations;   a further slowing, and a fierce jerk as the train again came to an abrupt halt.

"Wendover", rang out the cry of a porter !

A hurried reach to the overhead luggage rack for his bag . . . solicitous words and a quick farwewell handshake with the gunner.    The kid emerged from the train to find himself on the platform of a small country railway station.    He blended into a steadily growing, disorganised mob of civvy-clad youngsters of like age.   An assortment of unknown dialects assailed his ears, many of them unintelligible to this Home Counties lad.    These were the days before the universal availability of radio . . . and TV, which was now banned for the duration of the war, had been barely out of the experimental stage before the war started.    Regional dialectic pockets of non-standardised "BBC English" were still very evident, his own included.    Why, he could travel a couple of miles from his native Westoning to Tingrith or Flitwick, the neighbouring villages, and barely understand a word spoken by the folks there.

Slowly, and with more patience than they would display in later weeks, NCO's in RAF uniform were organising the mob into manageable squads and hustling each into a convoy of waiting lorries.    An all-knowing member of the little group in which he found himself, proudly asserted his superiority with the announcement that these transports were standard issue 'QL Bedford 3-tonners".    The QL's duly pulled away, and with gears grinding and rear axles whining, left the village of Wendover headed for the place he had imagined for so long  . . .  Halton Camp !

Past Princess Marys' RAF Hospital they sped;   past collections of wooden huts and barrack blocks to a crossroads.    There, with a sharp right turn, the lorries began to crawl up a short steep hill.    At a high ornamental brick and iron gateway with nearby guardhouse, highly reminiscent of the entry lodges at large country manors the lad had known, stood an RAF Service Policeman.    The "snoop" waved them through without a stop.

This was it. !    A collection of drab reddish-brown brick buildings, arrayed in neat rows and columns, and vaguely identifiable as barrack blocks and mess halls, was matched by a mirrored collection on the opposite side of a large, gently sloping tarmac drill square.    A headquarters building, RAF ensign fluttering limply, and a somewhat dilapidated wooden hut occupied the other two sides.    Beyond, to the north, rose the tall smoking chimney of the furnace house, and yet more barrack blocks and other smaller structures.

The steep and heavily wooded escarpment that forms the western edge of the Wendover National Forest, typical of similar ranges in the Chiltern Hills, stretched out of sight to the south, forming an immediate, yet perfect, backdrop to the sprawling Apprentice School living quarters.    A half-mile or so to the north, the tree-lined ridge ended abruptly in a prominent grass covered peak.    He would later, like all bona-fide Halton Brats, come to know it as "The Pimple".

At its' summit a picture- book gallows had been erected;   from the protruding gibbet arm swung a dummy arrayed in RAF khaki fatigue battledress.    Put up and left by members of the 43rd Entry of Brats on the occasion of their recent "Passing Out" ceremony, it stood as a sombre warning of horrors yet to come for these new "sprogs" of the 47th Entry just arriving.    Yes, this was definitely it.    Assuming he passed all the initiation tests, this would be his home for the next three years.

The lorries ground to a halt.    "Everybody out !", came the shouted orders.    Once again the accompanying NCO's sorted the milling mob of boys and baggage into smaller groups of about twenty, and herded each section into empty dormitory rooms in the cavernous barrack blocks.    Three stories high, built when the school was founded back in the early 1920's, the prison-like atmosphere was all-pervading.    A brown linoleum covered floor, the highly polished finish doing little to disguise its' chipped and patched antiquity, formed the foundation of each room..    The interior walls, painted in the prevailing hideous two-toned "Government Green" scheme, were lined with multiple, prison bar-like runs of heavy iron steam heating pipes, installed just above floor level.    High casement windows in all the outer walls, each criss-crossed with anti-blast protection tapes, reinforced the semblance of prison bars.    The overall penal atmosphere was completed by a row of very strange looking iron contraptions, arranged two by two down each side of the long room  . . .  were these really racks left over from the Spanish Inquisition, and now used to torture recalcitrant brats ?    Above each "rack" hung a small wall-mounted steel locker;   at its' foot stood a large wooden box.    An area in one entrance corner, sealed off save for a panelled door, plus a padlocked rifle rack in the other corner, completed the picture.    Such Spartan surroundings !    Could this really be why he had left home ?

"All right you lovely lads, gather round".     The NCO, a not unpleasant looking man, made his announcement.     "My name is Webb ! -  Sergeant Webb !
I am a physical training instructor.   I want to show you a few things, and then you're on your own till morning.     So listen carefully ... watch what I do, and if you have any questions spit them out !"   He stepped over to one of the "racks".

"This is a MacDonald bed".    He gave a lift to one part of the contraption, and a tug to the other, which obediently slid out to form a small cot;   at least, that's what it loosely resembled.    A solid black wrought iron frame held together with tapered steel pegs, and wide solid sheet iron slats stretched longitudinally across the top.

"But where's the springs, Sergeant ?"   He smiled knowingly but said nothing.    Going to the corner of the room, he picked up three scrubby looking canvas covered pads about three inches thick from a huge pile.    Later these would be identified as "biscuits" and found to be stuffed with almost rock-hard, twenty five year old horsehair.

"Here's your springs", he grinned maliciously  . . .  smothered gasps and barely muffled laughter !    Together, laid end to end, the three square shaped biscuits just covered the top of the cot.    The Sergeant then retrieved several blankets, an odd looking round bolster of similar construction to the biscuits, a pair of sheets and a small pillowcase from other piles, and returned to the bed.    He proceeded to demonstrate in great detail  . . .  several times in fact for the slower witted members of the group  . . .  how to assemble a "fleabag" bed.    Its' intricate folds and tucks, guaranteed not to to disintegrate in the night and expose ones' bum to the rigours of an English winter, worked entirely without benefit of the ubiquitious "blanket pin" so familiar to the ex-Boy Scouts among us.

With much scuffling and pushing, the group grubbed its' own bedding from the piles, selected a "rack", and proceeded to practice bedmaking skills under the watchful eye of the Sergeant.    Once satisfied with our efforts, he explained the necessity of reading and understanding the RAF Station Standing Orders posted on the wall above the rifle racks.    In turn, he showed us the location of the showers and drying rooms, not forgetting the essential "bogs".    Finally, sitting down on one of the beds, he gathered the anxious lads around him, and we had at it.

"What was this or that like . . . ?"    "What would happen tomorrow . . . ?"    "How did one get to wherever . . . ?"    The questions flew thick and fast.    One lad, apparently a knowledgeable soccer buff, asked if the Sergeant wasn't in fact, "The Spider Webb", who had played professionally for the Watford City team before the war;    he was indeed that player  . . .  gasps of awe !

The Sergeant checked his watch.    "I imagine you're all feeling a bit peckish by now, so each of you grab a mug and set of irons from your wall locker and fall in outside.    I'll march you up to the cookhouse."    They gladly complied.    Not a great home cooked meal by any means, but even with food rationing heavily in force this late in the war, the quantities, if not the quality, were better than what they had been getting as civvies.

Back in the barracks room they sat, looking from windows, sizing up their new home.    Some chatted excitedly, getting to know each other, others penned quick notes home to satisfy promises made to worried families.    All too soon it was nine o'clock and the cry of "Lights Out" was to be heard.    A lot of excited and tired little bunnies crept into their fleabags and slept, albeit fitfully, on the unaccustomed rigidity of "Old MacDonald"  . . . . . . 

. . . 0600 Hours, August 11th, was not that far away !