I was an only child and was born on the 4th of June 1920 in Huddersfield.

Eight years later my family moved from Huddersfield when my father, William, who worked for Lloyds Bank, was offered a promotion to assistant manager at the West Hartlepool branch. My mother, Maude, ran the household. My dad was an only child, but my mum had 7 sisters and 3 brothers. In those days it was not easy to maintain a regular contact with people and having left the family behind in Huddersfield, we rarely had contact with our relations. My dad bought his first car, a Woolsey Tourer, in 1928. In those days you applied for a driving license and were issued one without any sort of test whatsoever. My dad travelled down to the Woolsey factory (what is now the Jaguar Landrover car factory) in Birmingham and drove the car back home with a member of the factory staff who “taught him how to drive” enroute.

I went to West Hartlepool boys high school where I discovered I was useless at most sports but excelled in French and Engineering. My favourite pastime was being a Boy Scout and in 1935, I was lucky enough to go to a world scouts jamboree in Copenhagen. We were privileged to be allowed to camp in the Danish king’s Hunting Lodge grounds and the next day our troupe was inspected by the King and Queen and the Crown Prince of Denmark. I also used to enjoy dog walking and inventing crazy objects such as a “roller-skate sail” (which did actually work).

In December 1937, at the age of 17, I joined the Scottish Union and National Insurance company, West Hartlepool, as a junior clerk.

In those days it was pretty obvious to most people that a 2nd Second World War was going to happen. The only uncertainty was when. Having recently won the 1st World War, the majority of English people were still in a very regimented state of mind and believed in doing whatever was necessary to save their country. It was “expected” that parents would encourage and support their teenage children when they had the opportunity to sign up for any of the armed forces training. So, my parents both encouraged me to choose which of the 3 armed services I wanted to join, the option of not joining any of them never occurred. Many parents also believed that once the war started all teenage children of age would be forced to join a national service so the earlier that their child started training the more skilled and ready they would be when they went into active service … and therefore have a better chance of surviving. I can’t imagine the true feelings that parents had in those days for the future and safety of their children.

So… a few months before my 18th birthday (1938), I joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as a Sergeant Pilot. My training consisted of 2- hour lectures on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and flying training on Saturdays and Sundays. I learnt to fly in a Tiger Moth and to this day it is still one of my favourite aircraft.

Why did I choose the RAF? When I was 15 years old, Sir Alan Cobham’s flying Circus came to Hartlepool and for the princely sum of £0-5s-0d (25p in modern money) my dad bought me a 20 minute flight in a “de Havilland Dragon Rapide” airplane with Sir Alan Cobham himself as my pilot. It was the greatest experience of my life to that date and what led me to choose the RAF. In addition, I did not fancy living in a trench or bouncing up and down on a ship.

I started service training on May 20th, 1939 (aged 17 years 11 months) and I was officially “called up” as a volunteer to join the service in the RAF on September 1st 1939. I started at the Hartlepool ITR (Initial Training Ring) for 3 months and I was then sent to the Initial Flying Training School in Reading where we had days full of lectures for another 2 months, which did include flights in Magisters. Next, I was sent to Ternhill airfield for 2 months where we flew Ansons and learned bombing practice, air to air firing, etc. Aston Down and Church Fenton were my final destinations where we learnt to fly Blenheims and Magisters. I managed to proceed through all of my training without the need for any “Repeats” and got my “Wings” on February 17 th 1941.

It had taken about 20 months of training and at the age of 20 I was an operational fighter pilot for the RAF. WW2 had started 6 months previously and I was about to dive into a fast and furious period.