my dreams

byJohnEdwards1

282 followers

6 years ago

I had a dream

I was living as a young lad on a farm in Devon, I was born in 1926 and I

had two brothers and two sisters, I remember some talk about me

having a twin brother, but he was sent to live with relatives in

another town, we all had to do our share of work on the farm, but

it was a good healthy life, and we all got on very well together.

That is, we did until I was conscripted into the RAF in 1944. The

Second World War had been raging for five years and with massive

RAF bombing campaigns over Germany. They were looking for a trainee

wireless operator navigators and that is how I found myself in an

RAF camp at Locking on the outskirts of the Somerset seaside town

of Weston-super-Mare.

It was supposed

to be a short, intensive course and they worked us hard, but we did

get some time off during the weekends and we usually took the bus

into Weston and enjoyed strolling along the seafront, we had been

warnedabout enemy activity as shortly before a German

Messerschmitt 109 had flown in from the sea at low level and

machine gunned a group of RAF lads from the camp as they sat on the

sea wall, unfortunately, killing several of them.

Our first

flight was quite interesting.

The training of

us potential navigators and wireless operators was quite intense

but towards the end of the course the monotony was broken up by the

practical side of our training, this involved a flight in an Avro

Anson, one of the RAF’s twin engine low wing monoplanes, it was

quite nerve wracking as none of us had ever flown before.

“Cheer up, my

lucky lad’s today is your lucky day. The weather is good, and I

have booked a flight for this afternoon for you to do some hands-on

navigating”

There was a

buzz of conversation from the excited students.

“Quiet down now

and I will tell you a bit more about it, we go down to the airport

at 2 o’clock to check out the equipment and get you suitably

attired, you will have to wear tank suits because it gets very cold

up there as we fly through the clouds.”

“How long is

the flight? Have you been before? Where will we be going? Is it

dangerous?” These were just some of the questions, the excited lads

asked.

"I cannot tell

you where were going. It is going to be your job to get us back to

Weston" laughed the instructor.

“For the rest

of the morning we are going to practice our wireless skills, so

turn on your old number 19 wireless sets, put on your headphones

and try to tune in to our practice channel"

The morning

flew by. As one by one we tuned in and reported, after lunch, we

boarded an old Bedford lorry and made our way down to the, Weston

airfield less than a mile away, while we were getting ready, we

could hear the pilot warming up the plane’s engines.

“Nothing to

worry about. We do this nearly every day and we have not had a

crash since last month" joked the instructor.

“Now we look

like real aircrew"

One of my

classmates said this jokingly, but I suppose we did really, with

our flying helmets and tank suits all carrying our headphones and

clipboards covered in maps. One by one we climbed the ladder and

took our places inside the cabin, the first thing I noticed where

the heavy black curtain’s that could be pulled over the

windows.

“Give me thumbs

up if you are strapped in and ready to go.”

“Ready to take

off Sir" he said releasing his send button.

“Pull the

curtains over, that is the last you will see of the outside world

on this trip”

We each had a

complete set of navigation instruments and as the plane climbed

into the sky, we started to plot our course, bearing in mind we had

to find our way back.

I think most of

us succeeded in our objective and satisfied the instructor, anyway,

he said, congratulations as we walked away from the aeroplane, so I

guess he was pleased with our progress, it took us about half an

hour to hand in our flying kit, but finally we climbed on the lorry

and went back to Camp

When we got

tired of walking around Weston we would call in the bus garage,

which was beside the Grand Atlantic Hotel and catch a bus to visit

the surrounding countryside, we could go to Brean and visit the

next bay along the coast, but we were lucky if we could get a seat

because it was what they called V type buses, as a wartime measure,

they had removed all the seats from the centre of the bus, which

were now placed all the way around the outside enabling it to carry

many more standing passengers, most of whom had to stand.

Then there were

the funny little buses that went the other way towards Sand Bay, I

cannot remember what the route number was, but the buses were in

the W653 range, I was told they were made by Dennis and given the

name Dennis Mace, they were cheerful little things that rattled

along, but the conductor had little room to move down the aisle and

issue tickets.

Sand Bay at the

time was a restricted area as the Navy were conducting weapons

trials I think they even called it HMS Birnbeck, but we managed to

get a nice long walk along the hillside of Sandpoint. We usually

caused a bitof a stir amongst the young local female population

who could sometimes be seen hanging around outside the camp on

their bicycles. Some of my fellow service men had girlfriends in

the town.

The tide goes

out a long way in Weston-super-Mare, in fact, it has the second

highest tidal range in the World, the tide there goes up and down

by a maximum of 42 feet, the only other place with this sort of

tidal range is the Bay of Fundy in Canada.

During the

1930s, the local council had decided to build what they called the

Marine Lake, they built a dam across Glentworth cove, which retains

the sea water to make a natural swimming pool which meant there was

always somewhere for the locals and visitors to have a swim in sea

water, even if the tide was right out, right out means nearly out

of sight.

The water in

the Marine Lake was changed every time the tide came over the dam,

the tide comes in over hundreds of yards of thick mud, natural

sediment for a tidal estuary, when the tide went out the sediment

settled out of the trapped water, and gradually built up over the

summer season. The council spent most of the winter working to get

rid of this thick mud at the bottom of the lake.

They had a

thing like a plough which they used to pull the mud towards an open

drain valve in the dam wall where the emptying water would flush

the mud back into the sea, the plough was operated by steel cables

powered by a steam winch situated in a concrete pill box on top of

the wall by the swimming pool, the boilers that heated the pool

also provided the steam for the winch.

We sometimes

went to visit this Marine Lake where we could hire a rowing boat

from an old man called Jack or John the young lad that helped him

and practice our rowing, on a nice day there were always plenty of

people sunbathing or swimming in the sea water that had been

captured by the dam that created the lake It was wartime everything

was still rationed, including clothes, so the local council came up

with this brilliant idea that they would buy some plastic swimming

costumes that they could hire out to the visitors.

Unfortunately,

unlike the people that hired them these costumes were all the same

size, we spent many a happy hour, leaning over the railings

watching the frantic efforts of the swimmers trying to preserve a

little decency, the costumes were all bikini style and made of

shiny red plastic, some of the faces on the ladies nearly matched

the colour of their costumes.

My friends and

I went out on this particular day catching the bus outside the

camp. We scrambled up the stairs to the top deck from the open rear

platform, it was one of the dozen new utility busses made by Guy

MotorCompany, they had just been supplied to the local bus company

I noticed the number as I got on it was W3671, and a few minutes

later, just as we were passing the Weston Airport there was a

sudden commotion.

We were

laughing and joking looking forward to our day out, there was a

shout from further back in the bus, it was a young lad we knew by

the nickname of chalky because he had such a pale complexion, he

was standing up looking out of the window and he shouted “He is too

low, he is going to hit us” I can see him now with the horrified

look on his face as he watched the aircraft that was coming in to

land at Weston airfield approaching.

Then there was

this terrible bang and he was gone. I blinked and looked again and

I could see the two men that were sitting in front of him were

still there, except they had no heads, the undercarriage of the

aeroplane had sliced through the flimsy wood and aluminium roof of

the bus like a knife going through butter.

The only other

memory I have is looking down at the wrecked bus and the bodies

scattered around it and then the Avro Anson aircraft that had just

crashed landed on to Weston-super-Mare airfield, it was one of our

training aircraft returning from a routine flight, it had come in

too low and collided with the top deck of our bus, ripping the roof

off and killing not only chalky, but myself and several of our

colleagues.