Because I was so nervous about the interview, Beryl had approached a chemist friend who gave her a small white tranquilliser tablet and a larger one to offset drowsiness induced by the first. These were to be taken thirty minutes before my interview.
Ten minutes before due time I reported to Group Captain Harold Hawkins. This large, good-looking man was much gentler than I had expected. He told me to relax and said, “The old man is going to give you a going over like you will never have to face again. But don’t worry, all will be fine." ‘Harry the Hawk’, as he was known, was not to know that I was so relaxed by the tranquilliser tablet I had taken twenty minutes earlier that my fears were all but gone.
At precisely 10 o’clock I was ushered into the Chief of Air Staff’s office. I had only seen this revered man once before at our Wings Parade and the Wings Ball that followed it. Having saluted him I remained at attention in front of his desk. Looking me straight in the eye, the CAS started off in a quiet voice with the words, “So you are the puppy who chose to disobey Air Force regulations and undermined the standards of my Air Force!” His voice rose steadily as he lectured me on his intolerance to indiscipline and had resorted to thumping his desk with his fist to emphasise points by the time he had come to shouting his words.
The tranquilliser’s effects on me made everything seem quite unreal. I was taking in the words and the scene thinking: ‘He is really having to work at raising his anger.’
The next moment the Commander started to cough and reached into a drawer for a small container from which he inhaled spray. Later I learned that he was an asthmatic but at that moment he was red-faced and struggling for breath. I remained dead still knowing instinctively that I would be doing the wrong thing to offer help. The CAS was still struggling to breathe when I said, “Sir, may I tell you my story." He nodded and signalled me to sit down.
By the tine I had finished telling him how and why I had married Beryl, the CAS had fully regained his composure. His first words were very reassuring. “Son, I am so pleased you did not have to get married and that your wife is not pregnant now. I hate shotgun marriages in my force.”
For over forty minutes AVM Jacklin, all the time referring to me as “son”, told me all about his plans and dreams for “my Air Force”. He ended up by saying I was to take six weeks’ paid leave so that Beryl and I could put our lives into good order.
The Commander then telephoned Mr Lionel Harris of Bannett and Harris, a well-known, high-quality furniture shop in Salisbury, and requested that he attended to our needs; the Air Force would stand guarantor to Beryl and me. He told me I was to ensure that we set out in our married life with the best-quality furniture and a good clean home. Today, over forty years on, we still have much of the furniture we bought from Bannett and Harris in 1959 and Beryl has always kept a very clean home.
I was about to leave his office when the Commander asked me how I had come up from Thornhill. Still a bit tranquillised I unthinkingly said I had flown up in a Vampire. This news sent the Commander through the roof.
Knowing that I must have been pretty stressed ahead of this interview, he could not understand why I had not been flown up by one of the squadron pilots. When I revealed that Mike Reynolds had hitched a lift with me, Group Captain Hawkins was called in and told to change the flight authorisation for Reynolds to captain the return flight to Thornhill. As I marched out, Air Vice-Marshal Jacklin was already on the phone to Wing Commander Wilson. I felt really bad about my CO having to take another blasting from CAS because he had done more to protect me than I deserved or expected.
Beryl and I found a lovely apartment in Shema’s Flats in Gwelo that we furnished to our liking. Beryl’s dad helped us with half the money to buy a second-hand Vauxhall Velox so we were well set and happy by the time I returned to duty and Beryl to her hairdressing job.
Air Force life was idyllic. Flying was a joy and the squadron crew room was a happy place. There was always a great deal of chatter, leg pulling, reading or playing cards, Scrabble and other games. One day we acquired a chess set. Those who had not played the game before chose to ignore it. Two of these were Justin Varkevisser (Varky) and Randy du Rand, but when I came in from a sortie one morning, I was surprised to find these two playing each other at chess. I moved closer and was astonished to see that Varky had Randy’s king off the board. “You cannot do that”, I told Varky. “The king never leaves the board." Other pilots gathered and were amused to hear Randy say, “You play to your rules and we will play to ours!”
Eddie Wilkinson had a dog named Pickles who followed him everywhere. Pickles was allowed into the squadron building where his presence was hardly noticed because he was very well behaved. The one thing that amazed us all about this dog was that he was only noticed when Eddie went out to his aircraft or taxiied into dispersals. He would follow his master right through the pre-flight inspection then move off the hard-standing to watch Eddie taxi out towards the runway. Pickles would not be noticed again until he leapt up and ran out to the flight line to meet Eddie as he taxied in. Only a dog could differentiate between the many Vampires Eddie flew. They all sounded the same to us!
Nyasaland emergency
THE FEDERATION OF RHODESIA AND Nyasaland was facing opposition from black leaders who wanted the three territories of the Federation to be dissolved and independence bestowed upon each under ‘black governments’. Rioting broke out in Nyasaland and blood had been spilled before the Police and Army moved in to quell the unrest. Nos 3 and 4 Squadrons (Dakotas, Pembrokes and Provosts) were dispatched to the troubled region immediately and No 1 Squadron was put on standby. Then on the first day of April we deployed to Chileka Airport near Blantyre.
The Dakotas and two Pembrokes were still engaged in positioning ground forces around the country and Provosts had already flown missions in active support of Police and Army units serving as airborne observers and laying tear-gas screens when needed.
The Vampires were only there to ‘wave the flag’, uphold the spirits of the ‘goodies’ and undermine the confidence of the ‘badies’. Ours should have been a very soft number but the first flag-waving flight was a pretty hairy experience for me. A formation of six Vampires was to expose our presence in and around Zomba, the seat of government.
Norman Walsh led the formation of six aircraft. We took off from Chileka Airport in pairs under ‘chiparoni’ conditions of low cloud with drizzle (known to Rhodesians as guti and normal wet weather in Britain). Because we entered dense stratocumulus shortly after take-off, Norman instructed us to hold a particular heading until above the cloud where we would link up. I was No 2 in the second pair and saw Norman and his No 2 as soon as we came into clear air in a cloud valley with higher banks to right and left of our flight line. We linked up and I became No 4 on Norman’s lead. The third pair reported being above cloud but could not see our formation. After orbiting for about three minutes Norman decided that link-up would not occur and instructed the unseen pair to return to Chileka.