Larick House

In May 2022, we received copies of Joe’s War Service Record from RAF Cranwell. 2 A3 colour photocopies of Form 543A complete with 12 pages of common abbreviations! This the story of what I managed to decipher.

In September 1939, Joe had served his apprenticeship with the C.W.S. and was working as a Butcher’s Manager. He was living at home at 25 Park View, Padiham. I don’t think his was a Reserve Occupation so I’m not entirely clear what happened between then and September 1941, when he enlisted with the RAF.

The fact that pre-war, his younger brother Tom, spent three years in Egypt with the RAF probably influenced his choice of Service. Joe’s service record shows that he originally applied to the Aviation Candidates Selection Board to be considered as Air Crew but was recommended for training as Aircrafthand/Flight Mechanic Airframes or Engines with a rank of AC1

His initial postings until December 1941 were to various Recruit Centres for inoculations and basic training. 3RC was RAF Padgate, Warrington and 2RC, RAF Cardington, near Bedford.

In March 1942, he was sent to No 2 School of Technical Training at RAF Cosford, Albrighton near Wolverhampton. 2 S of TT had opened in 1938 to train airmen in servicing aircraft. Over 70,000 engine and airframe mechanics, fitters and armourers were trained there during the war. In July 1942, he was transferred to RAF Wig Bay near Stranraer and served here as part of 57 Maintenance Unit until May 1945 with short trips away in November 1943 to 3 S of TT at RAF Weeton near Blackpool for further training and in July 1944 to Windermere where Shorts had a temporary plant making Sunderland MKIII flying boats.

From 1 to 28 June 1945, he attended a Royal Navy course at RAF Locking (No 5 S of TT) near Weston- super – Mare via RNB Lee -on- Solent for 1 day, presumably so that he could for some unknown reason, be transferred to the Royal Navy, who paid his release benefits. He was discharged on 4 July 1945 under Para 652 Cl22 of King’s Regulations – “services no longer required”. Total service was 3 years 297 days.

Joe spent nearly 3 years at RAF Wig Bay on Loch Ryan near Stranraer. The Loch was an almost a perfect location for patrolling the North Atlantic and for training personnel and servicing the seaplanes needed to do this. There was plenty of space for mooring planes and later for their storage, prior to disposal. Facilities in the camp seemed to be limited and locals have recorded how service personnel were often forced to occupy condemned buildings in the local area. I vaguely recall visiting the area with Joe many years ago and him telling a story about how he had to walk for many miles in order to get back to the base presumably after he married Mum in April 1944. Little of the former base which closed in 1957 is now left but efforts are being made to record what remains and to capture local memories.

At first, it looks as though Joe was trained as a Flight Mechanic (Engines) FME and as such he may have had to fly in the planes he was servicing to ensure that they were performing optimally in flight. Later, he became an Engine Fitter IIE which I think was a more specialised, land based trade, fitting and repairing aero engines. Throughout his time served his character was always assessed as “VG”and his proficiency as “A Sat or U/T “when under training. He also rose in rank to AC2, and then Leading Aircraftman, confirming his sister Agnes’ view that he was a hard working, conscientious individual.

A number of operational squadrons headed by No 240 Squadron arrived and left RAF Wig Bay over the war years with aircraft types such as Consolidated PBY Catalinas, Saunders-Roe Lerwicks and Short Sunderlands all being present. As a serving member of 57 Maintenance Unit, I assume these were the types of seaplanes he was helping to keep flying.

The garden produced bumper crops of cucumbers and corn, while mice or rabbits scoffed all the peas and purple kale. The flower gardens are almost there and provided some colourful displays into autumn. A combination of weather and additional away trips has meant the winter work is still not complete but hopefully will be by the end of the year (with a bit of help from John).

Although we had done some child sitting for The Birches during the summer, our first experience of dog sitting took place when Ralph was left at home for the October school half term. Whilst I’m sure he would have loved a trip to The Netherlands with the rest of his family, he seemed very happy with us and was ‘nototheraball’, behaving perfectly on a run up Tinto and at Strathclyde parkrun.

Despite suffering from a summer of aches and pains involving bouts of ‘furniture-walking’ and trips to the physio, Suse took the bull by the horns and entered the Tinto Twin night and day ‘O’ event in Pollok Park. Here, she surprised everybody including herself, by winning her age class and now has the trophy to prove it. Meanwhile, John was last in his favourite race at the Taynish National Nature Reserve. Perhaps attempting such a challenging event just after having flu and covid jabs wasn’t the best idea.

Although the new van had proved more than acceptable on trips to Glasgow, we decided that it need to be tested on a longer run before finally committing to its full camper van conversion. Accordingly, we invited ourselves to visit relations and friends in Chesterfield, Pontefract, York and Sunderland. Suse’s cousin’s wife dying meant adding in Wolverhampton and brought the round trip to a total of 1000 miles. Apart from the funeral obviously, we thoroughly enjoyed seeing friends and relations we hadn’t seen for some time and added the Van Gogh exhibition in York to our 2023 cultural experiences.

Not all of the horror stories we were told about fisticuffs at Gretna Services and the like were true but the e.v. charging scene in England is much less co-ordinated than in Scotland. We came away thinking that being dedicated orienteers probably helps with becoming comfortable about longer e.v. Trips, especially in England. The meticulous planning undertaken for our rail adventure in the spring has to be applied to driving an e.v. anywhere. Fortunately the trip doesn’t have us looking for a trade-in. Far from it, the van is now booked in for its first phase conversion (windows and pop-top roof) in mid January 2024 with the remainder scheduled for March.

Because of his professed aversion to ‘heuchter cheuchter’ music, Suse was left somewhat puzzled when John agreed to attend a practice session for The Loch Fyne Occasional Rehearsal Band – a ceilidh band. She is convinced that alcohol must have been involved but actually the invitation was by WhatsApp. Two practices later, the Band played for a select audience in Tarbert and a good time appears to have been had by all. Listen to this space…

The early part of the summer saw us involved with the Kintyre Way Ultra again, this time from Tayinloan to Campbeltown. Long-standing friends, Neil & Dorothy, marshalled for the first time and it took Neil a few days to “marshal” his thoughts after their baptism of fire! The finish was in Springbank Distillery where Suse took to opportunity to get “Lauried”. We were also grateful to sweepers, Emily and Richard who earned his missing coaster and now has the full set.

On the way home from the funeral, we called into the Banksy exhibition in GOMA in Glasgow. Generally, we were OK with it but perhaps the sentiments expressed in the exhibition clashed with the marketing and general media hype? Suse was happy because she got to do her own bit of “tagging”.

July saw Suse attending her usual week in Stirling at Tai Chi Caledonia, then racing to source and proof read material for the Tai Chi Union magazine in time for publication in August. Meanwhile, back at Larick House, the owl-cam had been set up and we were lucky enough to get some pictures of what was going on. Unlike the last time they visited, we didn’t see quite so much of them and to be honest we weren’t entirely certain when they left.

In August, we teamed up with The Birches in Findhorn to attend the Scottish 5 days. The event suffered from decisions made by the organisers about access to the events for camper vans but on the whole it was worthwhile, giving The Birches a proper try out of their new camper van and us some quality time with their dog Ralph. The main thing that happened for us was that we were more exposed to fully electric vans and camper vans and the seeds of change were obviously planted.

Having failed in our discussions earlier in the summer to convince the Energy Saving Trust that we were suitable candidates for a heat pump grant, we decided to push on with a new battery linked to our solar panels which did exceptionally well this summer). In itself, this appears to have been a sensible move but the change of energy suppliers which it triggered, exposed problems with our smart meter which, because of where we live, can’t be solved. Octopus, our new energy supplier, didn’t earn many brownie points in the way they handled things and we are still waiting for them to find an engineer who can be encouraged to come to Kintyre and install a dual rate meter that will give us access to cheaper overnight electricity.

Despite these shortcomings, when thinking about the forthcoming car and van MOT’s, we decided to take the plunge and explore the availability of an electric van. It came as a bit of a shock when misgivings about changing technologies, lack of range and poor charging infrastructure were quietly put aside and we quite quickly did a deal for a Toyota Proace. More about this later.

Our first trip in the new van was to the Grayson Perry exhibition in Edinburgh, which we both agreed was outstanding.

When all non-essential contact and travel in the UK was stopped in March 2020, Emily’s carefully planned trip to New Zealand to celebrate her 40th birthday with her family was put on hold. Finally in Spring 2023, she was able to realise her dream and this is what we got up to…….