From Cardington we were dispatched to the Midlands. The purpose of this initial training at Hednesford is to break down the individual and build a unit of men able respond to orders instantly.  This takes two months during which time you are never called by your name, just (in my case) 2,769,955.  In fact there was only one occasion in the whole period when the sergeant spoke to me personally.  Even then it was from a distance of 50 yards and in an unfriendly tone,

 

'If you don't swing that arm Airman, I'll pull it off and hit you with the soggy end'.  

 

The other memorable moment from the first day was when we were issued with our unforgiving uniform.  You couldn't grumble that it was a bit tickly.  When you first put it on it was hot. They gave us brand new RAF issue braces. These had great flat leather thongs that were to go over the trouser buttons -  but they wouldn't.  It seemed to take hours to get each of the six buttons through the six leather tabs of the braces.

 

The RAF had to feed thousands of hungry young men and the mass-produced mess food was just that, a mess.  A hard day's training, for those of us who'd just come from a sedentary school life, created a great hunger and we ate everything put before us. Even the washing up was unique. As each group marched out of the mess after a meal we'd pass two very hot vats of water. The first had a thickish film of grease and lots of bits floating on the top of the steaming water. The idea was you dipped your irons (knife, fork and spoon) in as you passed. A quick wash in vat one was followed by an equally quick dip in the second rinsing vat. It's about the same size and temperature, but had slightly less scum.  I still have such a knife in the kitchen drawer and it is good for all sorts of jobs: the obvious ones, but also opening tight lids, unscrewing screws and applying 'Polyfiller'. Irons are indestructible. The other culinary item was a china pint mug. This was for your tea and after a few days it took a lot more cleaning that you'd expect.  The inside became a dark shade of brown which wasn't anything to do with the strength of the tea. It was said to be caused by bromide they added to the beverage to keep us calm and subdued.  It needed an abrasive (we used Vim) to scour the surface back to white  -  for the pleasure of the sergeants who might inspect kit at any random time.