From Atheist Cartoons

13th November, 2009

The MEAF Band travelled all over the Middle East Command, playing for Parades and for entertainment of course. From Habbaniyah in Iraq, Amman in Jordan to El Adem (Libya), Aden and Bahrain we were ferried by RAF Transport Command. I have already mentioned the Hastings, but there were a couple of other types that played their part.

Number One is the Pig — a nickname fondly bestowed on it because of its generally perky porcine shape. I have seen it described as a 'VIP Transport', but the writer obviously hadn't travelled as I sometimes did, sitting on our crates of instruments. Warned of an impending landing (or take-off) I would sit on the floor with my back to a bulkhead: no seats and so no lap-straps. At other times, of course, the plane would be configured for passengers with all the usual spartan fittings. It's real name, by the way, was the Vickers Valetta. There was a civilian version of Porky, the Vickers Viking, which some may remember. There's one in BEA livery at Brooklands museum…

The other bus was rather a different matter. It had only come into service in the year before I joined and was at that time the largest toy in the RAF play-box. This was the Blackburn Beverley, a flying pantechnicon with impressive short runway take-off and landing capabilities, but the aesthetic appeal of a winged thunder-box. We mere humans climbed up the stringers at the side of the freight compartment, through a trap into the fuselage, where the passenger seating was to be found. I remember being amazed at the acceleration on the runway — it really got going. although once in the air it was no sprinter. This was a huge machine, and was only finally seen off by the arrival of the massive Hercules which does the heavy lifting today. I have no idea how many hours I spent in these various 'kites', the Hastings, Pembroke, Valetta and Beverley: I became so accustomed to sleeping the miles away that on at least one occasion I was asleep before the wheels left the tarmac…

One disappointment. There was an occasion when the boss said that there was a Canberra going to the same destination as our transport, and would I like to fly in the bomb-aimer's station, in the nose. Would I! The Canberra was our main jet bomber, developed as a replacement for the wonderful Mosquito of WWII and after, and I had never ridden in a jet. Sadly, it was soon realised that I had never been through the necessary decompression testing, and so I had to fly in the every-day prop-driven Hastings with the others. How mundane. For a minute there I had been a very happy chappie!

5th November, 2009

Kenya in the late 1950s was the best of all the places the RAF took me to. The Mau-Mau emergency was at an end — they stopped the campaign medal about three days before I qualified for one — and the parts of the country I saw were beautiful. It occurred to me that there was so much LIFE all around, I wouldn't have been surprised if an ear to the ground didn't hear a heart-beat… Everything, flowers, insects all larger than life!

My memories are kaleidoscopic now: An evening in town where I fell in with a couple of Kenya Trackers — these guys were bush cops, who arrived in town every so often with six months' accumulated salary to spend… one said that everybody knew his face, so why didn't I have his Warrant Card… which I did, and the three of us had access to every club in the city! I drank Tom Collinses, quite a few of them… I remember sitting in on congas with the band at the Equator Club… and I remember riding back to camp — on the bonnet of a taxi!

We visited the Bata Shoe factory — I have no recollection as to how or why, but we did. It was self-contained, with its own tannery, and the cowhides arrived a one end and shoes came out at the other. They made very light shoes, because many of their customers would be more accustomed to goimg barefoot, and they were keen to grow the market. And it must have worked: fifty years later it seems Bata are still active in Kenya.

Jacaranda trees planted down the centre strip of Princess Elizabeth Way, the ground around them carpeted with luminous blue/lavender blossoms…

Sunday morning jazz at one of the hotels on P E Way, with our chaps sitting in with a quartet from Goa, led by one Olavo Vaz, on tenor. We fixed it for Olav to sit in on our Military Band rehearsals on clarinet, as he wanted to improve his sight reading… It must have helped because he later came to the UK and became a respected session player. I found myself conducting him as a member of a 'big' band at a concert at the Fairfield Hall in Croydon some thirty years later.

'Civvy' gigs were possible, which was a handy boost to the bank balance. I remember going all the way down to Arusha in Tanganyika (now Tanzania of course) to play at a Greek wedding. The band was led by a trumpet player called Cyril, who had been with Billy Ternent's orchestra before coming to Kenya and setting up an insurance business. I can't remember his surname… we piled into his big station wagon, and set off down the red dust road. It was like a trip through one enormous safari park - Zebra, Giraffes, Tommys (Thomson's Gazelles) all over the shop. We narrowly missed one zebra that hurtled across the road from behind a rock. Then we spotted a large something trotting down the road in the distance — could it be a rhino? That would have been worrying, but it turned out to be an enormous wild boar of some kind. A chain of monkeys swung themselves across the road. It was on this trip that I snapped his handsome lad, a Masai cattle-boy.

When we reached Tanganyika, we were suddenly driving on tarmac… I noticed that the locals were subservient here, as if they would have touched their forelocks if they had forelocks, on seeing the white man. The penny dropped as I realised that Tanganyika used to be German East Africa…

On the camp at Eastleigh, seeing a bush of some kind full of brilliantly coloured birds. They turned out to be starlings, but not the comparatively drab chaps we see here. These rejoiced in the name Superb Starling, and had black heads, vivid orange bellies and bright, iridescent blue backs. Unbelievably gorgeous!

Our billet was one of a pair of huts (and thus a 'hutment') the other having been used as a club house at some time. We refurbished it so that we had our own club, and threw parties to which we invited young nurses — people behaved themselves in general and a good time was had. Some of the girls were employed at the Lady Northey Home. I was there on New Years Eve, with the only nurse left in the place — the others having swanned off in jeeps, with guys from the Kenya Police — and she and I ended up doing a midnight feed for all the babies in the place, going around with the bottles. I heard the place was closed down not long after that…

About six months later, we got the news that we were to return to Cyprus. I recall that we were told to travel in civilian clothes - something to do with flying through dodgy air-space somewhere — possibly over Israel or Lebanon, I really can't remember. Somewhat hung over, we climbed aboard a Handley Page Hastings, crewed by officers who had also been on the town the night before. One of them arrived with a souvenir under his arm — the fascia board from a Nairobi Laundry.

In those days, RAF Transport Command aeroplanes were fairly spartan inside. No cosmetic cladding — you had the skin of the plane and the stringers and various pipes to look at. Catering took the form of a cardboard box, containing (always) ham, and a hard boiled egg, along with other dubious items, and wooden cutlery! To drink there was always 'lemonade' in an urn, made from lemonade crystals. On that Nairobi—Cyprus journey I sat for many hours in a draught, from an ill-fitting window… I know we landed at Khartoum at one point, and I think that was the only break in the journey. At last we landed at Nicosia, and as the door was opened we smelled again the piney scent of the island. We were back, and it was Springtime.

3rd November, 2009

The journey to Nairobi was less than simple… For some reason best known to our Director of Music, F/O Wagner, I was given charge of the rump of the band left when the main aircraft was full. There were six of us, and I carried all the documentation. While the rest of the band flew gaily on, we were left, stuck at Khormaksar, in Aden. I can't remember the whys and wherefores of it, but it meant that we six, we unhappy six, suffered a fortnight of Aden's horrible humidity and heat, including quite an impressive sand storm.

The reason for the band's moving to East Africa, was the impending visit of HRH Princess Margaret. They needed a band for the ceremonial events, and also for the socializing and schmoozing that would ensue. After two weeks in Aden I plucked up courage (I was only a lowly Leading Aircraftsman after all) and marched into Air Movements, and requested a flight, 'Priority 2". That made them laugh a bit, but it was true — Priority 2 was 'Royal Commitments'. I filled out the forms, and they gave me the precious Authority, which I still have somewhere! We were on our way…

What that Air Movements Authority provided was a Percival Pembroke, a twin engined high wing monoplane, with room for eight passengers. Seven really, because the navigator sat in the cabin. That same aircraft is, I believe, the one at RAF Duxford today, shown in my picture. I was asked to do two things on the flight: 1) Since the undercarriage my side was a bit lacking in the oleo department, it took quite a long time to extend fully after take off. I was to nip into the cockpit and tell the captain he could now retract it. 2) The navigator was tired, and asked me to watch out for a road (which gives you some idea of the terrain we were flying over) and wake him up when we crossed it. We landed twice for fuel, at places that I wouldn't want to go near in today's political climate, Port Sudan in what was then Italian Somaliland, and Hargeisa.

Finally we landed at RAF Eastleigh, which was then also the civilian airport for Nairobi. As we walked away from our Pembroke, I looked back and it was standing at a very odd angle, owing to that flat oleo…

The band had been given accommodation well away from the rest of the camp. Whether this was for our benefit or for the rest of the camp was never decided. We had a long wooden 'hutment', with four-man rooms on both sides of a corridor, a huge washroom (indoors!) and at one end a large band room. After Aden the climate was a treat — so much so that I didn't see any need for a mosquito net, until I woke in the early hours being dive-bombed by the blighters. This was, of course, malaria country, so I made sure of my net every night after that! Nairobi is on a plateau, somewhere about 6,000 feet (1795m) above sea-level, and we had to re-mark all the breathing places in our parts to allow for the thinner air. Brass players were given an ointment by the MO, designed to prevent cracked lips.

It was all very much more civilized than our life in Cyprus had been, with no need to carry weapons when leaving the camp, a small but delightful city at hand and very friendly people — among them a lovely character who was our bearer, Jonas s/o Were. (s/o = son of). He did laundry tasks, and generally kept the place habitable. On pay-days, which were once a fortnight, you could see a line of taxis tracking across the veldt to our home from home, to take parties of us into Nairobi: the destination, The New Stanley Hotel, on the corner of Kimathi Street and Princess Elizabeth Way, (nowadays Kenyatta Avenue). The attraction was the dining room…

The New Stanley dining room (not the up-market Grill Room) boasted a 7 shilling lunch menu. On the card were seven courses, which I suppose you were meant to make a choice from. Not so our lot — we went through the card, including several trips to the enormous buffet table, and finishing with an elegant savoury before trooping out into the lobby for coffee (all included). The food was wonderful, with enormous rich steak and kidney pies, fillets of lake fish flown in daily from Lake Victoria… and it cost us almost nothing. So — big question — why was the food on camp so poor? In fact, before we arrived there had been a strike over it, with even the Service Police blokes taking to their beds rather than work. There was still a large 'Saint' haloed match stick man painted on the mess roof. I later met someone who had been there who confirmed to me that it had all happened. That was Don Hunt, music director to the stars…

We had a Christmas at Eastleigh, and chose to patronize the New Stanley for lunch and dinner: twelve courses and thirteen courses respectively, for which the total damage was 25/-! Then out to the foyer for more drinkies — "Nataka Tusker Lager moja, baridi sana!" And they even made their own crisps, in the ovens with the roasts, and they arrived still warm! Nirvana…

We went to the cinema in the afternoon, It was some flick about nurses — The Feminine Touch was the title. "The Bedside Manners and Morals of Those Wonderful Girls in White!" with Delphi Lawrence and Adrienne Corri, and it got quite gloomy in places. I remember looking along the row at all these blokes still wearing silly paper hats, staring in a lip-trembling, lacrimose way at the screen. It really did look very funny!

28th October, 2009

I have just read that the 5th October, forty long years ago, was the date on which Monty Python's Flying Circus first sidled onto our TV screens. I say sidled, because it was rather shamefully treated by the British Broadcorping Castration, in that the weekly episodes did not have a consistent time slot, and sometimes they were pre-empted by a soccer game or something of the kind. Nevertheless, its burgeoning fan base, mostly students I suppose, followed it tenaciously, and it broke through and — well — completely revolutionised he TV comedy of the day. Well… there was, of course, Spike Milligan's 'Q' series, but that never achieved the 'viral' status that Python managed.

Is it still funny? Yes, it bloody well is! Last evening I watched several episodes, episodes that were very familiar. Even so, I guffawed when John Cleese, in the corner shop, turned to leave in his extraordinary Silly Walk. He must be sick and tired of it by now, but it is still hilarious.

I think back to recording sessions at Trident Studios, just off Soho's Wardour Street. If it was a night when the Flying Circus was on, we would take a Python break, all trooping into reception where there was a (gasp) Colour Television set, and settle there for half an hour, musicians and engineers alike, only returning to the studio after the full half hour, with cries of 'My brain hurts!' 'It will have to come out…'

Of the films, And Now For Something Completely Different was made for the US market, and was composed of re-run sketches from the TV series, filmed in a disused dairy somewhere. As it happened, it flopped in America, but did well here, where we had seen all the material before! M P and The Holy Grail was a much better production, and actually, despite the miniscule budget, was made to look absolutely wonderful by its two directors, the Terrys Gilliam and Jones.

Then came their best ever cinema project, M P's Life of Brian. A coherent plot, brilliant sketches carrying it forward, and some very good performances from the Pythons combined to make a film that I still watch today with a great deal of pleasure. And of course it has bequeathed a catch-phrase still heard — 'He's NOT the Messiah — he's a very naughty boy!'

5th October, 2009

Yesterday, 30th September, was International Blasphemy Day. A bit of a quandary, that. I mean, while I have no truck with gods, godesses and 'sacred' books, I also don't go around seeking out altars to spit on. Besides, I don't really know how the term has any relevance to me, a non-believer.

The dictionary (Oxford Compact) comes up with:

noun (pl. blasphemies) irreverent talk about God or sacred things.

Well, I'm hardly going to be 'reverent' about the non-existent — that would be as pointless as theology! Webster's has an additional meaning: "the act of claiming the attributes of deity". Can you see me doing that? And since I don't consider any book as 'sacred', well, I just don't see how I can commit 'blasphemy'. It has been suggested that the main thrust is to piss off the pious, which, while entertaining, is hardly constructive. So I didn't do anthing outrageous at all…

The one thing I would support is the campaign in the Republc of Ireland, where the ultimate Irish joke has them instituting a beefed up blasphemy law, just after we successfully concluded a long drawn-out campaign to abolish ours. The problem is, they have a written constitution, which was framed when the Church had the country firmly in its palsied grasp, and it apparently demands such a law.

Meanwhile, MediaWatchWatch has this blasphemous illustration, with something for everybody!

1st October, 2009

Where the hell did August go? That 'whoosh!' I heard must have been its departure…

I've just collected the various bits and bobs that I had published on this page about my early collisions with music making, and moved them to their own page. You can access les memoires if you are so minded, and have a strong stomach, from the menu to the left, over there, marked “Music and me” — a cavalcade of clap-trap, admittedly, but mine own.

7th September, 2009