You might have your family, your neighbours or your old work mates to meet up with, or the local Legion club where you can enjoy a bit of banter with the boys who used to be with the other services – but, sometimes, it’s just nice to meet up with the people who are the same age as you, and who’ve been through the same experiences.
That’s what the founders of the Old Dux Association thought. Founded in 1995, the Association meets twice a year in May and October at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) at Duxford, near Cambridge. All ranks and trades are welcome. Its aim is a simple one – to reunite old friends who have lost touch over the years.
So, to mark the 90th anniversary of the RAF, and also the 90th anniversary of RAF Duxford, Legion magazine invited some of its members to the Battle of Britain hangar at the Cambridgeshire Museum. The six veterans we gathered served at Duxford in the 1950s – the time of the Cold War, the Berlin Airlift, the Suez Crisis and the Korean War. It was a time when World War II was still fresh in people’s minds, there were still shortages and there was little money to go around.
Les Millgate, formerly of 64 Squadron, was stationed at Duxford in two stints between 1952 and 1958, where he flew Meteor jet fighters. He learned about the organisation through a driver for his local Volvo garage. "Once I came along to a meeting," he recalls, "there were so many people I hadn’t seen for probably 40 years."
Doreen Cross, one of several WAAF and WRAFs in the Dux, tells a similar tale. She recalls the first time she and her husband Larry (a former engine mechanic) attended a meeting. "We turned up at the Red Lion pub, where they’d all stayed the previous night. I knew the first four people I saw at the breakfast table when we walked in. After four decades, that’s quite emotional."
One of the co-founders of the Old Dux is Jim Garlinge. The former engine fitter had lost touch with one of his friends from the 50s, ‘Bob’ Hope, so when he heard from him after 25 years, they got to wondering what had happened to other old mates.Jim takes up the story: "Bob asked me about old so and so, and then another old mate. Then he got talking about other associations people had set up and looked to recruit members. He asked me if I was keen to do the same – I was."
The Old Dux now has more than 300 members. "We make a lot of effort to find people," recalls Jim. "But it has been a long hard struggle at times, you could go weeks and months without finding anyone and then you’d pick up a scent of someone."
Building up the membership took adverts in Legion, Air Force magazines, on radio programmes and on Ceefax. Another founder member, Don Chappell, a former airframe mechanic, even scoured electoral rolls. Don says it’s easy to explain why the Old Dux is so important to its members: "It’s the camaraderie and the nostalgia. All the people are from my generation. When you leave these camp gates, you go to mix with all generations. There’s a different balance out there – what’s good for one isn’t necessarily good for another. I was born in 1935 and there’s been a lot of changes since then in terms of what’s acceptable and what’s not. I look forward to these occasions because everyone speaks my language."
You remember the good times
The allure for the Old Dux has been aided by the fact that Duxford seems to have been a particularly happy station during the 1950s – the period the bulk of members are drawn from. Doreen’s husband Larry concedes that it helps that "as time goes by, you only remember the good times." But even so, they were good times. "I was drafted straight here from trade training and didn’t realise what a good station it was until other people would come in and tell you. Then you’d realise how special it was."
He says that a lot was down to the attitude of the officers in command, from the camp’s Commanding Officer down – and who were mostly Battle of Britain pilots and had a lot of war experience. "They knew there was more to service life than being bulled up to the eyeballs and marching – and absolutely strict discipline – they realised it wasn’t necessary."
Les agrees: "This was a happy station. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say anything else about Duxford. It wasn’t always to do with the Station Commander either. I can remember one in particular that I didn’t like, and I don’t think anyone else did, but it was still a very happy station."
Among the memories these particular veterans share are the afternoons in Betty’s CafÈ, sports days on Wednesday afternoons, drinks in the NAAFI and card schools in the billet. On rare occasions there might also be the odd dance arranged by the WRAFs. "You could go into the NAAFI, and never having spoken to someone before, could sit down next to them and strike up a conversation. It was a really friendly atmosphere all the time. There was never any back-biting or trouble," says Doreen. "You’d hear from other people they weren’t happy at other stations, but they all liked it here."
"You have to remember that TV was still in its infancy," says Jim. "So we had the radio. We used to follow traditional jazz and radio programmes like The Goon Show. If anyone had similar interests, you’d naturally stick together and go around with each other."
Then there were the big events that all the veterans remember, like the visits by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie or the Yugoslav leader Josip Tito. There were exchange visits with American servicemen – all driving expensive cars and looking a million dollars, to the extent that few British RAF men could distinguish who to salute and who not to. In the end, they invariably saluted everyone American.
They all remember the exercises the squadrons used to go on too, such as Fabulous, which meant 24-hour readiness to fly. Some of the crews were also seconded to the Essex floods in 1953, when they spent several nights bunking down in church halls while they filled sandbags to stop the encroaching tides.
Perhaps these things stick in the mind because there was no war for Duxford crews to display their bravery. The Korean War was ruled out for them when RAF leaders saw how the Australians fared in their Meteor 8s (the planes at Duxford at the time) against the North Korean Mig fighters. "They were shot out of the sky," says Les, who adds that they all volunteered to serve there despite the poor odds of surviving. "The Aussies ended up using Meteors as ground-attack aircraft, rather than as fighters," he recalls.
There were other dangers too. "I’d only been here a matter of weeks when a young RAF corporal was killed on his motorbike," says Doreen. "That was my first service funeral.
We got dressed up in all our best blues. All lined up outside – I found that very sad. There were also two RAF police corporals drowned in the river. I had to get in touch with the families – that kind of job always seemed to fall to me."
Another death occurred when there was an ejection seat accident in a hangar. "If you look closely, you can still see a black cross painted on the ground to mark the tragedy as a member of ground crew, having gone up, came down. They could be damned dangerous things if they hadn’t been made safe," remembers Les.
Mention of rivalries brings the veterans out of their brief melancholy. "There was a fierce rivalry between the two squadrons – 64 and 65. Not that we really had any problems with the other squadron. Although we never used to mix, even in the NAAFI. We used to nod acquaintances. We were kept separate, not sure whether by accident or design," says Larry.
There’s a rivalry even today. When they meet up there’s always a lot of ‘Mickey-taking’. New members are asked by chairman ‘Bob’ to stand up and introduce themselves – boos and cheers will invariably come in equal measure.
Another rivalry was between air crew and ground crew, "for their bizarre ways of going on. All their high-jinks…" says engine fitter Jim. "We were about as low as you could get in the Air Force – being in the technical trades. We used to call them all sorts of names. But at the same time, you had keep in mind that they were the people who would have to do it if the time came. And some of them did…"
Jim also highlights an often overlooked aspect of being in the technical trades – the stress of knowing that if an engine failed after you’d worked on it, a pilot could lose his life.
"You had to go out to see the pilot off," recalls air-frame mechanic Don. "He’d say: ‘Have you done all your checks, airman?’ Then he’d shake all the ailerons and look at the undercarriage. As he got in, you’d go up the steps and strap him in. You had to stay on the airfield until he came back. There’d be you, an engine mechanic and an instrument mechanic. You’d hear the engines roar off and after half an hour or so, he’d come back. If it over-ran you’d be concerned, but invariably it was fine."
Thousands of aircraft
The veterans of Duxford say they try to keep up to date with developments in the RAF as best they can. "I keep up with the hardware," says Jim. "There are much fewer aircraft now… the Hercules, the new EuroFighter Typhoon and the Tornado.
Back in the 50s there were thousands of aircraft and hundreds of bases scattered around." Former Javelin navigator at Duxford, Wilf Hodgkinson, whose twin brother Val was station adjutant, says that one
good thing now is that there is a better understanding between the services than there was in his time. "After I left Duxford, I was staff officer in Gibraltar – the only RAF staff officer among all the Navy officers. But I understood their job, they understood ours. In my early years in the RAF the other services were regarded, by and large, as the enemy.
"There was very little interservice cooperation. I think it changed with the Falklands, it was a turning point in the services. The forces were getting thin, even by that stage and it wouldn’t have worked without more cooperation, and I think it’s improved even more since then." To emphasise his point of interservice friendship, he says: "You must mention that I’m a member of the Kimbolton Legion Branch. Otherwise I’ll be in all sorts of bother."
However, while it might seem that all is rosy in the Old Dux garden – there is a big shadow hanging over them. "Sadly, we’re now getting into attrition rates. Recruitment can’t keep up with the people dying. When our generation passes on there won’t be anyone to pick it up. We lost 10 members last year who died," says Jim. "And we only recruited five new ones. Sometimes, you get members you don’t know by sight, and sometimes you don’t even know them by name. But they were still there at the relevant period, and that’s what matters. The people we know are from a band of time. The pilots from the war are almost all gone now.
"We’re realistic about it – within a few years, there won’t be any Association. We’ll all be gone. There’s no replacing us. We’ve made arrangements with the people at Duxford, they’re going to take all our assets, such as they are, photographs and memorabilia, and hopefully it will become part of the history of the Royal Air Force."
For the foreseeable future though, the members of the Old Dux intend to live life to the full. Les acts as an official Duxford guide, Doreen has had novels published, Larry runs the Old Dux website, while the others help track down new members or organise social events. Other Old Dux members have been interviewed for the museum archives.
"My wife says to me that they were the happiest days of my life," says Les. "I think she’s right. I’d have paid the RAF to fly – what a life. There was good cheap beer in the mess too!"
