D.I's tough but fair. The Sgt. didn't have any parents, and after a few weeks of bullying, he was "extracted" from our hut late one night by a Corporal D.I. and we had a new Sgt. in the morning. This one had us eating out of his hand withing 2 minutes. And we won the Pass out cup and bought him a drink in tyhe NAAFI and gave him a small present.

Remeber wearing our shoes for the last week so our boots could have new heel caps and studs. Scrubbing our webbing for Passout, Each hut bought two bottles of white and one bottle of blue Properts which was miked in buckets and our belts,slings and frogs were blancoed by the D>I's we all had exactly the same colour.

Loathed the cookhouse fatigues almost everynight for minor infringements. Kit cleaning by the light of a coke stove became a habit. There were some wonderfull lads in my flight and billet. Looking back I sometimes wonder what the RAF did to deserve us! S sneering Flight Sergeant looked at us one morning about 0500hrs and said " Your supposed to be the cream of Britains Youth. Well its curdled this morning".

It was fabulous to be eighteen and get turned from a piece of putty into someone who was part of an organisation of other youngsters and Oh so very proud of all of them.