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I volunteed for the RAF because I wanted to be a flight engineer. I went to Halton to train, where I was selected to be an engineer.
We had 2 weeks training handling tools. We were given a box of tools which we had to make a model with but we could only use one drilling machine. If you passed with a score of 80% or more you could keep the model .It was very rare for anyone to pass.
Two of us passed Larry Hicks from Durham, got 80% and I got 80.5% ( I’ve never seen him since and would dearly like to know what happened to him).When we went to collect our models they wouldn’t let us have them, they had to be melted down for scrap. I argued long and hard with the squadron commander. It’s a wonder he didn’t put me on report, but I was young and I’ve always spoken my mind. He wouldn’t budge however and it still upsets me now to think I never got that model back.

I travelled the country far and wide. At Hutton Park I had the job of putting radar in Whitley Bombers (all very hush hush at the time) My wife came down for a holiday. They offered to take her up in one of the planes but she wouldn’t have it
’I don’t want you going up there either,’ she said. But of course I had no choice.
I was also sent to Thornaby and Billingham, where I worked on the Spitfire Mk5.

On one occasion we called in at The Fighting Cocks in Middleton St.George. I was introduced to a lady and two RAF officers. We spoke no more than two minutes than went our separate ways. Forty seven years later whilst on holiday with my wife in Cornwall we were sat having dinner in our hotel. My wife said, ’those four ladies over there are talking about us. Do you know them?’
I looked but didn’t recognise anyone. About half past nine one of them came over and said, ’Is your name Ray?’
Yes I said, were you a WRAF, did you work at Thorns? I went through every where I could think of where I had worked with women. But it was none of them. It was the lady I had met all those years ago at The Fighting Cocks, Lena Bohl. She had remembered me even though we had met only minutes. After leaving the pub she was on her way to being dropped in France, as a linguist. Something she did three times throughout the war. Of course we couldn’t have talked about that at the time. But I was astounded that she could remember me on such a brief acquaintance.
Disclaimer.Story submitted by Susan Brown at Shildon Library on behalf of Mr William Ray Longstaff.

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