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When we were ‘called up’ we went to a very old pub, called Jack Straws Castle which we called our headquarters. We were told we had to choose which branch of the service we were going to become permanently attached to. We were told of a new branch which was becoming available, but you had to volunteer to join it. It was called ‘Special Duties’ and our authorities wouldn’t tell us the type of work involved. Since we thought Equipment Branch was pretty dull we thought Special Duties could be no worse and slightly more interesting so we opted to apply for it. It was during the time when Radar was being introduced to the Royal Air Force. We went to Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire where we trained for three weeks as Plotters where you had a long rod which had a battery at one end which created a magnet at the other end and was used to move arrows on a map indicating the position of aircraft on a map in the control room. We wore earphones and were in contact with the radar observers who said that there was a flight of aircraft coming over the Channel and we had to identify whether they were ours or enemy aircraft. We had knowledge of flights heading off on bombing runs and an estimate of their return time, also the aircraft carried identification equipment which transmitted an identification signal. Leighton Buzzard didn’t have any aeroplanes and was mainly a receiving station.

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