Amport? Never Heard Of It!

A Memory of Amport.

Septemeber 1950. We had just completed our eight weeks basic training at RAF West Kirby and were all eager to know where our next posting was to be. Against my name was RAF Amport but this raised a problem, no one had a clue where it was. I remembered that the education section had a map on the wall showing all RAF stations in the U.K. but the only place remotely similar in name was RAF Airport in the woolly wilds of northern Scotland! I hoped there had not been a mistype? Eventually the Sergeant in charge came up with the answer; RAF Amport is the Headquarters of Maintenance Command, he said, it's in Hampshire near Andover.
After a short spell of leave I arrived at Andover railway station and upon asking how I got to Amport. was told there was a local bus service. After waiting quite a while an old fashioned 1930's coach pulled up - this was the local service to Amport.
The coach chugged out to RAF Andover, turned left and made its way through a labyrinth of country lanes. Eventually the coach swung round in front of a pair of huge iron gates and the driver directed me up the lane to the right.
I walked up past the church and eventually came to a large wooden hut which was RAF Amport's guard room. Unlike other camps I had been to, there were no fences, no gates and no guards, just a couple of elderly Air Ministry Constables sitting in the hut drinking tea!
I spent my first night sleeping in a dormitory over what used to be the stables before transferring to a collection of dilapidated huts on the way to Thruxton. The accommodation was very basic with no heating or hot water in the bath house. There were two ways to get from the huts to the main camp, the long way round by road or, a (long) short cut across the fields - the latter not to be recommended on a dark night!
I have fond memories of the local bus service, not only because it took me into Andover for nights out and to the station for weekends at home but because it was like nothing I had encountered before. There were it seemed no regular bus stops, people hailed the bus from the doors of their cottages, or simply flagged it down anywhere along the way. On return journeys it was not unusual for the driver to help elderly ladies with their shopping, sometimes even carrying it into the house for them. .
I had only been at the camp for a few weeks when there were more new arrivals, who decided to spend their first evening in Andover. Unfortunately no one had told these lads that the last bust left town at 10 p.m - they had to find their way back - five miles through that labyrinth of lanes on foot and in the dark! These poor chaps arrived back very late, looking a trifle disheveled - unable to find their way and with no one around to ask they had been obliged to climb road signs and use a cigarette lighter to see where they were going.
On one dark winters evening a colleague and I decided to attend evensong at Amport Church - the congregation consisted of the vicar, a couple of locals and the two of us. With no organ, or even a piano, I struggled to sing the hymns when everyone else, including the Vicar, seemed to be tone deaf!


Added 15 December 2014

#337110

Comments & Feedback

I was called up for national service on 17th march 1958. After squarebashing at Wilmslow and trade training at Hereford I was posted to Amport together with another airman called. dereck cansell.We eventually got to andover and I well remember the old buses that took us to the camp. They or it was run by a company called razeys bus service and charged 3d for the trip from andover to the camp. On arrival on our first day I well remember the police hut and overnight we were put in acorrugated iron nissen hut nearby. The next day we were assigned to our permanent huts and our work places. I was in P3 Drafting and my work load was about 2 hours a day .The rest of the time I spent playing football and cricket for the camp. I stayed there for 20 months and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was very sad to leave in 1960 and often wished I had signed on for anextra year.. I have relatives in devon, and on numerous occasions I have stopped off by the a303 and reminisced.Sadly it is no lon,ger an raf camp, but only recentlyi stopped off and wandered round the football pitch and actually worked out wher my bed space had been! from the internet I understand id is going to be re developed for housing. How Sad!. I have wonderful memories of raf amport which will never go away
Hows that for a coincidence! I also worked in P3 Drafting section which was in the process of being transferred in from Gloucester when I arrived and our first job was to set it up. The officers in charge were Squadron Leader Cutler and Flight Lt Richardson. I started off running the registry under Sergeant Faulkner but when I got promoted to Corporal I moved over to postings under Sergeant Bulmer.. We had about four civilians in the section who seemed to do very little - one of them regularly tucked himself away behind filing cabinets for an after lunch nap! I recall being duty airman whose job was to do wake up calls starting with the cooks at 5.30 a.m.. The cooks lived in the Nissen huts by the guardroom .and finding the right cook in the pitch dark with only a torch was a bit tricky - waking the wrong one was not a good idea! The new huts up the road were built while I was there by a labour flight - mostly Irishmen who were always getting drunk and having fights with army lads in Andover .
Indeed what a coincidence. We had a flt lt shaw brown in charhe of p3 and a group captain in overall charge whose name I cant remember. I do remember the C.O was sqdn ldr penman who was an ex Lancaster pilot who got a DSO for a tree top raid overGermany. To receive his flying pay he would allow us to join him in flying trips in a chipmonk from andover.Wonderful gentleman who received a full page obituary in the telegraph some years ago. Where do you live? It would be great to meetup and reminisce. Kine regards Mike Windebank (SAC retd!)
Just as a rider to the above. a few years ago we stopped by where the camp had been and after my trip down memory lane we called in at the local pub for a drink. in the old days it was a real old country pub but is now a rather posh pub/hotel. I said could my wife and I have two glasses of sauvignon blanc please to which the barman replied certainly sir that will be 11.pounds fifty. I said What- that was 3 weeks wages the last time I was in here. he said when was that sir- I said 15th march 1960-- and with a very straight face he said- im afraid prices have risen slightly in the last 53 years. I seem to remember a pint of beer cost about 10d in those days
2021 news is that Amport House is destined to become a very smart hotel, part of 'Another Place' hotel group, and will be called 'Another Place - The Garden'. Plans are being drawn up, and the group hope to start building works at the end of 2021 with a goal to open by Christmas 2022.

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