Royal Airforce Gaydon

A Memory of Gaydon.

I was posted to RAF Gaydon in the summer of 1963 after serving 3 years in Cyrpus at RAF Nicosia. I underwent training on the Victor BMK 1 and then to 232 OCU where I found life a lot tougher than I was used to, tiring shift hours, extreme pressures to get 4 aircraft into the air in 4 minutes, an incredible sight, what must those aircrews have thought. We did lose one Victor, it crashed in woods near Stratford on Avon, and I had to help guard the crash site. There arose a situation over Cuba and I feared for my family, but thankfully Russia backed off. Those years were tough. We had to service aircraft outsied in awful weahter, sometimes snow almost up to the winds. I served alongside some of the RAF's best, Sam Sadler, Taff Evans, Dia the Boot, Artie Shaw, Pete Vacher etc. From there I was posted to RAF Marham in Norfolk to continue in the Cold War, but that is another tale.