have vague recollections of "Sweet Violets", something to do with "Kirriemuir", "The Good Ship Venus", "Mr Banglestein", "Foggy Dew", and others for which lewd impromptu verses were composed as the evening progressed. All put the words to "Colonel Bogey" in the shade. Most vociferous in these choral attempts were our instructors, the CFI, and our CO, all of whom taught us more that night than was on the curriculum.11 With heads ringing we returned in slovenly fashion to our rooms. Some wag, as a practical joke, removed the light bulb from the ceiling fitting in the room of a chap who was the worse for drink and somewhat later in getting back. Drunk as he was, he knew what to do. On striking a match he spotted the bulb on his bed. Next, in the dark and swearing mightily, at the second attempt he succeeded in climbing on his bed and reached for the ceiling with the logical idea of sliding his fingers along until he found the light fitting, and so to replace the bulb. No such luck. His little plan didn't work out as expected. Instead of touching the ceiling his fingers went straight into the lamp socket and touched the live tits. His knees buckled and he collapsed onto his bed. Quickly recovering, and somewhat more sober than hitherto, he chased, caught, and debagged the culprit who by now had owned up. The bulb was eventually replaced. After some further minor skirmishes we settled down for the night.
One afternoon an Oxford flew in low and fast over the airfield, without warning, in the middle of normal flying, and beat the place up at less than 30 feet, only just managing to clear the chimneys of a nearby building. The pilot was a student from either RAF Wellesbourne Mountford or RAF Pershore. The aircraft number was taken and reported. The pilot, identified as a previous Desford trainee, was immediately admonished and chopped from his course. In wartime his spirited flying would have been admired and, after having the stupidity of his actions pointed out to him, he would have continued his flying career. In peace time discipline was rigorously enforced.
With 30 hours dual and 28 hours 45 minutes solo, including totals of 3 hours 30 minutes night flying and 4 hours 15 minutes instrument flying entered in my Log Book, I left Desford on the 1st of September for a week's leave before my posting for the next stage of training.12

Chipmunk Instrument Panel

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11 Later in my RAF career I realised that some of those 'songs' had even viler versions but, by that time, only a small proportion of aircrew would stoop so low as to sing them. However, they were commonplace and frequently aired during the war years.
12 This was additional to the separately recorded previous 12 hours and 5 minutes dual in Tiger Moths during Grading at Digby, i.e. 70 hours and 50 minutes airborne in all. 23