Another leadership exercise involved our travelling to the nearby derelict domestic site on the disused Hibaldstow airfield. Once there, the task allotted was to form a team and build a tower at least ten feet tall, on top of which three of our number were to stand. In order to achieve this we searched for, and wrenched off, a suitable number of doors from within the huts. With these we built our tower in the manner of erecting a house of cards. One Cadet stayed on top while I (being the tallest) was given the task of passing the doors up to him and steadying them while he leaned them together in the form of inverted 'V's. Five feet high was achieved easily using only five doors, but things got much more complicated when the next storey came to be added. The original first storey had to be extended and a double layer of doors added flat on top. With the base for the second storey now more secure, its construction commenced in like manner. But there was only one man up there and he was atop this flimsy structure. To get another two up there to join him involved building a human tower alongside. The lightest Cadets were chosen to go aloft. The first made it but on attempting to raise the second the whole doings collapsed, fortunately without injury. Time was running short. At the next attempt, when the tower was put up again, we lifted the second man into place at first floor level, then the two of them rebuilt the second floor and somehow scrambled on top - without any sideways stability to help them. This done, the third man was stood on a door flat on the ground and hoisted by several of us to above head height from which precariously wobbly base, accompanied by much very bad language and contrastingly gentle assistance from above, he carefully climbed aboard to complete our task - with just five minutes to spare.
There were moments of relief. Occasionally, on a late afternoon, some of us found a few minutes to walk to the western edge of the airfield and look across the main road which ran along the top edge of a steep escarpment. From there we watched the columnar clouds rising above the flat land beyond. We were learning meteorology and these clouds were perfect, beautiful examples of 'clouds of marked vertical development' actually growing in an otherwise stable atmosphere above some artificial man-made heat source such as a power station. The last rays of sunlight shining from behind them created a perfect picture.
When we had time the films at the Astra Cinema distracted us for an evening.6 One night a stage show was put on by the permanent staff. Mike and Bernie Winters were stationed at Kirton, and one of the acts was theirs.7 They mimed to gramophone records and even cajoled an unpopular SP to come on stage, much to the amusement of the audience.8
The cinema also had daytime uses. One day our course was marched to it for 'Lecturettes'. I was astounded, even before we had all found seats, to hear my name called and being told to go up on the stage. Before I actually got there I was told to speak to the audience, for three minutes, on 'Gates'. I couldn't have been luckier. I knew the subject well. Others were less fortunate and mumbled and "erred" and stumbled through. We had two sessions of this, so that everyone had to speak on their allocated topic, gaining or losing course marks accordingly.
Our 'official' but personal diaries of events and attitudes during the course were handed in weekly for scrutiny. Marks were awarded for the standard of English and the accuracy of descriptions. There was an event which I considered worthy of more comment in my diary than usual; this was the administration, by the MO, of our 'jabs'. We were detailed to assemble in the partially underground decontamination block adjacent to Station Sick Quarters after lunch on an unusually warm afternoon.
__________________________________
6 All RAF Cinema Corporation cinemas were named 'Astra'. The RAF motto 'Per Ardua Ad Astra' was often skittishly translated as "From work to the cinema"!
7 They later became radio and television personalities.
8 SP = Service Policeman - another loathed breed at that time.
13