Memories: Zambia, 1966, Part 2

This is a postscript to my earlier ‘Blog’ – ‘Memories: Zambia, 1966’

Many, many years ago we were sent to a small town in Zambia called Ndola.

There were four of us in total. We were one Airframe Fitter, one Electrician, one Avionics person and me – the Engine Fitter. The Airframe chap was a Corporal as was the Electrician. The Avionics fitter and I were both Junior Technicians. Very junior in my case.

On arrival we were met by a bunch of guys who informed us that they were thirty-six in number and that they had organised themselves into a three shift system.

The next morning they all waved as one, climbed onto the first Bristol Britannia and left us four to split ourselves into three shifts.

Our officer, Flight Lieutenant Ignatowski, assured us that Emergency Draft people should relieve us imminently. Sam Hackett, the Rigger Corporal, voiced our thoughts. He wondered how Emergency Draft people who knew nothing of Bristol Britannias would be able to cope until we had trained them.

Thoughts of going back to Kenya in the near future evaporated so we made ourselves as comfortable as possible in the Adult Education Centre that had been acquired for our use as billets.

Three months working twenty-four hours a day seven days a week later we were sent back to Kenya having completed the basic training for the forty-eight people sent to replace us!

In truth, the Britannias never came in thick and fast so there were often times when we could go to the Railton Club and get drunk. Or we could go to the Buff Lodge and get drunk. Sometimes we could go to a bar in town…

At one point we were billeted with three RAF Policemen who arrived rather later than anticipated.

One of them, called Jim Short who was five foot sixteen and an ex-miner from Geordie Land, explained that they had gone to the Movements Officer at Kenyan Air Force base Eastleigh and asked how to get to Ndola.

He had supplied them with bus and train timetables and the numbers of sundry taxi firms. One of them got lost en route and so only the three arrived a month later. The ‘Lost One’ ended up back at Eastleigh where, no doubt, he discovered that they only had to go to the Airport at Embakasi (as it was then) and get on board a RAF Britannia to go straight to Ndola!

Perhaps the investigative powers of the RAF Police are not quite as good as they thought they were.

However, speaking of getting drunk… One evening I wandered back from a bar in the town feeling extremely relaxed when I decided to take a short cut to the gate at the front of the Adult Education Centre. Perhaps ‘decided’ is not quite the right word since making logical and rational decisions was hardly part of the repertoire of thought processes at that particular point in time!

The short cut entailed an unsteady wander across a stretch of grass - part of which had a shadow running along it parallel to the Centre’s fence.

Imagining it to be a shallow dip in the contours of the grass (previous memory being wiped clean by imbibing copious quantities of the local beverage) I stepped into it…

…and became weightless for a second or two.

On regaining consciousness, I found myself in the company of the Medical Officer, Flt Lt Graham Hubbard, and two local gentlemen. The MO was cleaning me up and examining me minutely.

At the end of this examination he declared that nothing was broken and in spite of the extraordinarily large swathes of blood down my left side he could only find two small holes in my left ear at the top of the pinna.

My wonderful Moygashel jacket in Chelsea’s Royal Blue was ruined!

I endeavoured to reward the two local lads for pulling me out of a seven-foot deep monsoon drain but they would have none of it. They told me that they would face severe inquisition should they be discovered to have a quantity of cash for which they could not account.

The opinion of the Medical Professional was that I had been bitten by something with very sharp teeth that had introduced a blood-thinning agent. He then enquired if I should care to donate blood to the local blood bank.

“Do I,” I asked him, “have any left?”

He laughed. All four of us went the next day and donated blood for which we were rewarded with a bottle of beer and a photograph on the front page of the local press.

In the top photo I am on the extreme right next to Ken Tinsley our Avionics chap.

We had become famous and 'Castle' beers had a free advert!

On a sad footnote: Our Avionics Fitter, Ken Tinsley (pictured above) was recalled to the UK shortly after this. On leaving RAF Lyneham the car that picked him up was hit by a lorry. He and the driver were both killed.
RIP Ken. You are still missed.