Free On My Way to Samarkand: Memoirs of a Travelling Writer by Garry Douglas Kilworth Page B

me lagging behind the other young would-be killers of the enemies of Britain, but I still managed to attain my Marksman’s badge. Bulleyes and magpies were good of course, but the main object was to group your shots inside a one-inch diameter circle somewhere near the middle of the target. If you did that you would get your Marksman, a cloth badge of crossed rifles worn on the left sleeve.
    We also rattled away on the range with .303 Brens – light machine guns on bipeds – which we learned to strip down and put back together swiftly and efficiently. These were all obsolete weapons from Second World War and went out of service shortly after I joined the grown man’s air force, but we Boy Entrants thought they were state of the art.
    I made many friends at Cosford of course, including a big Scottish lad named Tam Keay, who used to take me to his parents’ farm in Perthshire while on summer leave. Tam was quickly promoted to Leading Boy, then Corporal Boy, and finally Sergeant Boy. He was a born leader, someone who I looked up to with great respect. Like all good leaders he was fair, just and tough as they come.
    Then there was Alan Cake, who was not a leader in any sense. A tall willowy boy with a dark complexion, but along with Rod Williams he formed the intellectual lobby of the 29th Entry Telegraphists.
    Mike Ormiston, the son of a colonial policeman, was very assured, elegant and confident. Mike knew all about etiquette, was knowledgeable and worldly, and if you wanted to impress your girlfriend’s parents, you went to Mike for lessons first.
    John Chidlow, already mentioned, was a miner’s son whose wiry body whipped into action when a fight was necessary.
    Johnny Ball was a London boy, full of a cockney’s sense of humour, with a square muscled body and a love of adventure. Johnny was not 29th but 27th Entry, but had been put in charge of us in ITS to teach us the ways of Cosford before we went up to the Fulton Block.
    Finally, there was Bob ‘Titch’ Nottage who had been in my class at Rochford school. We had both been surprised to see each other at Cosford, not knowing that we were joining at the same time.
    Many other good guys, too many to list.
    Then there were the bad boys, of course.
    Blake (not his real name, but close to it) who tried to strangle a boy with his bootlace, and thereafter became known as Bootlace Blake.
    There was also a hard Glaswegian from the Gorballs, whose head-butt was greatly feared.
    At the far end and far side of the Fulton Block, resided another tough boy in the Senior Entry who made everyone’s life a misery, but fortunately the telegraphists and those in other wings rarely mixed.
    Finally, there was Boy Entrant Mallet, whose younger sister Rosemary had been my girlfriend at St Mary’s school. When Mallet went away to Cosford, I started going out with a girl named Valerie. She had once been Mallet’s girlfriend. Mallet was in the Senior Entry when I was in ITS and he was therefore quite a bit older than me. He took exception to the fact that I was dating his ex-girlfriend and sent one or two thugs down from the Fulton Block to beat me up. He never came down himself. The bully boys that came searching for Kilworth took one look at me (I was 5 feet-nothing in those days and weighed seven stones) raised their eyes to heaven and went back the way they had come. They would not get the reputation they desired by thumping the hell out of a squirt like me. If they had come back in two years’ time, they would have found a boy who had grown 8 inches and put on a few more pounds. By that time I was a flyweight boxer and probably worth punching.
    I did see some nasty incidents. A ‘hard man’ came down to ITS one rainy day and demanded Alan Cake give him his cape. Alan said no and the result was that Alan went down like a felled tree, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. He was kicked and told to get up. Alan, wisely, stayed where he was. It wasn’t a terrible incident. Just a