Having settled in at West Beckham, I decided to go home on a weekend pass. Not having done the journey before, I tagged onto a couple of lads making for London. The rail route was from Sheringham to Peterborough via Melton Constable, changing trains at Peterborough for the Glasgow to London express. The train took its leisurely time getting to Peterborough then stopped short of the station on a track that took a left turn into the platform from whence our London train was due to depart. To my astonishment, all the RAF personnel on my train threw open the carriage doors, jumped down onto the tracks and ran for the London platform. I followed, feeling very unsafe scrambling across rails, not knowing whether trains were on them or not. We all reached the platform as the train pulled in. I was told that crossing the tracks was quite normal, as although our train was supposed to be a scheduled connection for the London train, the Glasgow train always got there first. At Euston it was down to the Underground and the Bakerloo line, which at this time terminated at Watford Junction, though I alighted at Bushey and Oxhey and walked to Vale Road. Life at home journeyed its daily units into the future. Nobody there enquired after mine, so no change there! I resolved that this type of visit was not worth the trouble or expense.

A special train put on for servicemen during the war left Liverpool Street station for Norwich at 2.40 on a Monday morning, and was still available. It was really a mail train with purpose built carriages for sorting mail on the move, with two ordinary carriages hitched on the back for service personnel. They were dirty, had no corridor and usually no heating. When they were heated you couldn't control it, so you baked. It reached Norwich around 4.30, but the train for Sheringham didn't leave until an hour later. A cafe near the station was open all night, and a pleasant warm hour was spent drinking tea. The proprietor had detected the need for his establishment during the war, but clientele had sadly reduced in number since. The slow train to Sheringham stopped at every station, and it was a relief to get off at eight o'clock. The bus was waiting and took us to the nearest stop to camp. About fiteen of us walked to camp, and arrived at the guardroom at the usual time of 8.30. There seemed to be some delay at the guardroom window, and eventually the sergeant SP came out and told us to fall-in in ranks. He then explained that as our passes expired at 08.00 hours, and it was now 08.30 hours, we were all on a charge. This precise concession had been allowed  during the war to enable RAF personnel a maximum time in London, and having continued ever since, we were at a loss to understand the sudden change. We never found out, and it never happened again, but our charge was supported and seven days 'jankers' was handed to each of us. This consisted of parading in full 'change of station order' at eight thirty in the morning for inspection. If you had anything in your packs just to keep their shape instead of the regulation contents, you were sent back to change things and were threatened with a further charge should you be so stupid again. This, even to having water in your water bottle! At the evening parade, you were allocated fatigues, usually some form of impossible cleaning in the cookhouse. I usually ended up in the 'tin room'. Here, you were confronted by a huge mound of filthy baking tins and trays which you 'cleaned' with a floor scrubbing brush, no detergent, and lukewarm water. You could just about manage to remove the surface solids which seemed to satisfy inspection. After a pleasant evening spent thus, it was off to final parade in full webbing for inspection at the guardroom. For the duration of jankers of course, you could not leave the camp.
I only ever suffered one other charge [again collective] occasioned by a most heinous crime. Thursday night was 'bull' night, when floor, windows, brasswork, lamp shades and stove had to be polished. Next morning, weather was good, so all doors and windows had to be open. While we paraded outside for inspection, the CO and entourage toured all the huts looking for trouble.

We stood awaiting the outcome of this, and were informed that all members of our hut were on a charge, and to report to the orderly room after the parade. It was the day of the year for 'spider flying'. The one day when temperature, windspeed and humidity are perfect for young spiders to anchor their thread to a high position and launch themselves to a new life. Wind direction decreed that their new life be routed through our hut windows to a perfect family-raising site on the far wall. The CO's party decided that we were guilty of failing to remove cobwebs from the night before, even though it was obvious we could not have walked out of the hut without breaking them. Service logic at its best! We got three days for that.

Christmas arrived, and as the camp could not be left abandoned, those who had to stay over were chosen by lot. Guess who! The tradition of the officers and NCO's serving dinner to us erks was a most embarassing experience. This role reversal, dating from Roman times, was supposed to be a good natured brief leveller for oppressed and oppressor. The idea was that you could demand more turkey, or send back the pudding for more custard, and that your superiors would comply with a light heart.
During my two and a half years with the service, I never experienced an SP with a heart, light or otherwise.

      1948

At West Beckham it was trade-test time, when hopefully a/c2's became a/c1's, and a/c1's became LAC's [leading aircraftsmen] and so on, with an increase in pay of course. I managed a/c1, and due to people being demobbed, found myself acting i/c [in charge] of the watch at Bard Hill. This was more daunting than it sounds. Apart from the seven or eight erks on the watch, there should have been a senior NCO in overall charge; who never actually came on watch with us. When an officer came on the the line from Watnal requiring to speak to him, it was down to me to impersonate! I got used to this until one night, an officer who actually knew the NCO came on, and began reminiscing before confirming who he was talking to. I realised I couldn't impersonate this time, and said he was on leave. Very close!

Before taking up my exalted position at Bard Hill, I still had to perform the single man guard duty as previously mentioned; when your only visitor for twenty four hours was the ex WW2 commando, living locally, and dropping in from time to time to empty the latrines and enjoy a convivial cup of tea. He, who had once turned up unannounced for this duty, one dark windy winters evening, and been attacked with a poker by an erk who assumed the devil had come to eat him.

To me, this duty was a pleasant change from routine. A time to savour your own company, enjoy a book, listen to AFN, [American Forces Network] and make tea and toast with the special RAF waxy tinned cheese, just when it suited you. The guardroom was about ten feet by eight with four and a half inch thick brick  walls, and a door at one end, giving onto a porch opening to your left which had been a blackout light-trap during the war, but which now had no outer door. Two steel framed Crittall single windows were provided in each long wall, one about eighteen inches from the wall opposite the door, the other about five feet from that. The bed had its pillow end against the wall furthest from the door. As you lay on your back, your right shoulder was against the wall with a window just above your head. At your feet was a table supporting the PBX and the key log book. To your left was a table upon which reposed radio, hotplate, kettle, teapot and rations. Against the left wall was a coke burning stove with double doors. There were no curtains, and after dark, you couldn't see out. You were too far back from the edge of the slope down to the sea to observe lights from Salthouse and the coast road.  About ten feet away from one corner of the guardroom was a Nissen hut, the 'tech-stores', with the usual corrugated iron superstructure on a concrete base.

The radar block was seaward about twenty five yards. As I have said, this duty was a pleasure and normally uneventful, but just once, I was extemely relieved and happy to welcome my next dawn.
I had finished with the day and was ready for bed. The doors on the stove had been closed for the past ten minutes, and opening them, the almost white hot coke illuminated the room enough for you to get to bed with the light off. I had switched off the radio and drifted into sleep to the sound of the breeze gently stirring the grass outside and the cooling coke settling in the stove.

I awoke with a start, feeling some noise was responsible, but no echo remained. I listened intently, but nothing. The fire was down to a red glow, and I inspected the room. Although the key was turned in the lock, you always jammed the chair under the handle before sleep, and this was intact. Convincing myself that all was well, I settled down again. I wasn't asleep when the noise that must have first wakened me happened again. It was as if someone had drawn a stick along the corrugated iron of the tech stores for about six convolutions, then stopped. My imagination was searching outside for some natural explanation. The wind moving things about perhaps; but the prevailing breeze couldn't have shifted anything to make this noise. My brain conjured more disturbing reasons. A person! Perhaps more than one! If so, for what purpose were they roaming about on the uneven heath without lights. Perhaps they had seen the glow from my windows and were coming to investigate. My thoughts were interrupted by another drag of the stick over the corrugations, then silence. Could it be someone deliberately trying to disturb me? If so, what sort of person would find amusement in such behaviour? Ghostly airman? As the noise came again, my brain began giving up on rational scenarios, and fear gradually crept in. Giving up on others possible motives, I found myself trying to pinpoint its location and timing. The stick-on-railings noise lasted about three seconds, and repeated every half minute. It had been going on now for about five minutes, and I had just decided its position was at the far end of the tech stores, when the distance suddenly halved and the noise got louder. Lack of an explanation for any of this steered my brain into the primitive mode of Fright, Flight or Fight. The hair rose on the back of my neck, but although the three Fs took over, I couldn't move. The louder noise continued intermittently then there was a long pause. I was allowing myself to think it was over, when it began again, this time vibrating the corner brickwork of the guardroom just below my head. It was now against my building, and I had given up on what it could be. I could only wait with my fear for it to reach a conclusion. I was facing away from the window immediately behind me, and had pulled up the covers so as not to be visible from outside. I suddenly 'sensed' a presence at the window, and there came sounds of scraping on the glass, and a definite scuffling on the window sill outside.

My breathing was now laboured, and heart was trying to beat its way out of body. Brain had relinquished all attempts at rational explanation; abandoning me to a black terror, but commanding that I confront it. In one quick movement, born of extreme panic, the whole of my back alive with 'pins and needles', I sat up and faced my horror. In the red glow from the stove, I met two large 'letter-box' grey eyes, atop which were two long pointed white horns. Below, a long nose and white beard. The eyes regarded me inquisitively. The apparition was nearly enough to drive out what little reason I had remaining.

The goat, standing with front legs on my window sill, and I, regarded each other unmoving. I, with courage gradually returning; the goat, no doubt, with mere curiosity. I had always been an avid reader of Dennis Wheatley, and I think the atmosphere conjured by his 'goat of Mendes' prolonged the encounter.
I lay exhausted, sleep gone. I got out of bed, switched on the light and prepared to make tea. The goat had gone, but light from the windows reached far enough into the night to show two goats, now grazing. They both had collars with long heavy chains attached, which of course, accounted for my unidentifiable noises. They grazed an area, moved forward, grazed another area, moved forward, pulling their chains round the corner of the buildings, about every half minute!!