Pen Portraits: what happened next

John Trevor - Armourer

Transcribed from an audio interview, January 25th 2020

Apprentices of the 69th, including John Trevor (bottom right) in front of a Gloster Meteor at Halton.On leaving Halton was posted to RAF Upwood, along with Peter Kershaw.

There were no rooms when we arrived so we had to sleep in a drying room for a while.

Got posted to Singapore after only three weeks. On the way we stopped off at Naples, where I remember drinking really awful Italian coffee, before we ended up in Rangoon.

The hotel had loads of fruit we'd never seen before, like mangoes and papaya.

Finally landed in Singapore in the middle of the night, and there were no beds again.

I enjoyed Singapore, where I was nicknamed "Ginge" - we had an Australian squadron of Lincolns, although there was a grim incident where a bomb fell out of one of them and landed on someone, squashing them through the lattice of the bomb trolley.

There was also an incident when someone let off a rocket from a fighter plane and it went right through a wall and into the admin offices. Luckily it was a dummy.

There was also the time when 15 1,000lb bombs were dropped on the end of the runway. If they had been armed at the time the officers' mess and the married quarters would have all gone up.

After about five months, went back to Upwood. On the way back we all got dysentry in Pakistan, then the York we were on broke down in Malta, so we had to change an engine before we could get back.

From Upwood, got sent off to Nairobi to relieve Peter, who had been posted there. When I got there there were no beds again, so I slept on a mattress under a plane wing in the hangar. I ended up sleeping in the aircraft when the monsoon rains started driving in all the snakes and rats.

Conditions and food were bad - knocking hard-tack biscuits to get the weevils out first - and John Profumo came over on account of the unrest.

I discovered that I could get some good food by working on Mackenzie's farm, which I did for three weekends. Did five months in Nairobi until the government let Jomo Kenyatta out of prison so that was it.

Then got posted to Aden - they didn't even know we were arriving so we had nowhere to sleep again. I lived on a balcony for three months. I hated Aden - everything we ate had sand in it.

We were also low on ammunition so somebody had the bright idea of digging up an old WWII bomb dump out in the crater. No way!

Nearly got Court Martialled when re-arming a Lincoln with a couple of national service lads. Went off to get some ammo, came back and one of the lads looked like he'd got a bad case of prickly heat, but it was because a round of ammunition had gone off on the hot tarmac.

Investigation team came down from Egypt, but luckily I hadn't signed or even seen the "Middle East" guide which included how not to put ammunition on the hot ground.

Ended up back at Upwood, was a bit fed up. We were changing over from propellors to jets and I hadn't done much work on jets at the time.

We'd lost a couple of Canberras from high-altitude crashes. Went to one crash near Huntingdon and heard a noise when I was guarding the crater. Got my torch out to see just a head in a helmet being eaten by a fox.

Turned out that the crashes were caused by energy from the antennas - which were buried in the canopy - setting off the explosive cord [used to break the canopy during emergency ejection], also embedded in the canopy.

An Avro Shackleton MR2 of No 203 Squadron at RAF Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, in RAF Coastal Command prior to a flight to Iceland and Norway. © IWM (RAF-T 4493)After a year back at Upwood, applied for aircrew. Had an interview at Biggin Hill and ran into Joe Harris, a fellow Yorkshire corporal. He knew all the answers and helped me get the job.

Got posted to Swanton Morley for aircrew training. After a year got posted to Coastal Command at Thorney Island, got a nice cottage in Havant.

Was due to fly one Friday night, but a mate desperately wanted to get to a wedding so asked if I could swap. The aircraft crashed near Carlisle, everyone was killed. I had fixed his car only the week before.

Was then at Kinloss for four months on a course. Had a nice apartment at Finderholme Bay.

There was another crash involving night flying doing circuits and bumps. One one circuit they missed and hit a hill. One crew got thrown out but went back in to haul a crewmate out. Got the Military Cross and became a police chief inspector in Kent.

Kinloss wasn't a very happy place - rules meant you had to go over three miles away to get a beer.

Avro Shackleton MR.2 WR960 X of No 228 Squadron, RAF St Mawgan, flying low over the water near Longships Lighthouse off the Cornish coast c.1957. The Shackleton’s tailplane and twin fins are evidence of its Avro heritage. © IWM (RAF-T 326)Next stop was St. Evel, near St. Mawgan. Another night arrival, another wrong bed. Became friends with Paddy, who'd angrily thrown me out because it was his bed.

I was then at St. Mawgan for three years - had half a bungalow on the clifftop at Mawganporth.

I used to surf on a home-made plywood surfboard. Saw a helicopter fall into the sea, then saw the old woman from the bungalow use her canoe to rescue the crew.

Then got posted to Malta. Got there on a civilian flight which took three goes to land because of fog.

Had to get back to the UK after only two or three days and got a lift with Lord Mountbatten in his Bristol. Was in Malta for three years - used to go all over the Meditterranean.

With only 18 months left in the service, was sent to navigation school at Hullavington, near Cirencester. Enjoyed this as it was only five days a week with four hours a day flying.

Once flying in a Varsity over St. Mawgan, Freddie said "can you smell smoke?" - the plane was full of smoke. Remembered a few weeks before the batteries had been changed and wondered if it was that. Landed in Somerset and just managed to stop a fireman from hacking through the fuselage with an axe.

Airfield commander said "how dare you land on my runway". We said "we were on fire". He replied "That's no excuse".

Freddie and his brother were Belgian and had walked from Belgium, through France, Spain and Portugal and then got a fishing boat to the UK in order to sign up during WWII.

Left the airforce around 1965 to go into Air Traffic. Did a course at Bournemouth, then posted to Preston Centre. Then went to work on radar at Manchester and was there for 28 years, finishing as ATCO 2.