I Sank The Bismarck Read Online Free Page A

wing. This one, presumably an ex-services aircraft
and without its machine gun, was flown by a
professional pilot, a 'barnstormer' I suppose you could call
him, and he was offering joy rides for 10 shillings. He looked
like Biggles, the flying-ace action hero of boys' stories, dressed
in his breeches and high, laced-up flying boots, with a leather
flying helmet and goggles and a long, white silk scarf that flew
in the wind. Was he impressive!
    As for the experience of flying, I was astounded by it. This
was like riding in the locomotive but infinitely more thrilling.
There was the noise, the smell of hot oil and high-octane
petrol, and the speed seemed immense as we took off into the
air, high above the countryside, with the town far below us. It
was the stuff of dreams, like a glimpse of another world that
made it impossible, once I was back on the ground, to view
my surroundings in the same way again. But I thought it was
inevitably a once-in-a-lifetime experience, not something I
could ever repeat as easily as I could go riding a horse. Now
that I think back on it, that pilot has an enormous amount to
answer for.

2
Childhood Lost
    It's hard to tell if the world seemed to be becoming more
threatening and difficult because it was, or if it was just
because I was growing up and paying more attention to things
going on around me.
    I have already talked about the effect that the General
Strike had on me when I went to County Durham as a seven-year-old.
By the time I was sixteen I was certainly paying more
attention to the news on the radio and in the newspapers, and
you couldn't help noticing that the economic situation was
affecting everybody. The great crash in 1929, when stock
markets around the world collapsed and millions of people
were thrown out of work, was impossible to ignore; it was a
daily topic of conversation between my parents and other
adults. The effects of that financial disaster were still with us
in the mid-1930s and we were living in very depressed
economic times. There were a lot of unemployed people in the
streets, hardly anybody was hiring agricultural workers, and
it was not easy to find a job. There wasn't the demand for new
cars, so business was difficult for my father.
    I wanted to go to university in Edinburgh, but my parents
couldn't afford to pay the fees and pay for my keep while I
studied. I applied for a bursary, took some examinations and
was interviewed, but apparently I did not make the grade, so
I was not offered any financial assistance. With this very
negative news I had no choice but toleave school at sixteen
and start looking for work along with many others. Through
some of my father's connections in the coach business I was
offered a job in the office of a bus company in Kelso. It was a
job I hated. My life started to become depressing. I still played
rugby for the town, which I enjoyed, and continued to ride
horses at the local stables and accompany the hounds hunting,
much against my father's wishes, but these activities did
not compensate for the feeling that my life was wasting away
in a boring job as a clerk.
    I thought that I might be able to improve my position if I
saved up enough money to put myself through university. As
an extra source of income I joined up with some of my old
classmates to form a small dance band. I played the violin and
the banjo, and we toured around, performing at weddings
and giving concerts at dances in local church and community
halls. One of the band members, the only one who could
drive, would use his father's milk-delivery van to get us
around to wherever we had to appear. I continued to live at
home and paid my mother half my wages each week, which
was 18 shillings, or 90 pence in today's money. I had to buy
my own clothes and fares out of the money I had left. At the
end of the week there was precious little to put by for my
university fund.
    While I was languishing in the bus company, there seemed to
be a great deal happening in the world