DEREK RICHES SIGNS UP FOR NATIONAL SERVICE
By the late Derek Riches
DEREK
RICHES JOINS UP FOR NATIONAL SERVICE
Derek
& Valerie Riches have lived in and around Ruyton for over 30
years. While he was
so ill, Derek dictated many
great stories about his life to pass onto his3 sons.
This is one of them.
When,
way back in 1950, I
received my National Service calling up papers, the only people who
seemed to
be happy that I was disappearing into the forces, was my Mum and my
sister! I was a
great problem during the
earlier war days, with food being on ration and short in quantity and
quality,
I received whacks from my Mum on many occasions, for pinching Sheila's
jam,
butter, sugar, cheese rations etc.
I
was happy about joining up in one way, but was very
apprehensive. My
pals, either decided to
run away from the system or give into it, but the system would always
catch up
with them. If you volunteered for the Merchant Navy, you had to sign up
for
five years, however, if you joined the Royal Navy or RAF, known as `The
Brylcream
Boys`, you only had to do two years service and two to three years in
the
Territorial Army.
Brylcream
– was a
British men`s hair styling emulsion popular in the 1930s and 40s and
for
creating the 1950s quiff. Y.
I remember vividly,
during the war and
just after the war, certain newspapers were full of artistic details
and
drawings of all different parts of war time aircraft written in a boy`s
own
style as most boys were crazy about flying, dreaming of flying and the
technicalities of flying.
One day I was walking past an RAF recruitment Office in Croydon and
walked straight in and said to the officer "I
wish to become a Pilot" and all he did was laugh and
said I was far too young. I chatted to him for quite a time,
then he said,
“If you walk into this room I will test
you now and see if you are the calibre of man we are looking for”. He then gave me
quite a few exam papers
and I had to respond quickly with my answers, when suddenly he stopped
and
burst out laughing, he said “sorry chum,
please go away and come back in the future when you have improved your
maths” and
that was the end of my dream to fly.
B
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Derek
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