Phillip Holt's World

I was interested in the aircraft, knowing as many schoolboys did in those days the flying heroes, the fictional pilots like Biggles, the manufacturers and aircraft models and names, both military and civilian. This interest has stayed with me, noticing an old abandoned English Electric Lightning jet in a scrap metal yard next to the A1 road near Newark as I drove from one computer customer to another, sitting at the end of a runway at RAF Conningsby watching Lightnings and especially Phantom jets take off and feeling the power of their after-burners, driving passed RAF Waddington marvelling at the delta winged bomber Vulcans waiting on their pads to take to the skies trailing long black dirty exhaust fumes to perhaps deliver the UK’s nuclear bomb.

I still visit aircraft museums, seeking new knowledge, linking ideas, marvelling at the vast array of aircraft that British industry once produced, pushing the boundaries of knowledge.

Stubby Wings of Lightning P1A

But going back to 1967, and my potential to become an officer in the RAF, not as a pilot but as an Air Traffic Controller. The five day selection by the RAF, tested the knowledge of the applications, their health, their fitness, their IQ, their team working, and we were being tested from the start as soon as we entered Biggin Hill’s gate house.

I was allocated along with three other applicants a “Bat Man” to look after us and who showed us to our shared bedroom, to unpack and prepare ourselves for the evening meal. My room mates rather put me in my place as one was from Eaton School, one was an Air Commodores son, and another was a Prince from a Middle Eastern country. Me? I was a son of an electrician and Secondary School educated, a country yokel.

Now, I knew how to conduct myself at the dinner table, my parents had prepared me well for life, teaching me etiquette, social skills the does and don’ts, how to conduct myself in a high quality restaurant like The Ritz, how to hold a tea cup with the pointy little finger, but nothing had prepared me for so many knifes, forks and spoons at a place setting. Nothing had prepared me for so much silver wear on a table.

The next day the selection process continued, for example the medical tests, writing skills, aptitude tests, and for me in the afternoon an interview with the Camp Commander, the Chaplain, and a Senior Flying Officer.

Those whose turn it was to be interviewed waited in a small anti room, and one by one we were called in. Before I was called, my room mate from Eaton School went in, and I sat there wondering what was to come. My room mate came out white as a ghost, as if he had seen the end of the world, and this did not bode well for me. I asked him what was wrong, and he replied they asked him so many deep and difficult questions, including pointing to framed photographs of RAF aircraft hanging on the walls of the room, testing his knowledge of the RAF, and he said that he was asked what was the name of the missile hanging blow the wing of the fighter, and he did not know so they told him it was a Firestreak air to air heat seeking missile.

It soon became my turn to face the panel, and I was called into the interview room, sitting alone in the middle of the room facing the three senior RAF officers as if I was a capture spy, and they grilled me, asking deep questions, seeking out my knowledge and interest of the RAF.