TWO LIVES
Chapter Five
Party on board SS America to thank 222 squadron for their flypast as the America sailed up the Solent in August 1946. It was the ship's first post-war voyage. Tommy is top row third from right.
CHAPTER FIVE: What Tommy did next
On his return from Kansas, Tommy was posted to 11 Group Headquarters at RAF Uxbridge. His career in the RAF went from strength to strength. His logbook records diversity in the aircraft he was flying such as Meteors and Vampires and the flights over Northern France were replaced with RAF bases around the UK. My cousin Jean recalls that when he went up to Church Fenton in Yorkshire he would fly over their house in Wakefield and waggle his wings so she would run and tell Grandma that he would be calling in to see them. Grandma thought she was making it up -- until he turned up at the door.
Tommy with world's first aerobatic team at RAF Odiham where he was OC Flying
Christmas 1946 at RAF Odiham, Tommy far left
In August 1946 when he was based at RAF Odiham took his first flight in a Vampire. It must have been quite a change from his daily diet of Spitfires as he stuck a photo of it in his logbook. He also started to perform aerobatics although he wasn't named as part of the team pictured above.
He certainly took part in a lot of fly-pasts! The Daily Mail article 'The Sheep-Dogs Had Wings' describes how Tommy and another famous pilot Bobby Oxspring led a 130-plane flypast above London -- possibly during the 1945 week of celebrations. Also on 8th June 1946 he led the Meteors over London. And perhaps the most impressive of all was the Queen's Coronation flypast at RAF Odiham in July 1953 when Tommy led a flight of Swifts which were still being tested at Boscombe Down. Legend has it that the planes were overheating and he had to strip down to his vest and pants as it was so hot in the cockpit. Years later, this information appeared in the Daily Telegraph and Lorraine was quite upset that this had been revealed as it implied he would have been walking on the runway in his underwear! I don't think so Mum! But there is some Pathe footage on YouTube of this display of 600 aircraft which gives an idea of the scale of the display. The Yorkshire Post reported that the Queen was 'deeply impressed'.
Yorkshire Post story on Odiham's Coronation flypast 1953
Tommy led the Swifts, 1953 flypast
Daily Mail story on RAF flypast (1945?)
In February 1948, Tommy went to Singapore as part of a huge contingent of British troops sent to deal with the Malaysian Emergency. His first job was OC Flying at RAF Sembawang, in Singapore before being sent to Advance Air HQ in Kuala Lumpur. The 'Emergency' was a really a full-scale war as the Communists tried to drive out British Colonial rule. Although the atmosphere was tense, it looks like they had a thoroughly good time.
On the back of the picture of Tommy, bottom left, Mum wrote 'isn't he sweet?'. In January 1950, I came along. One of my claims to fame is that when they returned to the UK my wicker cot was flown back by a very famous WW2 pilot, Air Commodore Pete Brothers, who also brought other people's precious items in his RAF transporter plane.
This is the exact Avro 707B in which Tommy crashed, fracturing his spine. It was later renamed the Vulcan
Vampire pictured in Tommy's logbook, flown at Odiham
At the end of 1950 Tommy was posted back to the UK for a short tour at Martlesham Heath and then to Boscombe Down where he became a test pilot. He always said this was his happiest posting even though it was incredibly dangerous at times. He tested Vampires, Venoms, Meteors, F86 and Hawker Hunters. He crashed in an Avro 707B (later named the Vulcan) and fractured his spine which he marked in his logbook as a 'bitter experience'. But he had a lucky escape -- two years earlier, an Avro had crashed, killing the company's deputy chief test pilot. He always used to fly over our little cottage near Salisbury and waggle his wings so we knew it was him!
Tommy at the time he was a test pilot at Boscombe Down
My first memory was sitting on these steps with him among the periwinkles
His logbook records the planes that he flew: Tiger Moth, Harvard, Audax, Henley, Battle, Hurricane, Spitfire, Lysander, Master, Gladiator, Magister, Proctor, Meteor, Vampire, Oxford, Anson, Tomahawk, Mustang.
At Boscombe Down: Vampire, Balliol, Meteor, F86, Canberra, Ercoupe, Prentice, Dragonfly, Anson, Provost, De Havilland 110, Fokker S14, Gloucester GA5, Hawker Hunter.
Tommy was awarded the AFC in the Queen's New Year's honours list in 1954. He went to collect it from Buckingham Palace with Lorraine and his sister, Bessie Pickering. He was incredibly self-effacing about his decorations. My cousin Jean remembers bumping into him one evening in Wakefield, he was in full dress uniform with his medals on. When she asked him what they were for he said 'Naafi Star & Bar and WC & Chain'. That was typical Tommy!
Tommy and Lorraine at Buckingham Palace in 1954 with his sister Bessie Pickering