Into the wide blue

Andrew Allan

1958

Exactly eight days after I'd married I received my call up papers from the Royal Air Force. They informed me that I had to report to Bedford six days after that. How dare they! 'They' being the authorities who decreed that all call-up dates for National Service were sacred.

So it was that on 15th April 1958, with my little suitcase, railway warrant, and tearful, young, only one fortnight married wife, I arrived at St Enoch Railway Station in Glasgow. I was wearing a white sports jacket and grey trousers, white shirt and red tie, this outfit being taken from a hit song of the day 'A White Sports Coat and a Pink Carnation' and I was right at the peak of fashion as witnessed by the number of other white sports jackets I could see around me. ... (continues)