Let’s Scrap It
By Mel Robson
 
The RAF obviously thought that I needed to be returned to Training for the safety of myself and all concerned, I suppose. Thus I was posted back to RAF Cosford, the place where 14 years previous my brain cells were stimulated and nurtured to what little they are today. I will leave the reader to decide the level of cranial achievement that episode of my life spawned. At my new appointment in June 1983 as Training Supervisor I was to manage the training of airborne electronic engineering equipment for future aircraft engineers on real actual equipment at No. 2 School of Technical Training. This was an area of the 3 year apprentice training syllabus which I had passed through in 1968/9. I was happy to help and assist those following on. My new boss, a Sqn Ldr engineer said he thought that I would be well suited as I should know from personal experience all the tricks and would be a worthy teacher and adversary to the current throughput of ‘Super Techs’. “So there, get on with it. Just remember I play cricket on Wednesdays and leave at Friday lunchtime for home.” he said.
 
Not all students found this level of training easy as it meant that they must quickly develop practical fault finding skills that would be required in future service on real aircraft systems. The idea was that this was where theory and practice came together to fault-find, repair and test airborne equipment, albeit in a careful and safe environment. One of the equipment types was an Air Intercept Radar which had over 300 lighthouse triode valves and a 22Kv EHT Magnetron power supply! Safety was a valuable lesson to be learned, especially in a stressful situation which may be caused by the need to prove an aircraft system serviceable and safe for flight asap. As I lived in the Sergeants Mess during this 3 year period, I was able to take a later last-minute evening meal after a normal day’s work. This gave me the opportunity to help any student finding the syllabus difficult or a bore and who needed a bit of personal tuition out of normal working hours.
 
It was during one of these late dinner sessions that I was introduced to a fellow Flight Sergeant who had just warned-in the previous day. I knew he was not actually posted in to RAF Cosford and asked him why he was now living a temporary life in our Mess. He explained that he was not of the Avionics discipline but was temporarily attached to Cosford as a base from which to carry out an investigation into some RAF equipment stored at the Donnington Army stores establishment, not far away. He had been living on base at Donnington but had had enough of the Army way of things, the Sergeant Major in particular. Naturally I was intrigued and he explained that his task was due to finish in a few days when he would return home - hooray. I saw an opportunity for a farewell party but his long face 4 days later poured water on that it seemed. The army storeman in the vast hangar storage facility (who, it seemed, had been conceived there and had spent most of his life issuing horse hooves and spurs etc to the modern Army) had asked him as a fresh face to please help in locating one final, nagging, missing item off his vast inventory. It was inventoried as ‘Base Metal 25Kg’. After 3 days of searching, the only item left which had not been catalogued was found to be an old, battered, filthy, stained and half-broken wooden box that the storeman had never seen before, sitting atop a very high shelf. Inside it was a large chunk of ‘Base Metal’ (non-magnetic) with strange longitudinal cuts along one side. He had never, in all his years seen this odd item and could’t think why it might be in his store, so he suggested it be written-off as scrap and then we could have a beer on the proceeds - howzat Mr RAF? My colleague insisted that it must have been there for a purpose and it deserved at least a couple of hours investigation before the inevitable. That’s what the RAF would do anyway. The following day it was discovered that the base metal was indeed the remains of the Russian cannon from Sevastopol from which VC medals were made! A convoy of armed security vehicles swiftly transferred this sacred object from Donnington to wherever the MoD had decide to put it for safe keeping. Let us all hope and trust that ‘Base Metal 25Kg’ does still exist - somewhere !