AN RAF BRICKLAYER WORKING WITH THE A.M.W.D.
As remembered by 3507976, LAC Bryon Gollings
It was late October 1951, I had been in the RAF now for 14 months when I decided to sign on for three years. This allowed me to choose the trade I wanted so I chose my civvy street trade of bricklayer. In November I was informed that I would be going to the Middle East to help fill the vacancies left by the local labour that had ceased working.
Arriving at Fayid in late November I was informed that I would be working with the A.M.W.D. (Air Ministry Works Department) who were civilians and would be working alongside 5355 Wing of the Airfield Construction Unit which had their headquarters in Kasfareet. At a meeting we were introduced to Mr. Logan, Chief of Works at Fayid and Mr. Ben who was in charge of the ME (Mechanical Engineers). We were also told that the troubles would soon be over and that we would be home again before Christmas! I think not! (I finally got to leave the Canal Zone on the 9th June 1953!)
We were then shown our tents. Each tent had four beds but no lockers so we had to keep everything in our kitbags until we could sort something out. My tent mates were Stan Mee, a plumber from Leicester, Frank Mulvey, a driver from Stoke on Tent (but originally Scotland), Pete Froude, another bricklayer from Hastings, and myself, a bricklayer from Wolverhampton.
After being woken up by the sound of the Forces Broadcasting Service coming from the billets both sides of our tent, it was the start of our first working day in the Canal Zone. After having breakfast, making our bed up and rolling the sides of the tent up to keep it cool we made our way down to the A.M.W.D. yard. Here we found Chiefy, who had a list of work that had to be carried out so Pete and I were given a couple of floors to repair at the Transport Section. We had been shown where all the materials were in different stores and told that Bob Jackson, the Store man would issue everything required. Our first job was to go with Frank Mulvey with the Bedford Tipper truck to collect sand from the desert, “One thing we will never run out of sand” remarked Frank, we both agreed.
We soon got down to getting the floor
repaired but the sun was beginning to turn the heat on and it was only 10:00
hours, which is the time for our NAAFI break. Being in Airfield Construction
we got our food for the breaks provided by the Mess, we were classed ‘heavy
manual workers’, so we mainly got cheese rolls or sandwiches and a mug
of tea.
Soon 13:00 hours came around and we finished our first days work, but before
we left Chiefy told us our postal address so we could start receiving mail.
In the afternoon Stan and I went down to the YMCA to use the quiet room to write some letters. We also tried the tea and cakes, the cakes were just like rock, after their name.
That evening the four of us went to the cinema. It was the indoor cinema being the winter months, and they put on a good show. On the way back we called into the YMCA for a supper of egg and chips with bread and butter and a cup of tea, all at a reasonable price.
The next few weeks took us up to Christmas and passed very quickly. Our work was mainly repair work to buildings, which included some night work repairing the outer cases of the boilers in the three messes. It was Pete, Ron and I who carried out this work because the casings were in brick, well I say brick, the bricks were made out of sand and cement just cast into brick shape. I am sure this is why they have told us they do not last long before they need rebuilding again. When we carried out this work the materials would be put at the mess during the day ready for when we started work at 22:30 hours. The first job would be to demolish the old brickwork, which did not take long, it more or less fell down. Each boiler would take us about two or three hours to rebuild, so we did about two a night and they had to be out of action for a day before relighting to allow the mortar to set. This was a good job because we always had a good supper before starting and as much coffee as we could drink during the night. I made myself ill the following day by drinking too much of it with lots of evaporated milk and sugar in it.
When we worked at night we had the following day off. So after having a lie in Pete and I went down to the tennis courts for an hour, where we would have the courts to ourselves. A good thing really because I was just learning the game and when I sent the ball back to Pete, it went anywhere but to Pete.
We had large black ants that roamed the floor of the tent, so we had to devise something to stop them climbing up the legs of our beds and into our bedding. Some lads, who had been there longer told us to get some tins and fill them with oil, then stand each bed leg in them. So now with the traps for the ants and the mosquito net over us we could now sleep feeling protected against all the insects that could make our lives miserable.
The week before Christmas we were told that the airmen’s mess required more ovens to cook with. This was because of all the extra personnel that had been flown in. So Pete and I built a brick base for the ME boys to install six more ovens, then we built a screen wall around them. It was late Christmas Eve when the job was completed with the ovens in working order and handed over to the catering staff, so we knew now we would be getting our Christmas dinner.
There was not much booze around that
Christmas, but a couple of the local labourers who had stayed working on the
camp told us they could get us a bottle of gin for 100 piasters (about £1)
so we agreed to buy a bottle, which they brought into us on Christmas Eve. It
looked like gin but we did not understand the label as it was in Arabic. After
work on Christmas Eve, Stan, Pete, Frank and myself decided it was time to crack
open the bottle before we went down to the YMCA for the remainder of the evening
where there was going to be some Christmas music and carol singing. We got our
mugs and poured some out but as soon as the first drop touched our lips we spat
it out. It was awful, it tasted just like paraffin and it also burnt like it,
so that was the end of our Christmas spirit!
The YMCA was all decorated out with streamers and garlands which made it feel
more like Christmas, the place was packed out and everyone seemed to be in party
mood even though we were a long way from home.
Entering the mess on Christmas day, all the tables were laid out and a menu for each person. The menu was a normal Christmas lunch with turkey and all the trimmings and Christmas pudding. The officers were all waiting to begin serving so there was no queuing today. They served us well and it was a very good Christmas dinner. We stayed on in the mess after the meal chatting and Stan gave us his rendering of the song “They try to tell us we’re too young”
We finally went back to our tent and I just lay back reading some of the old Express & Stars until it was time to return to the mess for tea, mind you we were not very hungry after the large lunch.
That evening we went to the YMCA and listened to more Christmas music and that finished off our Christmas Day.
Boxing Day was quiet with us not
doing much at all. In the evening we went to the cinema, calling into the YMCA
for a snack before bed. So that was our Christmas in Fayid in 1951.
SWEEPING THE RUNWAY AT SHALLUFA
It is now 1953, and a year which a lot of the lads have been looking forward to due to the fact that most in our detachment here at Fayid are due for demob.
The weeks went by quietly at AMWD with just routine maintenance jobs and cement repairs being carried out, until one morning I was called into the office. Chiefy was there and told me that a posting had come through for me at Shallufa, and I would be leaving in five days’ time. I had no idea where Shallufa was but soon found it was further south towards Suez.
The next day, being a Saturday, it was decided we should all go into Ismailia which had now, finally, been reopened for visits as long as we went in groups. We caught the bus outside the main gate and we were off along the Treaty Road. We passed little villages with their mud huts and oxen ploughing the bit of fertile ground that there was. We had an armed guard riding with us just in case we ran into any trouble, but luckily we did not on this trip. On arrival, the driver told us the time and place where he would pick us up for the return journey back to cam, also emphasizing not to be late.
He dropped us off in the centre of Ismailia and pointed out the NAAFI Club where we could get refreshments. So it was here that we started our visit with a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and a visit to the toilet. Well, when Bob saw the toilets he dashed in and excitedly flushed it, we had not seen a flush toilet for over a year now! We then decided to explore the shopping area. There was a street trader selling all sorts of leather goods. There was a good size case that I thought would come in handy for sending some of my belongings back home when the time finally comes. I knew if I were to fly back I would only be allowed to take a kit bag. The case would have to be sent back by sea. I thought I would try my hand at bartering. I enquired “How much is the case?” The trader thought for a while and then replied “Five Egyptian pounds”. Then it was my time to think a bit before saying “I don’t think so”. The trader then said “OK Tommy, four pounds”, to which I came back with an offer of three pounds. He thought again for a while and agreed and I think I got myself a bargain. I also purchased a photo album with a typical Egyptian picture of a pyramid on it from another trader which I bartered down to 50 piastas. We returned to the NAAFI Club for a meal before catching the transport back to camp. So at least I can say I visited Ismailia.
Upon my arrival at Shallufa I was dropped off at the AMWD section where I met the Sergeant who put me in the direction of the ACB billet, yes, a billet at last.
With the camp being away from the Bitter Lakes there was a swimming pool, and having now learnt to swim I accepted the offer to join my new billet friends for a visit there. I did not know that I was in for an initiation to the pool by being grabbed by four of the lads and thrown in. I hit the water and just went down to the bottom of the pool, where it seemed ages before I realized that I really had to work at my swimming to get back to the surface. This was a totally different situation to swimming in the Bitter Lakes where the water was so buoyant. I reached the surface where I was gasping for air and made it to the shallow end so that I could get my feet on the bottom and have a breather. I then started to learn how to swim again in a different environment which did not take long but was exhausting.
The next morning I reported at the office at the AMWD compound where the Sergeant introduced himself as Sergeant Walker. He asked how long I had been over in the canal zone and I felt like replaying “Too long” but I thought I had better give a proper answer so I said “Since November 1951, like most of the lads”. He then went on to explain that there was no bricklaying to be done at the moment but that they had a big job on of sweeping the runway. This, he explained, was because the lads had resurfaced the runway with tar and chippings and had put too many chippings on it. Thereby when jets took off in formation, the ones behind were getting peppered with the loose chippings, which was not a very good condition.
It turned out Sergeant Walker, together with six of us lads with a tipper lorry and driver would go out to the runway armed with hard brooms and shovels. We were then spaced out at a few yards apart in the centre of the runway and then we had to sweep the loose chippings to the side and then load the lorry with them. Then Steve, the driver, would take it to a compound for storage. Steve came from Stoke-on-Trent and he had chalked “Stoke County Council” on the sides and rea of the lorry. We were like council workers sweeping the roads. If when we are demobbed and we can’t get a job on the building we could always apply to our local council for a job, because by the time we have swept this runway we will have plenty of experience in road sweeping!
After the first journey to the compound, Steve would call in for our NAAFI break and bring it out to us where we would sit at the side of the runway and have our cheese sandwich and cuppa. We sat in what bit of shade there was along the side of the lorry, which gave us a bit of protection from the sun for a while.
Sergeant Walker was always looking towards the Control Tower for a signal which let us know if an aircraft was going to take off or land, we then had to clear the runway and stand well back. Also we had to flatten any piles of chippings we had formed in case the aircraft caught it.
By the time it came for us to knock off work we had certainly developed a knack of sweeping, but certainly had enough. We looked at how much we had cleared and then looked at the runway that still had to be swept. It will take weeks or possibly months to complete, but it is a nice steady job with plenty of sun thrown in.
The next few weeks went by and we were doing mainly the same thing day in day out. We were still sweeping the runway and we had got about half way along, and being out in the sun for that length of time our bodies were getting browner by every passing day. We were now working in just our shorts for most of the time but when we felt our body had received enough sun, we replaced our KD shirts.
A few more weeks went by and we were still sweeping the runway but at last we could see the end in sight. We were about three quarters of the way along so it would be about another couple of weeks before we finished it. But we have been told that afterwards we have to paint the white line down the centre, then the numbers on each end, so that will take some time.
It is now the middle of May and the end of the runway has been reached. It is now time to start at the beginning again painting the white line down the centre. No mechanical way of doing this. No, this had to be carried out by hand. The centre of the runway was found by laying a long line of string down, then we had a frame of timber the size of the white line markings which was laid central on the line and white paint poured into it and brushed to fill the space inside the frame. The frame was then moved to a distance between the white lines and the next line painted. The whole operation took about two weeks and that included painting the runway number at both ends.
This was the only big job I did at Shallufa: I certainly got a good tan during that period out there on the airfield every day.