Honourable Artillery Company, Finsbury Barracks 1935 to 1937

[Beaujolaiswine]

Hi

I am researching the life of my father Stanley George Goodey (1916 - 2007). During the years between the war my father said that he volunteered with the Auxiliary Air force.

My father was employed (age 17) with Handley Page Co. Ltd., in Cricklewood as an aircraft fitter from Jan 1934 until Jun 1936 when he moved to Croydon Airport to work as an aircraft fitter with Rollinson Aircraft Co. Ltd and then Redwing Co. Ltd. In Jul 1937 he moved out of the aircraft industry.

At the time of his AAF Service , my father said he was based in the RAF headquarters on City Road, in the City of London Squadron (600 Squadron?), and that he used to take an annual holiday with the RAF. 

I have been in touch with Robin van Geene the 600 Squadron Historian. He was unable to find any record of my fathers service with the Auxiliary Air Force but he did advise me that that during the week my father would have been expected to attend for training at the Squadron "Town Headquarters" at Finsbury Barracks on the City Road on a Thursday evening between 7 and 9 pm. I wondered if the annual holiday was in fact was some sort of summer training camp as suggested by Robin van Geene at places such as Tangmere (34) Sutton bridge (35) and Hawkinge (37). Robin van Geene informed me that in 1934 we (600 Squadron) were equipped with Westland Wapiti bombers, and in May 35 we moved on to Hawker Harts. In Feb 37 we moved from the bomber to the fighter role and the Harts were exchanged for Hawker Demons. The Demon was very similar to the Hart to look at but the rear cockpit for the gunner was cut back. My fathers employment as an aircraft fitter would I presume have been put to use with the AAF, an I guess he may have worked on these aircraft.

He said he got to fly in planes during this time, I presume not as a pilot. I am not sure how much truth there is in this, and wonder if the story that the aircraft wiggled was made up to its wings to impress his younger brothers and sister or indeed if he got one of the pilots to fly over his parents home in Kings Cross or his aunts home near Croydon to do this.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has information about the Auxiliary Air Force's use of Finsbury Barracks in the mid 1930's or anything else about the volunteers in the London based squadrons of the Auxiliary Air Force.

Regards

Richard

[hanes teulu]

Have you seen   http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1949/1949%20-%201821.html

[Beaujolaiswine]

Hi Hanes Teulu

Thanks very much for your most interesting link in your reply which I hadn't previously seen.

Regards

Richard

[Meg Davidson]

Hello Richard

I was excited to find your post because I also am researching a member of the AAF (most probably 600 squadron) and like you I am trying to sort out fact from fiction.

I am writing the biography of Frederic Hardwicke Knight (1911-2008) who claimed to have been in the City of London squadron as part of the ground crew in the early 1930s. I was interested in what Robin van Geene had to say about the Thursday night training sessions at the Finsbury barracks. In his 1931 diary Hardwicke notes on six occasions attending ‘barracks’ in the evenings – mostly Thursday evenings, occasionally Monday. Late in life he told me he ‘paraded’ at Finsbury. On one occasion the recruits were shown a lantern lecture on aircraft and engine construction. On some occasions I think he must have been not at Finsbury but at the squadron’s barracks at Hendon Aerodrome, because he mentions seeing the ‘new Lynx plane’.

Hardwicke’s involvement with the AAF seems to have ended when he failed to attend a weekend camp on April 11-12. I don’t know where it was, or whether that would be instead of or as well as a longer summer training camp.

Hardwicke told me about ‘doping’ aircraft (painting them with toxic aluminium paint) and about his work developing photo gun films. I don’t know whether he actually did these things himself or had simply talked to someone else who had. He was an amateur photographer and says a pilot once took him up in a Wapiti to take aerial photographs of archaeological sites, but it was a recreational flight, not part of the training.

Meg

[Meg Davidson]

Richard, can you tell me how you contacted Robin van Geene? (PM me please if this is classified info - sorry to ask on this public forum but I haven't made enough posts yet to PM you!)
Regards
Meg

[Beaujolaiswine]

Hi Meg

You should receive the info you requested in a pm

Regards

Richard