Extracts of letters from Terry Ford to his family

Extracts of letters from Terry Ford to his family

Extracts of letters from LAC T.A. Ford to his family. He writes about his course, exams, the weather, his social activities and about his friends and colleagues.

1942-06-27

Five handwritten sheets

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SFordTA1585520v10001,
SFordTA1585520v10002,
SFordTA1585520v10003,
SFordTA1585520v10004,
SFordTA1585520v10005

Start of transcription
(3) It is surprising the variety of chaps here. Some of them have had very interesting lives. John Fisher lived in USA for 12 years & a little scots friend of mine has been over Europe & America & came back on the Athenia a week before she was torpedoed.
Well, it is less than 4 weeks now until I shall be
[page break]
home & I shall soon have to start swotting for the exams. That is about all for now so will say Cheerioh. [sic] Thank you for your letter, felt, I like to hear from you.
Love
Terry
P.S. Could I have the tie Mrs Bladon gave me, sometime.
[page break]
put so many planes into the air at once. If we can keep it up, I can see the war ending much sooner than was expected.
Now for the news of the week.
We had clay-pigeon shooting on [deleted] Wedn [/deleted] Thursday. My shooting was terrible, 2 out of eleven shots I didn’t hit one pigeon. I don’t know what was the matter.
We had our Armaments exam on Friday. It was a practical exam on the Vickers Gas Operated gun. I only got 68% which was ridiculous, as chaps who got nearly all of it wrong got 72%. Anyhow we all passed so it doesn’t really matter.
I went to a dance on Saturday night, but
[page break]
One of the chaps in the new flight is Bobby Howe’s son. He is quite decent & very modest, though a bit self-confident. I was talking to him at supper one night, & I heard who he was later.
That film actor I saw is George Hayes. You probably don’t recognise the name, I didn’t, but you would recognise him. I found out who he was by a photograph in a shop window.
Well that seems to be about all the news for now.
Love
Terry.
P.S. Please give my best regards to Gran & Gramp, Auntie Lot, & everyone else.
[page break]
1585520 [underlined] LAC [/underlined] Ford. T.A.
“B” Flight, 3 Squadron, RAF,
Shakespeare Hotel,
Stratford-on-Avon.
27-6-42
Dear Mum, Dad & Moira,
Well as you see I am a Leading Aircraftsman & earning 5/6 per day. I have written to the office to tell them this.
I have been expecting to hear from [missing words]
[page break]
At the moment we are doing very little except rest, swim & do fatigues. We have been cleaning in the cookhouse, road making, & all sorts of jobs.
The weather here is grand, though not quite as hot as at the beginning of the week.
We now parade in shirt sleeves, which is much cooler, in fact rather too cool sometimes.
We had a shock when we came back from leave as the [deleted] displ [/deleted] discipline has been greatly tightened.
[missing words] terrible lot of tripe had to be done
[page break]
(3)
I am writing this at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning in the middle of a navigation lesson. You may be interested to know that I was fourth in the flight for navigation with 88%. I had 100% for aircraft recognition, & so did 23 others, in fact the average for the flight in all subjects is very high.
We have now had our flight photographs. They are large & well mounted, but are rotten photographs, all the end chaps (including me) being [missing words]
[page break]
Auntie Lot’s cake was very enjoyable Hope all relatives are O.K.
Please send 100 more of my cigarettes.
[page break]
We have a new Squadron Leader now. L.G. Crawley, the [deleted] loco [/deleted] amateur golfer & cricketer, I don’t know if you have heard of him, Dad, but he seems quite efficient.
[page break]
[missing words]
We have now had our maths [deleted] result [/deleted] & gas results. I had 95% for maths & 86% gas (3rd Highest)
We had two more innoculations [sic] on Friday. I felt a bit groggy on Saturday morning, but it soon passed off, & I am now fine.
We now have a new messing officer & the food position has [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] improved. I hope it doesn’t go back again.
Well there isn’t much special news, as the course is going steadily on. Navigation is very interesting in a way, though getting rather complicated