William George "George" Rebbeck 1901 - 1994

Eldest son of Sydney Francis Rebbeck and Emily Coombes Rebbeck

Recollections of Bygone Days part 4

1939
1 think I'll keep this sheet of paper for one or two football incidents. They don't need a date and I find it difficult to be sure where exactly they took place. I think the first one was Chelmsford. The teacher in charge didn't look as if he had ever kicked a football in his life but you don't have to be an expert player to be interested and willing to help out. I was talking to this chap and he said that running a team from a number of schools wasn't easy. He said that one of his team had to come in by bus 4 miles. I murmured my sympathy and then proceeded to make him realise that he hadn't much to complain about. I told him that East Norfolk comprised fifteen secondary schools, one Grammar school and one approved school, and covered an area of at least 300 square miles. North Walsham is roughly the centre so that is where we hold meetings and have practice matches to select our teams. I shall get back to Cromer about half past ten, pick up my car and then ferry three or four of the team either to their homes out in the country or to pub car parks where somebody will be waiting for them. I'll be lucky to get home before 11.30. 'Crlckey, you must be keen!" was my companions comment. That must have been about 1960.

For a bit of a change, not of subject but of period, we'll go a long way back to 1939, when I was asked, if I was alright for petrol, would I take some of the Holt football team down to the A. A. camp at Stiffkey for a friendly football match. We got down there to find a well grassed pitch a bit slippery under foot but nice to play on. There were several hundred soldiers on the touchlines, the Holt team got changed and out on to the field but there was no action. I saw a Sergeant rushing around and getting more and more agitated. I asked him what the hold up was. He said that he couldn't find a referee. I asked him if he could find a whistle? He said he could, why? I said get me a whistle and I'll referee. He didn't ask me who I was or what I knew about it but in no time produced a whistle and I took over. Of course I was wearing ordinary shoes and it was a very slippery pitch.

Right from the start the ball went over my head, I spun round, slipped full length in the muddy grass. I soon scrabbled up and the game proceeded. It wasn't long before Holt scored and to my amazement the soldier spectators cheered with delight. Half time arrived with Holt leading 4-0 and each goal had been loudly applauded by the soldiers. I commented to a soldier on their sporting spirit and was told that they'd kept the team to Sergeants when there were several gunners who were better players so the spectators were actually cheering against their Sergeants. Holt won 7-0 and I discovered why my mouth was so gritty - when I'd fallen down I'd pushed the whistle into the mud.

1943-44
Soon after the lest war ended and we returned to Norfolk there was trouble at a bus depot at Great Yarmouth, I think it was , because it was suggested that women should be trained as bus drivers. A strike was threatened because "women couldn't drive buses" , they'd said it was men's work and there was no shortage of men drivers they'd have had a good case, but to argue that they couldn't do it went against all the evidence. The busmen won, there was no strike. They should have seen what I saw one day on an airfield in Wiltshire when a little lady not a bit over five feet nothing tall brought in a Spitfire. Having signed up all the paperwork she asked casually could she get to Shorts'. Yes she was told, over the other side of the airfield, did she want to visit someone there? - No, she replied, she had to collect a Stirling. There were half a dozen men in the office and the gasp was audible. If she'd been a young Amazon it would have provoked astonishment. To jump out of a Spitfire and fly away In a Stirling is like getting from a motor scooter and into an articulated lorry. A Stirling was like a lumbering great four-engined railway carriage, but in half an hour the little lady came roaring down the runway, up and away. Sid Strange the Field Foreman looked at me and said well he was beggared (or something like that) now he'd seen everything. The punch came a week or so-later when an ANO was circulated stating that Stirlings must not be flown without a flight engineer aboard.

Talking of the airfield in Wiltshire reminds me of an interesting happening that I once witnessed. A very attractive young woman delivered an aircraft to our factory and for some reason did not leave afterwards. I had a young A.I.D. inspector with me in the office, Tommy Scott and Tom was naturally attracted. They strolled out on the airfield and played a variety of pitch and toss. When I disclose her identity you will realise that it is very unlikely that she had played that game before. You stick something in the ground, In this case a screwdriver and from an agreed mark toss a predetermined number of coins at the screwdriver. The one who is nearest picks up all the coins, nominates heads or tails, tosses all the coins up and claims those nominated, so that It is possible to be nearest the target and yet not win most coins. The law of averages ensures that no one wins very much. When those two came back into the office she was delighted - she had won 21-. What is remarkable in that? Who was she? Diana Barnato. Who is that? only the daughter of Wolf Bernato, racing motorist and South African diamond millionaire. She promised Tom his revenge one day, but we didn't see her again.

1944
The Incident with Tommy Scott and the millionaire's daughter reminded me of another event in which Tom had to rely on my greater experience to prevent his being exploited. He had examined a 'spitfire' and he came in to the flight shed office to check with me that the nut on the tachometer must be wire-locked - we'd had a circular letter quite recently to the effect that some had been getting through not locked. It was a job usually done very early in engine assembly, when it was easily accessible. Tom put it on his snag sheet. Incidentally, we were the only two A.I.D. Inspectors In the factory - it was a night shift with a skeleton workforce and the acting charge-man was a little young cockney named Perkins, otherwise 'Perky'. When he got Toms snag sheet, or list of defects, he blew his top. All blankety fine asking a bloke to do something you couldn't do yourself. Tom took umbrage at that remark. He came and told me and when I asked him if he thought he could do it he said he thought he could as he had long thin arms so I told him first of all to get Perky to agree that if Tom proved his ability to do the job he would do it. Agreement was quickly forthcoming and in about twenty minutes Tom called me out to check it. He had done it properly and then was preparing to call Perky when I awoke him to reality. I told Tom that he was being exploited. I suggested that it was a cunning dodge to get a difficult job done. Tom realised it, got the charge-hand to accept that he'd done the job, then borrowed his side-cutters on the excuse of tidying up the long ends, and cut the lot away. Perky was still congratulating him when Tom reminded him of the agreement that if he proved that he could do it he, Perky would do it.

"Well," said Tom, "now do it, I've just cut the wire off".

You should have heard the language and I didn't improve it when I suggested that London wasn't the only place that bore smart guys - you needed to get up quite early to get one over on some of us rustics.

While we're an the subject of the factory, on one occasion we gave our own "boss" a little lesson, Jim Shaw one of our senior examiners and a good engineer got into trouble through accepting something that wasn't 100%. Staff meeting - I am the only man who can do that. Good! within a week we had him. Again at a nice inconvenient time, early on a Sunday morning I was in the flight shed when I got a call from Fred Todd, the A.I.D. man in the field hut. He would like a second opinion on a hydraulic pipe so I1 cycled up. The pipe had been rubbed against something, showed a slight brightness over a small area but no damage. I told Fred that I'd sign for it anytime but reminded him that there was only one man who could accept anything that wasn't 100%. Fred grinned and said that that man lived there at South Gerney, about 10 miles away and we had his phone number. We had him out within the hour, bleary-eyed and unshaven. He was furious especially when Fred asked him to countersign the inspection chit. On the following Monday we had another staff meeting. We were told that we were all qualified men and should be able to exercise reasonable discretion. Several of our staff had H.H.C. in relevant subjects, so it was back to status quo. Old dogs don't forget old tricks.

1945
Holt was badly served for tennis courts. The cement - washed tarmac one just inside the gates had not been improved by the neglect of the war years. In 1939 we had taken the preliminary steps to making a couple of grass courts; the ground had been prepared and sown and then Hitler intervened. When I looked at it again in '45 it looked hopeless Bumps everywhere which I imagined were molehills but on investigation proved to be rank grass which had been growing up and dying off annually for six years. At the next playing fields committee meeting I reported on the state of the tennis courts and the representative of TOCH undertook to get a team of volunteers to rake off the old grass. They spent the evenings of several weeks and made the area look hopeful. Then with a teenage team of five lads and four lasses we carried on, grass cutting and raking and rolling.

One of our lads borrowed a lorry and went somewhere down on the coast and acquired about two dozen iron pipes ten feet long, maybe more, about two inches in diameter. He also got four angle iron corners and a gate. But when I arrived one evening it was to find stark rebellion. The feeling was that with June only a few days off we'd never get the job done in time. What was worrying them was putting all the posts in. Just as I was telling them we didn't have to dig holes Philip Newton arrived. I explained the situation to him and he went to the boot of his car and produced a special ram rod for making holes in the ground. Five minutes and a pole would be rigidly in place. Strike over, every body eager to have a go and that week all the posts and the corners were in. I had ordered nine foot wide wire netting, bitumen dipped. I got good advice from G.T. Baker's man. He said stand the netting up in one corner and fasten It to the corner post. For that I had made dozens of thin copper strips. The posts must have had holes top and bottom and middle and we ran wires all round. It was a slow job clipping the tarry netting to the wires and some of the gang thought it would be easier and quicker to unroll a good length first and then try to clip it up. G. T. Baker's man was right. Unroll too much at once and it takes charge and being dipped in bitumen - . Eventually we finished a very creditable job and got much pleasure from two quite good grass courts.