It's almost unbelievable to me that WWII ended over 70 years ago. How times flies. Mind you, I didn't rush home after VJ day. The RAF had other plans for me.
Not that I was in a great hurry to get home. While it's true I was very homesick, the prospect of a factory job on my return to England after the excitement of war didn't hold much appeal.
By necessity, my formal education had been halted at the age of 14 and I'd worked various jobs just waiting for the day I turned 17 and could enlist.
I was now a well-trained air gunner, but there wasn't going to be much call for Tail-End Charlies in peacetime England.
I did eventually join the police force in London, and later, Toronto, but had no immediate plans at war's end.
My friend, Jack, who had gone straight home to England from India arrived at his front door without a key and with no answer to his knocking.
A neighbour informed Jack that his wife had gone to the pictures. Having been a projectionist at the movie theatre pre-war, he phoned up and explained his predicament.
The movie was soon stopped mid-scene and management projected a hastily scribbled message: "Go home, Freda. Jack's back".
As for me and other crew not immediately headed home, we were now transporting VIP passengers and freight instead of bombs, and parachuting supplies to military hill stations that the Sherpas were unable to accommodate.
One ambitious undertaking was the parachuting of a military jeep. I was in charge of directing the men who gingerly pushed it towards the open door (hoping none of them would go out with the jeep).
The attempt was ultimately unsuccessful and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear it’s still bouncing around in the jungle with pieces flying off at all angles.
A mere two days after peace was declared I was part of a crew flying in on a Japanese held camp. Seeing from above the former enemy all lined up with arms raised holding ceremonial swords made me nervous.
I began to wonder if they'd actually gotten word that the war was over, but as we came in I saw they were in formation saluting the victors.
One duty that really brought home the horror of war was the evacuation and ferrying to Singapore of Allied prisoners of war from the notorious Changi Prison.
These men had endured deplorable deprivation yet retained an amazing spirit of survival. One POW honoured me with the gift of a walking stick he had carved out of wood during his captivity.
The handle of the cane was particularly impressive, being fashioned from bone that he’d crafted into the shape of a fish.
Soon the RAF decision makers, in their infinite wisdom, chose me to become a driver and I spent the next several months chauffeuring VIPs around.
Now, having hailed from a working class neighbourhood where few adults, let alone teenagers, owned a car, I had no driving experience.
I shook my head at the idea of the RAF training me for months as an air gunner, yet after two mere weeks qualifying me to drive important military and government personages around.
While quickly mastering the jeep, there was one occasion when I was asked to drive some prestigious visitors around in a vehicle akin to a station wagon.
I wasn't used to a car that size and raced around town, at one point making too sharp a turn at a bend and skidding around on two wheels. Nobody reported me, but I don't recall being summoned to drive those particular passengers again.
Being a driver allowed me to spend some time at the swanky nightclub run by that infamous figure of hospitality, Madame Mitchell.
Madame Mitchell had an interesting story. English by birth, she ran a dance school and toured with various troupes throughout Europe, finding herself stranded in Poland as the Nazis invaded.
Managing to escape with her girls, she ended up in Madras and opened the popular nightclub where local officials, celebrities, medal winners and visiting VIPs were entertained.
I was a great fan of modern music, especially American big band music, and Madame Mitchell must have had some pull, as she had all the latest tunes before they were released elsewhere.
It was rumoured she ran another sort of entertainment establishment upstairs from her nightclub, but I didn't know anything about that. Except, that those found hanging around would have their name taken down by the MP.
So, I had plenty of time after war’s end to contemplate my future plans before returning home. I was reminded of one time, when coming back from a bombing raid and seeing enemy planes climbing higher and out of my guns’ range.
I wasn’t thinking then that in the years to come I'd become a newspaper columnist, travel to Florida covering major league baseball spring training (not bad for a boy who’d never heard of Babe Ruth) and travel in retirement to faraway places throughout North America, Europe and over to Australia and Fiji.
No, at that moment I just vowed to myself that if I ever made it back home, I would never leave England again.
Famous last words.
