Phil Jones - What’s in a Phone Call…

Thursday 14 June 1984 was a date etched into Wg Cdr John Bell’s memory for all his subsequent years. After all, it wasn’t every day that his desk is all that stood between him and a small thermo-nuclear explosion…

Phil Jones

I had enjoyed a fabulous tour on 30, having been unwittingly blessed by an Argentinian General causing me to fly about 750 hours a year since I’d joined: what a great apprenticeship in “Ascoteering”, even if most of it had been spent where water rotates the other way down the plughole!

The fruit of my labours was a Right to Left seat swap for my second tour. Of massive importance to me at that point, I had also avoided CFS and the inevitable series of relocations for my brand new Wife, who was happily in post at Wroughton. As I would only ever have revealed to a very close and trusted coterie of close friends at Lyneham.

So, this particular Thursday afternoon, I’m sat “on the desk”. I answered the phone to hear a vaguely Edinburgh(?) accent belonging to one Sqn Ldr Stapleton, allegedly. At Barnwood, allegedly. My posting officer …..allegedly. Somehow it all rang true - and my heart sank. He was delighted to have got hold of me, having been trying the previous day, which I see from my logbook had me doing CPT, hence his comms failure. “Anyway, Jones, one of your Hercules colleagues has just failed CFS Groundschool and, having reassessed every other candidate, you are - far and away - the man CFS wish to be posted in to replace him, at short notice. Congratu …..” He probably said some other stuff but I wouldn’t have heard any of it, above the sound of the steam ejecting from my eardrums. I think I told him at one point that I’d make damned sure I’d fail their (adjective deleted) Course, as well and that nothing on this Earth was going to…. “Jones, I am a Sqn Ldr. You are being posted to CFS at Leeming and that is the end of our discussion. Good day”. Click.

You know how kids these days use capital letters to indicate something really extreme? Well - BOOM!

A cyclonic force tore out the Co-pilot’s office, bounced right at the Loadies corner and flew up that long corridor in our then HQ, before backing into the Execs corridor. I suspect the Boss’s PA might have said,”You’d best go in”, as the doors flew wildly in the vortex and … well, BOOM!

What shiny, clean teeth had our Boss … I couldn’t help but notice because his jaw had dropped at the sight of this, the happiest of all his 22 Co-pilots, having morphed into a gibbering man-possessed. Through my apoplexy, I blurted out what had just happened and how my entire life was being turned to ruin, my Wife’s too, all because some useless Hercules (unnecessary expletive) Copilot had screwed up CFS. Inter alia!

“Sir”. 

John Bell’s paternal instinct came to the fore and he promised to see what was going on. He said he would ring the said Sqn Ldr Stapleton and fight my case. “However, Phil, I think it would be a very good idea if you went and made yourself a cup of tea and sat down quietly in the crew-room until you’ve drunk it… Slowly”. (What could he have meant?)

As I left the office, still possessed of massive indignation and not a little absolute distress, I vaguely heard his phone ringing …

My crew-room coffee was made by one of the Captain’s section who had noticed the tornado pass his doorway - and there can be fewer signs of recognition of a Co-pilot suffering than for that to have happened. I recall that the incredulity at the Posting and the sympathy of all who had witnessed the whirlwind was tremendous: true comradeship (or very well disguised Schadenfreude!?!). Thank Heavens, this was before we all had mobile phones or a second explosion, at a local military hospital might  have also been heard.

Phil Pratt

Remember that phone ringing as I left the office? “OC30”. “Ah, Good Afternoon, Sir. Sir, this is Phil Pratt over on 47. I’m on the Co’s desk and it’s pretty quiet today, Sir. Er … Sir, I just played a spoof on my mate Phil Jones but I’m a bit concerned that it might have gone better than anticipated. Er, Sir. I think he might be coming up to see you. So, I thought I’d best get in first, Sir”. Notably, all delivered with no hint of any accent. Just as he usually speaks.

“He just left, Phil. It wasn’t pretty … Erm, thank you for calling me. (Short - demonic - pause!). Tell you what, I’ll play along until close of play tonight but you ring then and put him out of his misery. Suitable punishment, I think. Good one, Phil! Bye”. 

As the dark abyss of that afternoon scowled on, a horrible ache suddenly started deep in my cranium. The ache of a penny dropping hard. But No, surely not? The Boss is trying to contact that bloke at Barnwood - I’ve asked him about six times if he’s got through yet. Yet, what is that prickly, itching, aching feeling? It won’t go away. It’s getting worse. I mean, it’s not as if I know anyone - anyone at all - who would be so stupid, so callous, so despicably cruel as to ….. Hang on. There’s one of my Guard of Honour who just might, possibly. If he was having a really boring wet afternoon over on 47.

It was raining steadily … 

Phil Pratt tells me that we had a phone call late that PM which (again, inter alia) went, “You haven’t been making stupid phone calls to me, have you?”. A lilting, soft, Scottish accent replied, “What, pretending to be Sqn Ldr Stapleton from Barnwood?”. “You (long rude phrase, even for aircrew - removed by Web Manager - but in truth, considered appropriate under the circumstances). You’d better keep well out of my way for the next few days!”

So there you go. In the space of one afternoon, my very worst and my very best RAF phone calls! I could have strangled P Rat but, having been so completely reeled in and kippered, anything to get my own back would have paled into insignificance …. Mind you, if I get to Heaven first, he’s not getting in!

And, of course, a much respected Wing Commander had shown that inside every one of them, there always remains a little bit of Flying Officer desperate to get out!

Phil and I shared similar career paths from 30/ 47 and 47/ 30 into British Airways and now on into retirement. An enduring friendship, even if it is based on rarely seeing one another these days. When you see the good Captain Pratt at our Squadron reunions, you now know why he walks around with one eye always checking his six. I haven’t got him back yet … but I’m a very patient man.

Some afternoon. Some chum …. Some Boss! I hope he enjoyed the bottle of Scotch that rather sheepishly reached his desk the following morning.