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The next of my R.A.F; Postings was a most unusual one, it was not to a R.A.F; Unit. It was to the A.I.D; School at Bristol. To any stranger its offical title is the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate. This is were Service Engineers were taught every aspect of inspection of every thing that went into air-craft. From the raw material to the manufacture of the 1000s of parts that went into the making and testing of every air-craft and its engines. This was acheived by an unbroken chain of inspections. Each stage no matter what it involved had to be signed for and stamped to show it had passed inspection. This record went to the final stage where an inspector was shown to have been responsible for the item being passed fit for its designated job. I was taught to use many instruments and machines to do the job and at the end of this four months of hard work I had the pleasure of being presented with my own box of stamps, mine bore the number A.I.D; M5M and you knew that no other person in the world would ever be issued the same number. At this point in my R.A.F Service I was a lost item awaiting someone to put me back into use, it did happen and I was placed on loan to Rolls Royce and was deployed at both the "Garden Street" factory and the "secret" engine-bed Testing Station at Bilbrough nr Nottingham for a period of six or seven weeks assisting with inspections and spot checks on assembly lines. At last a Posting arrived which I will write about shortly.

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