John Paton

John Paton from Hamilton was in a reserved occupation with Hamilton District Council when he applied to join the RAF.

"I been earmarked for the army but like a lot of people I didn't want to join either the army or the navy," explains John.

"At the time I was a sanitary inspector but the RAF accepted people from reserved occupations. It had to go to committee and in the end I was held back for six months while they made up their minds whether to let me go or not. I had a little badge I had to wear on my lapel that signified I was joining the air force but really it was just wasted time for them and the council."

John, like all the other RAF recruits had to report to Lords Cricket Ground in London.

"Luckily I met up with a guy I knew when I was waiting for the train at Glasgow Central we got together for the journey and stuck together at Lords," says John.

"While we were there we stayed in flats in St Johns Wood and we had our meals at London Zoo. We had to march there and back but the food was OK. I didn't like the breakfast because it was porridge with sugar, rather than salt but we just had to eat what was put down in front of us or we would have gone hungry."

After he'd done his share of square bashing John and his fellow recruits were taken to Torquay to learn to swim.

No 2 squadron, Torquay

"We were put up in the town's hotels and learned to swim in the hotel pools," says John. "You have to remember that back then we didn't have swimming lessons at school so there were lots of us who couldn't swim. They wanted us to jump off the dales and lots of the men climbed the steps and then came down again because they were too frightened. When it was my turn I just closed my eyes and jumped. Because of my height I touched the bottom and was able to push with all my strength to get back to the surface."

Once they could all swim the men were sent Manchester for their initial training. All the potential pilots were put into Tiger Moths which had two seats, one for the instructor and the other for the student.

Again a lot of people failed because they were too scared to even go up in a plane. This may seem surprising to today's youngsters but back then very few people had ever flown. John, however, took to flying like a duck to water.

"I had six hours' of flying with an instructor but some of the others needed 12 hours to be confident," he explains. "I only had one solo flight which lasted just 10 minutes but that was all it took for them to decide I was pilot material.

"Two of us were singled out for teacher training and I was quite pleased with the decision. They made me a sergeant and then we were told we were being sent to Canada."

From the very beginning of the war Canada's potential as a training ground for pilots was put to good use. Clear blue skies, well away from enemy planes made it the perfect place for the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Seventy-four schools turned out 520 pilots a month with elementary training and John was earmarked to train some of them.

"I'd never been out of the country before and I didn't know anything about Canada," says John. "We sailed across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary. The journey took longer than normal because we went right up north then zigzagged back down. We had Churchill on board and we were dodging U-boats."

John worked as a waiter during the passage - a coveted job as he could help himself to extra rations from the kitchens. The ship would later return to Britain full of supplies from Canada.

The Queen Mary docked in August and John's first posting was in Monkton but nothing could prepare him for the treats that lay in store or for his first Canadian winter.

"There was no rationing in Canada so I could have two eggs for breakfast - luxury!" laughs John. "I also learned to ice skate while I was in Canada and we used to play quite a bit of ice hockey."

John and his Cornell in No.4 hangar at Carberry

John moved around quite a few times - from Monkton he went to Caron where he did his first flying in Canada, then two month later he moved to Carberry where he earned his wings.

His next and favourite posting was Medicine Hat where he went through his teacher training.

"I also spent a memorable holiday with a group of friends," he recalls. "We toured Banff and cycled, canoed and saw brown bears - not bad for a boy from Hamilton."

After the holiday John moved again to Pearce where he spent the next two months before qualifying as an instructor in a Harvard.

John was only ever involved in one accident but he remembers it clearly.

"It was a night flight on 20th June 1944," he remembers. "My pupil was bringing us in to land but the undercarriage didn't come down properly and the wing dipped. I had to resist the temptation to take over because I had to let him cope on his own.

"We didn't know where our pupils would end up or even which type of plane they would be flying. We just had them for a short time and then they were off.

"Towards the end of the war we spent quite a lot of our time having fun. For example on landing you should be doing 90 mph but we'd often challenge each other to go faster - I think I got it up to 140 mph. In Canada they were all good, big runways so we'd land right at the start and try to stop before the end - you had to be careful with the brakes though or you'd end up tipping the plane onto its nose!"

John wasn't an instructor for long as the end of the war was only a year off.

"We didn't celebrate either VE or VJ Day," he explains. "I left Canada in September 1945 but I had to continue in the RAF for another year and a half once I came back to Britain.

"When I came back I was based in near Scunthorpe and I met my future wife Tessa at a dance. I could have tried for a job as a commercial pilot but we decided to move back to Hamilton because the council had kept my job for me."