NextBackIn 1953 whilst on holiday in Wales, I met an accordion player by the name of Elfed Roberts who came from a small village near Criccieth called Llanystymdwy, the birth place of Lloyd George. On discovering that I was a drummer Elfed asked me to meet him at the Great North Western Hotel in Blaenau Ffestiniog that evening, explaining that he was in a band and that their drummer was going into hospital for a hernia operation, and that he wanted to introduce me to Mr. Rae the bandleader. As a result my “holiday” lasted three weeks.
On my return to Redditch it was back to work, back to reality in the drawing office, to be more precise, the Blade drawing office, working on impellors and jet engine blades. This office housed some two hundred draughtsmen seated at their drawing boards like battery hens and I was at the extreme end of this huge "hanger" like room and facing a brick wall, in more ways than one. Turning and looking over my shoulder I could just make out the head draughtsman's office in the distance and ruminated as I laboured at my crossword puzzle that even if I was any good at this job it would be years before I sat in his chair, but that future eventuality would not arise. My apprenticeship bumbled on for two more years, then suddenly came to an abrupt stop.
"Will apprentice Bryan Thomas please report to the Personnel Office " boomed the Tannoy system. "Probably something to do with the cricket team" I thought as I slowly made my way there. I was in the apprentices cricket team and Mickie Brown who ran it worked in that office. " Go straight in" said the secretary pointing at the Personnel Managers door, and on entering I was rather nonplussed to see my mother sitting there. "Have a seat Bryan" said Mr. Davidson the personnel manager as he opened my file. The upshot of this visit was my immediate dismissal: he had been monitoring my progress, noting my poor attendance and performance at night school and various other indiscretions. His parting shot was," So you want to be a drummer Bryan, well, I'm going to make you one, in the Army". National Service was in operation at that time and under the terms of the apprenticeship scheme my contribution to the nations defence would be deferred until I had graduated. As this was not now to be the case I could expect to be called up in the very near future. How would Britain manage without me in the meantime? Quite well in fact, it would be a couple of months before I heard from them but when the summons did come It could not have come at a more Inopportune time, I had been smitten, I was in love.
