Handsome Brute: The True Story of a Ladykiller (18 page)

As well as dress, pilots adopted, by army and navy standards, an extremely casual attitude towards drill and saluting as well as a tendency to hard drinking and prank-playing. This carefree culture was more reminiscent of a private flying club than a focused fighting service. Many of these young men, were, like Heath, barely out of school or university; immature, high-spirited and literally, care-less. They brought with them in-jokes and slang from English public schools and American movies which was soon to develop into a specific language of understatement, bravura and cheek, all of which contributed to a great sense of camaraderie and belonging. Cecil Beaton, who was hugely impressed by the ‘matchless team spirit’ he found within the RAF, attributed this to the service being ‘surprisingly free from conventions’.
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Junior officers addressed their squadron superiors as ‘sir’ on the initial meeting of the day, after which they always used first names.

Something about this ambience, the culture, the uniform, this sense of belonging to a new type of defence force based on up-to-the-minute technology completely entranced the young Neville Heath.

On 25 November 1935, Heath attended the RAF Training School at Desford in Leicestershire where he was given
ab initio
training – the very first stage of flying instruction. For many young pilots, first flights left an indelible impression, akin, as some would remember, to their first encounter with sex. And it is perhaps significant that Heath lost his virginity in the same year that he started to fly. One young pilot from this period, remembering his first flight years later, was still moved by the intensity of the experience:

I still find it hard to find the words to describe my sheer delight and sense of freedom as the little biplane, seeming to strain every nerve, accelerated across the grass and suddenly became airborne.
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Heath was taught to fly by George E. Lowell and Sergeant Bulman in a De Havilland D.H. 82, a ‘Tiger Moth’ – the RAF’s primary training aircraft at the time. Now that he had completed his flying training and with a very strong recommendation from his superior officers in the Territorial Army, Heath left his job at Pawson and Leaf on 10 February 1936 and was granted a short service commission for four years in the General Duties branch of the RAF. He had had to pass a written test and a strict medical and was questioned by a panel of officers who were looking for technical knowledge as well as some evidence of enthusiasm. An aptitude for sports was usually taken as a strong indication of the latter and Heath had distinguished himself as an athlete at school, if nothing else. On 22 March he started at No. 11 Flying Training School at RAF Wittering in Northamptonshire as an acting pilot officer.

At Wittering, Heath spent three months flying biplanes – the Hawker Hart and Hawker Audax – followed by three months in the Advanced Training Squadron flying Hawker Furies. Trainee pilots went through twenty-two exercises, beginning with ‘air experience’ – the first flip – through to aerobatics. These were actively encouraged by flying instructors in order to increase the young pilots’ confidence – but also to prepare them for the realities and unexpected dangers of aerial combat.
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Heath was then sent to the RAF Depot at Uxbridge for two weeks of drilling, training and familiarization with mess protocol. The young recruits would be measured for their uniforms and mess kit and given £50 to cover everything – not enough if, like Neville Heath, they preferred the better outfitters. Student pilots would live in the mess and dress for dinner every night except on Saturdays, a ‘dress-down’ day when blazer, flannels and tie were permitted.
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After successfully completing the first half of the course, pilots received their ‘wings’ – a badge sewn over their tunic pocket, ‘the most momentous occasion in any young pilot’s career’.
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The chief instructor would then assess each trainee pilot’s qualities and abilities and whether he should go on to train as a fighter or bomber pilot.
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Heath was assessed as ‘above average’, displaying the necessary discipline and audacity to become one of the most glamorous figures in the mid-1930s – a modern-day hero at the helm of a Rolls-Royce engine; a fighter pilot.
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On 24 August 1936, Heath was posted to 19 Squadron at RAF Duxford, near Cambridge. He was sent on parachute and armaments courses as well as given instruction in night flying. He was paid 14s. a day, from which 6s. went on mess costs covering food, lodging, laundry and a personal batman. The rest went on cars and alcohol, the two being inextricably linked in the social lives of young pilots on air bases. Cars were often bought collectively by a squadron and groups of young pilots would club together the £10 to £25 needed to buy one. These would be used to get to local country pubs or occasionally on trips to London where they would call in at Shepherd’s in Shepherd Market – a favoured haunt for RAF servicemen, also popular with high-class prostitutes. But drink and petrol were both expensive, with fuel costing 1s. a gallon and a pint of beer costing 8d.
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19 Squadron was the first to be equipped with the fighter plane, the Gloster Gauntlet, the fastest aircraft in the RAF from 1935 to 1937. They were also the first to fly the Supermarine Spitfire, which was to play a pivotal role in the Battle of Britain and thereafter became the backbone of Fighter Command. Heath was training at an extraordinary time in a force at the forefront of modern technology. He was promoted to pilot officer on 25 November 1936, the lowest commissioned rank in the RAF. At this time, he genuinely seemed to prosper – his commanding officer remarking that ‘this man has the makings of a first-class pilot and should prove himself an officer of outstanding abilities’.
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Technology, history, opportunity – Heath was in exactly the right place at the right time, one of the young men of the moment with huge possibilities, as well as challenges, ahead of him.

Around this time Heath got engaged to Arlene Blakely, a Wimbledon girl who lived with her parents Alan and Grace at 15 Manor Gardens, just off the southern end of Merton Hall Road. At last his life and career seemed to be fulfilling his great promise – and yet this is when his RAF career started to go awry.

The source of his problem was not his ability in the air, but his issues with money. Though he had become an RAF officer by gaining a short service commission, he had not come from one of the major public schools or universities like many of his brother officers, nor, crucially, was he cosseted by their private incomes. Having succeeded in entering the well-to-do world of RAF mess dinners with their class-ridden rituals and parties, Neville Heath, the grammar-school boy from Wimbledon, was challenged with the task of keeping up with his peers without the money to do so. His father estimated that Heath’s service wage was £250 to £300 a year, which was clearly insufficient (for Heath anyway) to support the lavish officer lifestyle to which he aspired. Like Pip in
Great Expectations
, despite the veneer of gentility and his accumulation of upper-class manners and tastes, Heath was not and would never be ‘the real thing’.

Whilst at RAF Duxford, Heath was frequently to be found in the various pubs around Cambridge and became acquainted with students from the university. One of them, Allen Dyson Perrins, was introduced to Heath around this time.

He joined my circle of friends and I saw him frequently for about three weeks. He was never more than a mere acquaintance. He appeared to be fond of the company of women and frequented public houses. He mentioned that he had been to Eton and Oxford and I had no reason to doubt this. On occasions he visited me to my lodgings . . . I missed three cheques from my cheque book which I had left on my desk and I suspected Heath of taking them. I later received a telegram from my bank regarding one of the cheques. It transpired that it had been presented for payment, and as a result he advised me to communicate with the Cambridge Police.
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Already, at the age of nineteen, Heath was lying about his background and stealing money from friends. But it is within the RAF that he was to find himself in more serious trouble. On 15 March 1937, Pilot Officer Heath was transferred to Mildenhall to join 73 Squadron. He was already living beyond his means and was worried about money. He had arranged a loan from Lloyds Bank in Pall Mall and even had an appointment to go and discuss his financial issues with them on 16 March, arranging to do this by telegram the day before. But despite this, two cheques of his were returned; one for £1 10s. paid to the mess secretary at Duxford and another for £3 to the Aviation Club. Investigating Heath’s recently released court martial files, it’s interesting to note the sequence of events here, as the outcome of this incident was to have a profound effect on the rest of his life. Most significantly, the whole scenario could have been avoided if Heath had simply come clean and told the truth.

He didn’t.

RAF Mildenhall had played a celebrated role in aviation history in the 1930s, famously hosting the Royal Aero Club’s MacRobertson Air Race from London to Melbourne in 1934. At the time, the air race stood as the longest race ever devised and attracted over 70,000 spectators to Mildenhall, including George V and Queen Mary. For young flyers brought up on
Flight
magazine and tales of the pioneering aviators of their time, a transfer to Mildenhall must have felt like an extraordinary privilege. With no warning, Heath’s squadron were transferred to Mildenhall overnight.

On his arrival, Heath had a telephone call from his commanding officer at Duxford, Squadron Leader J. W. Turton Jones, who had an ‘official and serious’ conversation with him about cheques he had written to pay his mess bill and the Aviation Club. The bank had returned them. After the telephone call, rather than thinking the matter through rationally, Heath panicked. Needlessly so, as is indicated by the records of the RAF, who investigated the matter with his bank, and discovered that he had indeed arranged a loan to cover the cheques.

In view of the fact that the accused officer had on a previous occasion been granted by the Bank an overdraft to an amount greater than that which would have resulted from the honouring of either of these cheques, I am of opinion that the circumstances are insufficient to support charges under the Air Force Act in respect of these transactions.
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But next morning, when the squadron assembled on their first day at Mildenhall, Pilot Officer Heath had disappeared.

For Heath, this became his favoured response to difficult circumstances. Rather than attempting to explain, his instinctive reaction was to run away. He didn’t want to have a discussion about his behaviour – but he did want to make a statement about it, so would frequently send a letter. Again, this became a recurrent tactic in his life – flight followed by explanation – but only on his own terms, in his own time and with the sole objective of justifying his actions. Before leaving Duxford, Heath had left a letter for Turton Jones, promising to honour the cheques. In another he tendered his resignation. ‘I think it will be the easiest way out to save dragging the name of a decent squadron in the mud,’ he wrote. ‘I consider I have been a disgrace to the service which will be well rid of me.’
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He added that he was going to Scotland, but intended to go abroad in a fortnight. He wanted to keep the affair from his parents as his father was unwell, but he would settle all outstanding bills within the month. He gave no indication how he would be able to honour this. A postscript added that he could be contacted through the personal column of the
Morning Post
(again, this detail of offering contact through the personal column of a daily newspaper became a regular tactic). If he had stayed at Mildenhall and the RAF authorities had confirmed the loan with Lloyd’s Bank, everything could have been resolved. As it was, Heath compounded the problem by absconding, starting a whole series of complicated events from which it would be impossible for him to extract himself.

After leaving Mildenhall, Heath didn’t go abroad – he didn’t even make it to Scotland – but instead he went home to Wimbledon where he stayed for the next three months, living openly in Merton Hall Road with his parents. There was no sense that he was in any way on the run or in hiding. He even wore his RAF tie.

It wasn’t until 22 June that the RAF service police arrived to arrest him on charges of desertion. Flying Officer Kerby went to Merton Hall Road and saw Heath running towards him.

‘Are you Pilot Officer Heath?’

Heath initially denied it. He was surprised to see Kerby – confused even, but soon collected himself.

‘All right. I won’t run away.’
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Heath was taken to Debden Aerodrome near Saffron Walden to await court martial for desertion and fraud. He was kept under open arrest and allowed the freedom of the aerodrome, the RAF taking his word as an officer and a gentleman that he wouldn’t abscond. Ian Scoular, who was stationed at Debden at the time, remembered Heath’s time under arrest there: ‘Twice a day he had to be escorted around the aerodrome for exercise, and if any members of 73 [Squadron] were airborne they would see how close they could land to him, sending him on his face in the grass.’
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For Heath had not been well liked by all quarters. Johnny Kent, the Canadian Flying Ace, met Heath in this period and thought him a ‘strange and rather unpleasant young man,’ finding Heath very moody.
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But this may well be because of the pressures Heath was trying to manage at the time, knowing that the life and career he’d striven for was under threat.