LIKE many new recruits, Bob Hounslow found the discipline tough going at the start of his National Service.

But by the end, he felt proud to have done his duty.

His National Service began on October 16, 1952 as he left behind a tearful mother and sombre father and headed to RAF Padgate, a training camp for 18-year-olds in Lancashire.

Mr Hounslow, of Squires Close, Brize Norton, writes: “Soon, for the first time in my life, I would be polishing shoes and desperately trying to get a smooth shine on the toe caps of my new boots.

“With my fellow conscripts, I helped to remove every speck of dust from our wooden hut, then cleaned and polished everything in sight – floors, windows, furniture.

“We even black-leaded the coke stove that provided our rudimentary heating, along with the coke bin.

“Then our bedding and equipment had to be arranged in the prescribed manner on the bed, ready for a hut inspection.

“Can you imagine the shock this all was to young boys who had never even opened a tin of polish before, let alone dusted and polished?

“I even used an iron for the first time!

“On the parade ground, we gradually became able to respond in unison to the drill instructions bellowed at us by our Corporal.

“Then we learned rifle drill – the weight of those old Lee Enfield rifles soon made your collarbone ache.

“On the other hand, there’s something satisfying about responding as one to the command, ‘Preeeesent (wait for it!) ARMS!’. Give me a rifle and I’m sure I could still do it now.

“Eventually, under the apprehensive eyes of an RAF Regiment instructor, we actually fired our rifles.

“I got rated as a first-class shot, although I think it was because the fellow next to me was firing at my target by mistake! What with getting up early in the morning, doing PT and going over assault courses, we became fitter than we’d ever been before in our lives.

“Not only that, we were learning to work together, to accept discipline and become self- reliant.

“In other words, we were growing up.

“When we went home on that first leave, our mothers must have been astonished at the change in us.

“So National Service wasn’t a bad thing.

“When we made ourselves as smart as possible and the band struck up a rousing march, we held our heads up high, shoulders back and chests out and marched out on our passing-out parade, not as immature boys any more, but young men, ready for anything.

“Let us not forget, some of those men, with their counterparts in the Army, fought and died in the Korean War.”