My thanks go to a good friend of mine who found today’s grouping and passed them on to me for my collection, this was enormously generous and much appreciated.

Today we have a fascinating set of paperwork relating to Derek Smiles of Huddersfield who served in the Air Cadets before joining the RAF in 1943. The grouping has a mixture of documents and photographs:

We have a photograph of Derek in his uniform:

And his pay book:

From the paybook we can see he was initially allotted a pay of 5 shillings a day, which after 1/6 stoppages left him with 3/6 a day. In 1946 this rose to 5/6 a day and by 1947 he was receiving 8/- a day:

Other documents in the set include his school report from 1931:

A certificate from his time as an Air Cadet:

And a card to apply for regular service once war had ended (not filled out!):

This was to be returned to the RAF’s record office in Gloucester:

This was accompanied by a letter from the RAF encouraging re-enlistment:

One is left to assume that Derek Smiles was quite happy to call it a day after his four years in uniform! It is nice that this little grouping has been saved and can remain together, hopefully for another eighty years.