Free Radical

A Memoir of a Gay Political Activist

by

Roderic Anderson

Published by Roderic Anderson at Smashwords

Copyright © 2012 by Roderic Anderson

1

On the tenth of September 1943, a month and a day after my eighteenth birthday, I joined the Royal Australian Air Force and entered camp at No I Initial Training School for air crew at Somers, on Western Port Bay in Victoria. Raw recruits in the Army were commonly known as `rookies'. In the Air Force we were `sprogs'.

Leaving home didn’t upset me at all. I didn't really have a home – due to the wartime housing shortage my parents and I had been staying in a friend's house and my two sisters were living in Sydney. I did not feel strongly attached to home and family anyway, both Mum and Dad having brought me up to think and act independently. Even as a little boy when I went crying to Mum, after drying my tears and listening to my story, she would say, `It's very sad, but you're a big boy now, no longer a baby. Instead of coming crying to Mummy you must stand on your own feet and face up to your own troubles. Nobody else can sort out your problems for you. Often they're of your own making and you mustn't blame others for what’s really your own fault. 'Of course this didn’t immediately stop me crying and whingeing, but I soon came to realise tears and whining were pointless. I had to grit my teeth and try to solve my own problems.