Bad Lads: RAF National Service Remembered

Between 1945 and 1963 over 2 12 million 18-year-olds were called up for national service. Alf Townsend was one of them, and here he tells his story the highs and lows of life as a lowly Aircraftman Second Class in the early 1950s. Before national service intervened Alf was heading down the criminal road at top speed, having grown up in a North London slum where money was short and local villains were revered.

Bad Lads is a warts and all account of Alf Townsends time in the RAF, when he was transplanted into a completely new world of misfits and officer types, rogues and entertainers, all amusingly described in the authors inimitable style.