Whirlybirds, Wetsuits, and Wet Dreams

A guest post by my truckbuddy Tim from England, now resident in Spain.

Guest Post: He’s so Fine

Prequel III – Whirlybirds, Wetsuits & Wet Dreams

Today I’m hanging up the saddle and leaving the cowboys in the bunk house till later. I do hope they behave!

In this post we’re getting all technical. Helicopters and submarines replace horses and stagecoaches. And we swap rugged guys in Stetsons and leather chaps for modern-day action heroes, muscles in neoprene and Ray-Bans. Kids’ TV in the late 1950’s was moving away from fixed-location, historical genres to technology-based series. Atomic power and space rockets were now science fact; science fiction and fantasy were becoming the new frontiers.

Once again I’ve selected three television classics, which, although from my childhood, strangely parallel my later adult life - though whether by co-incidence or design I’m not sure as yet; perhaps a little of both. So this could become a tale of discovery - see what you think.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Remember last time I left you a series of clues for one of the shows in today’s post – wetsuits, submarines and actor Mark Slade? Well, if you haven’t guessed it yet, read on to discover the answer!

This is the sort of thing I have in mind today, our friend Brian Kelly (of Flipper fame) in a scene from the film Around the World under the Sea.

No Brian, not that sort of wet suit! Go and change, please . . .

. . . yes, that’s better . . . although . . . I did kinda like that first one too. . . .

First off is the Whirlybirds - I was 5 when it started its 4 year run in 1957. It’s hard to understate how exciting I found this series as a small boy, with the whirr and clatter of the little bug-eyed helicopter, as my two heroes Chuck and PT took off on yet another daring escapade. Here they are:

Continued after the jump . . .

In their flying jackets and caps, Ray-Bans and chinos, they epitomised the look that I imagined all flyers had. At the time the USAF was still in residence at RAF Manston, and I would occasionally catch glimpses of the airmen as we drove by, or when they were in town. Also, Ma and Pa had good friends amongst the Americans at the base, so I was well aware of the look that I so wanted to emulate. This lovely clip captures the banter and camaraderie the two shared, from an episode entitled ‘Dog Gone’. Excuse the poor quality - I’m afraid some of the images and film from these old shows are not up to today’s expectations, but it all adds to the nostalgia.



The moment I heard that stirring theme music, I would rush to our tiny black-and-white TV set, where I would remain transfixed for the next half hour. That little Bell 47 helicopter would transport me to another world. No guesses for who I identified with, for I was that handsome young hothead, PT, played by Craig Hills.

And who better to accompany me than the fatherly Chuck, played by Kenneth Toby? Although always the wise, steady hand, Chuck’s looks could at best be described as craggy! Theirs seemed such an idyllic life, full of flying, action and adventure. And all set against the wonderful open backdrop of the Iverson Ranch in the Simi Hills of California, so different to my own small world of seaside towns and flat farmland.

If any TV show convinced me that I wanted to be involved in aeronautics, it was this one. At 4 years old I wasn’t making a career decision, just following my heart. There was only one snag. Playing aeroplanes with my gal next door Kate and the rest of our gang was easy. You just put your arms out and ‘flew’ around making screaming jet-engine noises! Playing Whirlybirds on the other hand, complete with Wow, Wow, Wow sound effects, made you very dizzy, very quickly. In fact, you could easily get air-sick!

I was extremely fortunate to be able to watch this and my other favourite TV shows as a child. Televisions were still rare and expensive gadgets in 1950’s England, but luckily my father knew a wonderful chap by the name of Les George. He owned a small TV and radio shop in a nearby town, and kept us supplied with cheap second- or even third-hand TV sets with long-gone names like Pye, EKCO and Decca.

As I got older, Pa would take me along when he visited the shop. In the back, smelling of hot melted solder and burning bakelite, was a tiny repair room, the inner sanctum. Les and Pa would chat there for what seemed ages, whilst I would play with the old radio valves and mysterious pieces of electrical bric-a-brac. This was long before transistors and circuit boards became common place. Les was very tall, and he would peer down at me benignly when he spoke, his thick glasses perched characteristically on the end of his nose. Sometimes he would give me a few burnt-out valves to take home where I would turn them into spaceships or robots using plasticine. I’m not sure I would have survived childhood without that modelling clay, which kept me amused for hours on end. Little did I know then the part that electronics were to play in my later life. Sadly, Pa and I were usually interrupted in our fun by the sound of Ma tooting the car horn; she did not like to be kept waiting too long!

Next up is a cartoon show, but not the slapstick Bugs Bunny or your average Yogi Bear type - indeed it was one of the first to feature realistic representations of people. Hanna-Barbera’s Jonny Quest, which ran from ‘64 to ‘65, was an all-action adventure series definitely aimed at boys. Indeed, its main hero gained a reputation for excessive violence and political incorrectness! What more could a thirteen-year-old boy want? Not the eponymous Jonny Quest, a somewhat irritating young individual with his equally irritating little dog, no hero material there. Nor his father, the brilliant scientist Dr Benton Quest; he had a beard, yuk! (Sorry Russ)! No, we are talking all man: he could fly anything with wings, he could fight, he was ridiculously handsome, a bodyguard and a body beautiful (yes, he often appeared shirtless) – the one and only Race Bannon!

If you think that’s a big build-up, I have to explain this is the man that started me wanking, and as such, Mr Bannon has given me much pleasure over the years. And just because he’s an imaginary character, a cartoon image, matters not one jot, for do we not all escape sometimes through fantasy and fiction and the use of our imagination? Thus my first furtive frottings under the blankets, and the subsequent wonderful feeling of release they brought were all down to Race Bannon. All that puberty business suddenly seemed worth it. Cometh the hour, cometh the man (and the boy), so thank you, Race!

Race’s good looks were modelled on actor Jeff Chandler - remember the guy with the prematurely grey hair and cleft chin? What do you think?

Working for Dr Quest involved Race in using lots of wonderful gadgetry, supersonic planes, submarines and flying saucers, with lots of muscular-looking bad guys, often clad in wetsuits, in pursuit. Like the uniforms worn by my comic book heroes, there was something about these skin-tight garments that excited me. It was, of course, the fact that you could clearly see the male form underneath them. Shapeless suits and overcoats, the sort of thing ordinary people, wore did little for my imagination. A neoprene suit, or a superhero’s tight-fitting outfit gave that imagination a big kick-start.

This clip captures the essence of what I enjoyed about Race in the series. Look out for the muscular wet-suited Lizard Men at 0:09, my particular favourite baddies. I’m so glad Race was ‘was in control and determined to come out on top’ – I couldn’t imagine him as a bottom, LoL!



Justifiably Race became a cult figure over the years, and although subsequent incarnations were toned-down, he still remains something of an icon to this day, and a gay one too! There are some very clever edits of the original cartoon series around that cast a whole new light on his relationship with Dr Quest. I can’t say I noticed myself at the time, for I only had eyes for Race. But do look out for them, they are very funny!

And now, Dear Reader, its competition time! The question was: What show included wetsuits, submarines and actor Mark Slade? The answer is this one:



Mark appeared in only the first few episodes, as Seaman Malone. Here he is after a tiff with fellow crewman Kowalski. Sailors will be sailors - perhaps he rubbed him up the wrong way! And what’s with the ginger hair?

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea ran from ‘64 to ’68. It combined action, adventure, sci-fi and fantasy, lots of guys in wetsuits, plus a relatively new ingredient, advanced technology. Set aboard the futuristic nuclear submarine Seaview, itself a wonderful creation with its fish-like fins and wings, the show boasted a range of sophisticated gadgets, supercomputers, laser cannons, the wonderfully improbable flying sub, shaped like a Manta Ray, and many, many more.

Unlike a lot of my favourite shows which typically only had three or four main characters, usually an intelligent mammal plus two men and a boy (women being strictly optional); Voyage was really an ensemble piece, with quite a large cast. As such, it caught the interactions between members of a submarine’s crew very well. Things like co-operation, respect, loyalty, and comradeship mattered: the very lessons I learnt when I joined my first Nimrod crew. We aircrew would always watch shows like Voyage, Lost in Space or Star Trek. We used to call it ‘Trade Training’, because the whirring computers, flashing lights, luminous radar screens and sonar pings were just like being in a Nimrod. The groundcrew called us ‘Scope Dopes’, plus other names that were less polite!

I can’t say I had any particular crushes amongst the cast, though granite-jawed Seaman Kowalski, played by the hunky Del Monroe, always looked ready for action. He operated the ship’s electronic systems, radio, radar and sonar, and somehow managed to fit in a lot of diving too! I thought he looked rather good in a wetsuit, here with Captain Crane, played by the darkly handsome David Hedison .

Photographs of yours truly in a wetsuit are as rare as hen’s teeth. I had two suits when I lived in Cornwall. The first was a simple off-the-peg number in black and red as shown in the image below. The second, however, was a beautifully made-to-measure model in bright yellow and French blue, handmade by Andy Schollick whose company, the appropriately named Second Skin, still operates to this day from the surfer’s paradise of Braunton on the North Devon coast. The torso part was double thickness neoprene, designed to keep your ‘bits’ warm, but the arms and legs were only single-skinned for greater flexibility when paddling out.

That photo was taken around 1980, during the ‘happy years’ as I called my time in Cornwall. Previously I had spent my ‘learning years’ in Scotland, learning how to find un-cooperative Russian submarines. Operating the electronic systems on the Nimrod, my trade craft, was just like Kowalski’s job on the Seaview. But for me it was also time spent in a social vacuum, a kind of communal exile. Now I was back in my little cottage near the airfield, the one I had left seven years earlier. And I immediately immersed myself in the surfing culture, centred on the nearby seaside town of Newquay. The wannabe beach-boy had come home. If you look carefully, you can see Legolas, my GSD, in the back window of my little Fiat. This photo encapsulates those happy times: my first dog, the green countryside of Cornwall, the foreign sports car, and my newfound surfing persona – no wonder I’m smiling!

It’s easier to find a picture of me in a submarine than in a wetsuit. On the principle of ‘know your enemy’, I spent a lot of time on board various submarines during my RAF career. Here I am with one of those periscope gadgets, so useful when you’re 60ft under the water! Don’t ask me where or when - Her Majesty’s Royal Navy never comments on the disposition of its submarines!

You can just make out the manufacturer’s name on the brass plate at the bottom of the ‘scope. Barr & Stroud – purveyors of the finest periscopes and other nautical devices to HM Queen Elizabeth II. Actually, periscopes were often the only thing we ever saw of our Russian quarry. You go to all that trouble to find them, and all you get to see are some metal poles sticking out of the water like these ones!

So was my later working life influenced by my choice of children’s TV? Was it just co-incidence or by design? Well, I really wanted to be an aeronautical engineer when I left school at 18. Plan B was to be involved with aircraft in a flying capacity. Consequently, becoming an air electronics operator in the back of a Nimrod whilst not specifically planned, did at least get me airborne. Neither was the subsequent career in tracking submarines and acoustics, harking back to watching the adventures of the Seaview and her crew. But it was a happy co-incidence, and provided a very useful set of skills during my time in industry after I left the RAF.

The wetsuits, on the other hand - ah, they were certainly planned, all part of the long wished for beach-boy image. Action heroes were not hard to find in service life, (though doing anything when you found one was all but impossible), but that’s where the wet dreams come in, of course. Sometimes a good dose of fantasy helps you get through the realities and the restrictions of adult life!

What’s that, Dear Reader - I’ve forgotten the Whirlybirds and the Ray-Bans? Problem solved. Here’s ‘Chuck’ and ‘TT’ with a big chopper! We’re just about to tour the Grand Canyon in the oldest Whirlybird in the fleet. How come they only told us that once we were airborne?

Now that trip to the canyon was definitely planned, since the day that hunky young geography teacher from my schooldays first told me about it (see previous post). It just took some time to come to fruition, that’s all, and like all good things, it was worth the wait. Just like the four-year-old who dreamt all those years ago of becoming a flyer one day, and here’s that very moment.

As the Senior Officer who awarded my aircrew brevet said – “Sgt Turner, you will only get out of life what you put into it.” Hmm, that sounds rather like a Universal Truth doesn’t it? Hey Russ, I think I’ve found another one!