car. I froze. Fred tried to look innocent, and the Station Commander didn't stop. We strung up the aerial and Fred's gear worked the better for it. On returning to our rooms after tea the following Monday we found that the aerial had disappeared. Nothing was ever said! Fred later wired his sound equipment output to the newly installed Station Tannoy system but was disappointed that, in spite of using maximum power, no noise came out of any of the speakers, not even the nearest ones.
Most of us had radios in our rooms. Our favourite stations were Radio Luxembourg, BFN, and AFN.12 The news on the latter, which was always proudly announced as coming from "The wires of AP, UP, and INS", was very naive and introspectively American, with little world information, almost as if items outside the American Zone or the USA had been censored out.13 BFN relayed the news from the BBC and was more reliable, of greater interest, and had a wider coverage of subjects. We nearly always listened in to the request programmes on BFN. Some of us were lucky enough to hear our names announced by Barry Aldiss, a popular DJ at the time. Some of us tried tuning into the BBC's International News Service but reception wasn't good on short wave. We were thus able to keep up with all the popular songs of the day on the medium wave in this pre-skiffle period. German radio, typically the Nordwestdeutscherundfunk, had just as sloppy love songs. It was of interest to those of us casually trying to increase our knowledge of German. We were able to compare our Met briefings with their Wetterbericht, and so improve our knowledge of their weather terms.



Video showing SEN-015 clip from Ken Senar's film.   This clip opens with one of the new Officers' Blocks - Block163.   The sequence shows Frau Strobel and Frau Rust (batwomen) balancing on the dust bins for the camera.   There is a contrived series showing the writing of a letter home.   It shows a typical officer's room, furnishings, and personalised decoration.   The writer of the letter (Self) then walks along one of the camp roads to the Station Post Office letter box which was in the SHQ next to the Education Department situated in a building flanking Station HQ.

I had two years of German language lessons at school but did not take any serious exams. I was surprised at Jever that the general level of knowledge of German was slight to almost non-existent. I had hoped that I would have been able to improve my fluency. There was even an element of mockery of those wanting to learn. Indeed, we all spoke English (in various dialects) on camp, so the need was not great. I spent some time attending German lessons in the Education Section but these were so elementary that I gave up. Flt.Lt. 'Phil' Phillips, the Senior Education Officer, did the teaching, not a local German as I had hoped.14 I had to content myself with learning as many nouns as I could and coupling them together with my sparse knowledge of grammar. This seemed to get me by in most situations. The Education Section did however have its uses when it came to swotting up for Promotion Exams. At this critical period all of us who were candidates were able to attend lectures, both during the day, and in our own time in the evenings, to acquaint ourselves with the types of questions we could expect to be asked, and to receive further tuition in any areas of special difficulty.
Just occasionally someone in our block would have his radio turned up far too loud and too late at night. If our rooms were close enough to the culprit we could counter this by tuning in to the same station and, with our volume turned right down, by very careful manipulation of the tuning knob create an interference howl which, with practice, we could vary in pitch and intensity, thus jamming the culprit's reception. The message was quickly understood and peace would be restored. There was a kerfuffle in our block one Saturday night after a drinking session. There was horse-play in the room opposite Fred's and next to mine (occupant's name now forgotten) when the wash-basin was torn from the wall, severing the hot and cold supply pipes flush with the plaster. [Click to see a possible event.] Said occupant found himself with a finger up each pipe in an attempt to stop two powerful jets of water, one cold, the other uncomfortably hot, from flooding not only the room but the whole block,
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12 BFN = British Forces Network. AFN = American Forces Network.
13 AP = Associated Press. UP = United Press. INS = International News Service.
14 Phil was promoted to Squadron Leader and, on promotion, instead of being posted away as was usual, he remained at Jever for the rest of his tour in Germany.
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