DOES anybody know Joseph H Goddard, who was among the last 16-year-olds to join the RAF as a boy entrant?

An old mate is looking for him and believes he could be living in Swindon.

Robert Davies, who was called Fred by the other lads he joined up with, has traced 26 of the 36 teenagers who signed on with him in 1963.

But his friend Joe has proved elusive and Robert, who lives on Merseyside, is hoping to find him in time for a big get-together at RAF Credenhill, now occupied by the SAS, to mark the 50th anniversary of their enlistment.

"Not surprisingly, the RAF won't release personal details of ex-servicemen but will forward mail to their last known address," he said.

"A letter to Joe was returned from a house in Leicester Street, Swindon, marked not known at this address, and I hope somebody in the town can let him know we'd like to hear from him."

Robert said they were among thousands of 16-year-olds who chose the RAF as a career after the war and joined as boy entrants.

One member of their group, who now lives near Malmesbury, eventually rose to the rank of Group Captain.

"We had to have parents' consent to join and no one really knew what we were putting our names down for," he said.

At RAF Credenhill, Hereford, they lived in wooden huts.

"It was in the middle of a really bad winter. Heating for the huts was provided by two coke stoves, and there was ice on the inside walls," Robert recalled.

"We were given so little coke that we had to pinch more from the back of the cookhouse.

"We would have been in real trouble if we had been caught and, because they could see our footprints in the snow, we used to go through another barrack room's door so they wouldn't know.

"If you got into trouble your punishment was being ordered into the cookhouse to scrub out the baking tins and I had to do that quite a few times."

But he said the food was wonderful.

Many of lads trained as air frame fitters, wireless engineers or radar technicians. Robert chose to become a clerk.

After seven years he bought himself out of the service. It cost him £200.

"It was claimed the easiest way of doing it was to stand as a Parliamentary candidate, which cost you only £100, and that this is the way Michael Heseltine bought himself out of the Army," he said.

Robert worked first of all for Vauxhall Motors and later went to college to study chemistry, physics and maths. He then started a new career in the chemical industry.

But he never forgot the boys he knew in the RAF, even though he had lost touch with most of them.

After getting in touch with the Boy Entrants' Association he now has only 10 to trace - including Joe Goddard.

Recently he came across a five-year-old Advertiser news story about a retired RAF serviceman with the same name, who would now be 60, the same age as the men who had been boys in his group.

The story said this Joe had twice sailed the Atlantic single-handed.

Is he the same man? And if so, where is he?

If you know, get in touch with the Advertiser newsdesk at 100 Victoria Road, Swindon SN1 3BE, telephone 01793 501806, or email kburchall@swindonadvertiser.co.uk.