SIXTY years ago, in 1955, I was conscripted into the RAF for two years. Britain has been remembering and celebrating two world wars, yet national service — which lasted longer than the wars, put over two million men into uniform and cost millions — is now hardly mentioned.

WWII officially ended in 1945. More wars were feared and with most troops discharged new forces were required. It was Labour under Clement Attlee, not the Tories under Winston Churchill, which initiated the National Service Act of 1948 which compelled most men to join the army, air force or navy at the age of 18 for two years. British forces still remained in what had been parts of the empire. Others joined the allied forces in the Rhineland.

Studies of former national servicemen have been made. One with a Scottish emphasis is Trevor Royle’s The Best Years of their Lives, published by Cornet Books in 1986.

Most conscripts disliked but accepted the initial weeks of the military drill known as square-bashing. Typically they would be up at 6am, eat breakfast and clean their rooms, with corporals inspecting their kit layout. Then everyone had parade and drill, a lecture, tea break, weapon training, physical exercise, lunch, indoor education, tea, preparation for the next day and lights out.

The corporals and sergeants saw their role as disciplining the newcomers and licking them into shape with extra cleaning, running around the square holding rifles over their heads and so on. This would last six to 12 weeks. After a week’s leave, the national servicemen returned to start their trade training.

Not surpisingly, some regarded the two years as a waste of time. For instance, some who had accounting experience were expected to be medical orderlies. Electricians became cleaners. Yet others learnt new skills which enabled them to obtain better jobs when discharged. Certainly, many learnt to organise their lives and felt a loyalty to their new colleagues. Indeed, Royle came across those who found it difficult to settle back into civilian life because they missed the the close, everyday contacts with their room-mates.

Perhaps above all, numbers of national servicemen discovered that, if necessary, they had to face the dangers of those in the last war. During these years Britain fought in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus and servicement fought and lost their lives.

By the 1960s public support for national service was on the wane. A study conducted by Glasgow University found that 21 per cent of those leaving had difficulty in settling back into civilian life and work and soon changed jobs. As Britain withdrew from some counties, fewer men were required. Not least, the emergence of nuclear and other modern weapons meant that fewer men were required.

The last national servicemen were discharged in 1963. Occasonally calls for its recall have come from old soldiers — and Prince Harry — who argue that it is the best means of dealing with young thugs. In fact, the evidence does not show this.

Although conscripted in 1955, I could have postponed it. I had done well at school and the teachers urged me to go to university. As I had won a state scholarship, the headmaster saw me as his first pupil to get into Oxbridge. My parents disagreed. My dad had experienced unemployment before the war and his ambition for me was a safe clerical job with a pension. He even got me the forms for a job in the town hall. Instead, I took a post with the Post Office Contracts Department — secure but boring. Within a few months I was called up and in the RAF.

My square-bashing was at Hednesford in the Midlands, where I was one of 30 in our living quarters — not that we were in it much as we marched and drilled around the squares in snow and ice. Sundays were completely free and I went to a local Baptist church which provided lunch with families — oh joy, an armchair and peace. The screaming corporals and bullying sergeants constantly threatened that any who failed their tests would stay for another 12 weeks but we all knew that failures caused complications. We all passed.

AC2 2776527 Holman — you never forget your number — was sent for a month’s training and then posted as a fight plotter and radar operator at RAF Bawdsey on the Suffolk coast. We would identify any unexpected planes, give instructions to new pilots and be alert for SOS calls. Large-scale exercises were held regularly in which planes would fly in from the channel and attempt to reach London without being spotted while naval ships would proceed up rivers. I was once reprimanded for identifying a “battleship” in an airfield. But the exercises were taken seriously as war with Russia was always a possibility.

I enjoyed most of my national service and made three gains. First, I felt part of a close-knit social group. Our team was about 40 in number, all of the lowest rank in the airforce but entrusted with an important task of spotting and identifying aircraft. We lived together in huts and marched together to work in an underground site, safe from bombs, which bound us together. One month we worked nights, the next days. We ate together, did sport together, and relaxed together.

Sometimes we did have disagreements but always defended each other against outsiders. Close friendships were formed and 60 years later I am still in touch with a few of those men.

Later in life I became a social worker focusing on individual relationships. Then for 10 years I was an academic who certainly worked with others but with a leaning towards individual achievement. For the last quarter of a century I have lived with and in communities where residents are the priority. Something of this springs from my experience in national service.

Second, it was while in the air force that I decided to go to university. Several of my colleague had been to university and gained good degrees — Not to Oxbridge, or they would probably have been made officers, but to the “redbrick” universities. They told me of the advantages and enjoyment of university. I applied. On being demobbed, my former headmaster invited me to the school speech day. He asked me to which Oxbridge college I was going. When I replied “London University,” he spun round and never spoke to me again.

The third gain was that national service opened my mind to the British class system. I had never met anyone from a public school. In the forces, I found that officers were predominately selected from these schools. A number were my age, some had talent, others did not. The regular corporals and sergeants called them “public school twits.” They lived in a luxurious mansion and most regarded us as their inferiors. One officer cited by Trevor Royle stated: “Officers were a different species and lived in a different world.”

At the London School of Economics I learnt that the small minority from these schools also dominated the city, banks, top Civil Service, the media and politics. Material and social inequality will continue until their hold is destroyed. This is not to desire the exclusion of all public-schoolers from the Labour Party. Attlee, educated at public school and Oxbridge, was leader of the great Labour government elected in 1945. But he worked in youth clubs in London’s East End and was then a councillor before becoming an MP. As prime minister he appointed trade unionists as ministers and worked closely with trade unions, organisations whose leaders have not been dominated by the privileged. The Labour Party today should do the same.

So I am grateful to national service. But now, being opposed to nuclear weapons, especially Trident in Scotand, I would refuse to serve.

• Bob Holman is the author of Keir Hardie: Labour’s Greatest Hero? Lion Hudson, 2010.