A Weather-Guesser's Memories with the RAF
Thread Starter
A Weather-Guesser's Memories with the RAF
I offer these memories in the hope that they may entertain and inform. If not, please laugh and tear up.
The 41 years spanned an era of astonishing change, not least in the quality of weather prediction. Today we have a very reasonable hope of useful forecasting for the best part of a week. It is still true that ‘when I am right no-one remembers, when I am wrong no-one forgets’. It is also true that, for many, the only good forecast is an accurate one of good weather. In 1955 forecasting was dire.
My career was mainly with the RAF, serving Training, Fighter and Bomber stations in turn, Group HQs and RAFG HQs, Taceval and Army, so it gives me insights and anecdotes that I offer to share.
PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT SOME REMINISCENCES. IF NOT, I WON'T BE OFFENDED.
MET. COMES WITH VERY THICK SKIN.
The 41 years spanned an era of astonishing change, not least in the quality of weather prediction. Today we have a very reasonable hope of useful forecasting for the best part of a week. It is still true that ‘when I am right no-one remembers, when I am wrong no-one forgets’. It is also true that, for many, the only good forecast is an accurate one of good weather. In 1955 forecasting was dire.
My career was mainly with the RAF, serving Training, Fighter and Bomber stations in turn, Group HQs and RAFG HQs, Taceval and Army, so it gives me insights and anecdotes that I offer to share.
PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT SOME REMINISCENCES. IF NOT, I WON'T BE OFFENDED.
MET. COMES WITH VERY THICK SKIN.
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Top Answer
3rd Apr 2024, 18:12
Thread Starter
we shall see ....................................
As I was saying:.
Memory being dimmed by time, I may have told some of these tales before, and differently. All I can say is that I tell no deliberate lies, some names are withheld to protect the guilty, and the good guys sometimes get a mention.
In the autumn of 1955 I was a bus-conductor in leafy Hove, an only child, an only grand-child, with ten ‘O’ Levels, Physics at ‘A’ Level and fails in Pure Maths and Applied Maths. Also a Scoutmaster and Queen’s Scout, probably the cause of my poor Upper Sixth performance. Like all boys I was air-mad, and had nearly joined the Royal Navy at Dartmouth, but slight-colour blindness vetoed that and thus the Fleet Air Arm. A further snag was health: a burst duodenal ulcer at about 16 hindered education and employability.
My father [who had served as RAFVR flying barrage balloons] found me an advertisement for Met. Assistants, but the Board wanted to turn me down as over-qualified and likely to become dissatisfied They relented and I was trained at the Met. School at Stanmore , passed out second in course [every professional course ended with me second] and posted to RAF Uxbridge. At that time I think it was Regiment and Central Band, and a Main Met. Office. The Station Commander probably lived off-station, drove an open-top sports car with a black Lab, and his arrivals at the gate were greeted by a Guard turn-out.
The standards demanded of a plotter were high, and I was wrapped on the knuckles [literally] for a 280 degree wind arrow which the supervisor measured as 270. It mattered, seemingly.
National Service beckoned ‘In the Trade of Met. Assistant’ but the Medical did not want me. I was thus spared the square bashing and scratchy trousers but, as carefree youth, I was not too upset by the prospect. A few years later I had six National Service airmen as assistants in Nicosia, the last of the many, and all of them nice highly-qualified blokes.
The Uxbridge Chief Met. Officer took me off shift-work [£28 per month, wealth even when living in digs] and, as a great kindness not appreciated, had me posted to the big office at Harrow Wealdstone. This was so that I could have day release to bag the missing ‘A’ Levels and thus apply for promotion to Assistant Experimental Officer. Such a move promised three week’s extra leave and a chance to be a forecaster. These days were the depths of the Cold War, and the Wealdstone Office had a big Civil Defence team. Being rufty-tufty I joined and, ridiculously, ended up as the Rescue Team Leader, white helmet, big R, and two black stripes, overalls, boots, respirator and a green vehicle stuffed with ladders, axes, ropes, stretchers and lifting gear. All this at age 20 with some very senior old-boys as the team. Unimaginable today.
‘A’ Levels duly hacked, my promotion board turned me down. I applied to join the Atomic Energy Commission, was accepted and about to resign from Met. when my old boss from Uxbridge came to see me, exceedingly wrathful, and demanded that I sit a second “special” Board sitting. This was a farce, a rubber stamp exercise, but my joy was tempered by a rule change in the interim: no longer three week’s extra leave, but three days, with the prospect of edging up to three weeks if I lived long enough.
Although young men not out of their teens were entrusted with Her Majesty’s aircraft, forecasters were not allowed to brief the RAF until they were 23 year’s old. There was thus a gap, the equivalent of Holding, in which I went to the Central Forecast Office at Dunstable. Somehow my Civil Defence boots followed me, neatly wrapped, posted and presented to me publicly by admin. For the next two years I was “Jim Boots”.
A new unit had been set up to use the first-generation programmable computer. This filled a wooden hut the size of a village hall, and was a direct descendant of Turing’s work at Manchester. Called the Ferranti Mercury, six were built, the first for Joe Lyon’s cafes’ pay rolls and stock control. Jim Boots was trained on the job as programmer and operator. He was not very good, but good enough to be assigned the role of PA, gopher, bag-carrier and fixer for the brilliant Chief Forecast Research Officer, J S Sawyer. He was the brain, with Fred Bushby, behind our first successful weather forecasting model. I believe your laptop has more computing power.
I had met and married a Met. Assistant during this time, the best thing that ever happened to me. She gave me four marvellous children, packed and unpacked about every three years from posting to posting until retirement, and still tolerates me.
Having reached 23, I was posted to an Ocean Weather Ship rather than a forecasting course. Only the intervention of Sawyer and my dodgy duodenum saved me.
And so the prospective weather-guesser went to College.
As I was saying:.
Memory being dimmed by time, I may have told some of these tales before, and differently. All I can say is that I tell no deliberate lies, some names are withheld to protect the guilty, and the good guys sometimes get a mention.
In the autumn of 1955 I was a bus-conductor in leafy Hove, an only child, an only grand-child, with ten ‘O’ Levels, Physics at ‘A’ Level and fails in Pure Maths and Applied Maths. Also a Scoutmaster and Queen’s Scout, probably the cause of my poor Upper Sixth performance. Like all boys I was air-mad, and had nearly joined the Royal Navy at Dartmouth, but slight-colour blindness vetoed that and thus the Fleet Air Arm. A further snag was health: a burst duodenal ulcer at about 16 hindered education and employability.
My father [who had served as RAFVR flying barrage balloons] found me an advertisement for Met. Assistants, but the Board wanted to turn me down as over-qualified and likely to become dissatisfied They relented and I was trained at the Met. School at Stanmore , passed out second in course [every professional course ended with me second] and posted to RAF Uxbridge. At that time I think it was Regiment and Central Band, and a Main Met. Office. The Station Commander probably lived off-station, drove an open-top sports car with a black Lab, and his arrivals at the gate were greeted by a Guard turn-out.
The standards demanded of a plotter were high, and I was wrapped on the knuckles [literally] for a 280 degree wind arrow which the supervisor measured as 270. It mattered, seemingly.
National Service beckoned ‘In the Trade of Met. Assistant’ but the Medical did not want me. I was thus spared the square bashing and scratchy trousers but, as carefree youth, I was not too upset by the prospect. A few years later I had six National Service airmen as assistants in Nicosia, the last of the many, and all of them nice highly-qualified blokes.
The Uxbridge Chief Met. Officer took me off shift-work [£28 per month, wealth even when living in digs] and, as a great kindness not appreciated, had me posted to the big office at Harrow Wealdstone. This was so that I could have day release to bag the missing ‘A’ Levels and thus apply for promotion to Assistant Experimental Officer. Such a move promised three week’s extra leave and a chance to be a forecaster. These days were the depths of the Cold War, and the Wealdstone Office had a big Civil Defence team. Being rufty-tufty I joined and, ridiculously, ended up as the Rescue Team Leader, white helmet, big R, and two black stripes, overalls, boots, respirator and a green vehicle stuffed with ladders, axes, ropes, stretchers and lifting gear. All this at age 20 with some very senior old-boys as the team. Unimaginable today.
‘A’ Levels duly hacked, my promotion board turned me down. I applied to join the Atomic Energy Commission, was accepted and about to resign from Met. when my old boss from Uxbridge came to see me, exceedingly wrathful, and demanded that I sit a second “special” Board sitting. This was a farce, a rubber stamp exercise, but my joy was tempered by a rule change in the interim: no longer three week’s extra leave, but three days, with the prospect of edging up to three weeks if I lived long enough.
Although young men not out of their teens were entrusted with Her Majesty’s aircraft, forecasters were not allowed to brief the RAF until they were 23 year’s old. There was thus a gap, the equivalent of Holding, in which I went to the Central Forecast Office at Dunstable. Somehow my Civil Defence boots followed me, neatly wrapped, posted and presented to me publicly by admin. For the next two years I was “Jim Boots”.
A new unit had been set up to use the first-generation programmable computer. This filled a wooden hut the size of a village hall, and was a direct descendant of Turing’s work at Manchester. Called the Ferranti Mercury, six were built, the first for Joe Lyon’s cafes’ pay rolls and stock control. Jim Boots was trained on the job as programmer and operator. He was not very good, but good enough to be assigned the role of PA, gopher, bag-carrier and fixer for the brilliant Chief Forecast Research Officer, J S Sawyer. He was the brain, with Fred Bushby, behind our first successful weather forecasting model. I believe your laptop has more computing power.
I had met and married a Met. Assistant during this time, the best thing that ever happened to me. She gave me four marvellous children, packed and unpacked about every three years from posting to posting until retirement, and still tolerates me.
Having reached 23, I was posted to an Ocean Weather Ship rather than a forecasting course. Only the intervention of Sawyer and my dodgy duodenum saved me.
And so the prospective weather-guesser went to College.
Are you "Fishing" (1987)? 😀
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Go for it, LB ... your much maligned profession deserves its place in the sun. (Astral, not Tabloid)
Seconded - reminiscing is an enjoyable function of our aged brains!
Thread Starter
we shall see ....................................
As I was saying:.
Memory being dimmed by time, I may have told some of these tales before, and differently. All I can say is that I tell no deliberate lies, some names are withheld to protect the guilty, and the good guys sometimes get a mention.
In the autumn of 1955 I was a bus-conductor in leafy Hove, an only child, an only grand-child, with ten ‘O’ Levels, Physics at ‘A’ Level and fails in Pure Maths and Applied Maths. Also a Scoutmaster and Queen’s Scout, probably the cause of my poor Upper Sixth performance. Like all boys I was air-mad, and had nearly joined the Royal Navy at Dartmouth, but slight-colour blindness vetoed that and thus the Fleet Air Arm. A further snag was health: a burst duodenal ulcer at about 16 hindered education and employability.
My father [who had served as RAFVR flying barrage balloons] found me an advertisement for Met. Assistants, but the Board wanted to turn me down as over-qualified and likely to become dissatisfied They relented and I was trained at the Met. School at Stanmore , passed out second in course [every professional course ended with me second] and posted to RAF Uxbridge. At that time I think it was Regiment and Central Band, and a Main Met. Office. The Station Commander probably lived off-station, drove an open-top sports car with a black Lab, and his arrivals at the gate were greeted by a Guard turn-out.
The standards demanded of a plotter were high, and I was wrapped on the knuckles [literally] for a 280 degree wind arrow which the supervisor measured as 270. It mattered, seemingly.
National Service beckoned ‘In the Trade of Met. Assistant’ but the Medical did not want me. I was thus spared the square bashing and scratchy trousers but, as carefree youth, I was not too upset by the prospect. A few years later I had six National Service airmen as assistants in Nicosia, the last of the many, and all of them nice highly-qualified blokes.
The Uxbridge Chief Met. Officer took me off shift-work [£28 per month, wealth even when living in digs] and, as a great kindness not appreciated, had me posted to the big office at Harrow Wealdstone. This was so that I could have day release to bag the missing ‘A’ Levels and thus apply for promotion to Assistant Experimental Officer. Such a move promised three week’s extra leave and a chance to be a forecaster. These days were the depths of the Cold War, and the Wealdstone Office had a big Civil Defence team. Being rufty-tufty I joined and, ridiculously, ended up as the Rescue Team Leader, white helmet, big R, and two black stripes, overalls, boots, respirator and a green vehicle stuffed with ladders, axes, ropes, stretchers and lifting gear. All this at age 20 with some very senior old-boys as the team. Unimaginable today.
‘A’ Levels duly hacked, my promotion board turned me down. I applied to join the Atomic Energy Commission, was accepted and about to resign from Met. when my old boss from Uxbridge came to see me, exceedingly wrathful, and demanded that I sit a second “special” Board sitting. This was a farce, a rubber stamp exercise, but my joy was tempered by a rule change in the interim: no longer three week’s extra leave, but three days, with the prospect of edging up to three weeks if I lived long enough.
Although young men not out of their teens were entrusted with Her Majesty’s aircraft, forecasters were not allowed to brief the RAF until they were 23 year’s old. There was thus a gap, the equivalent of Holding, in which I went to the Central Forecast Office at Dunstable. Somehow my Civil Defence boots followed me, neatly wrapped, posted and presented to me publicly by admin. For the next two years I was “Jim Boots”.
A new unit had been set up to use the first-generation programmable computer. This filled a wooden hut the size of a village hall, and was a direct descendant of Turing’s work at Manchester. Called the Ferranti Mercury, six were built, the first for Joe Lyon’s cafes’ pay rolls and stock control. Jim Boots was trained on the job as programmer and operator. He was not very good, but good enough to be assigned the role of PA, gopher, bag-carrier and fixer for the brilliant Chief Forecast Research Officer, J S Sawyer. He was the brain, with Fred Bushby, behind our first successful weather forecasting model. I believe your laptop has more computing power.
I had met and married a Met. Assistant during this time, the best thing that ever happened to me. She gave me four marvellous children, packed and unpacked about every three years from posting to posting until retirement, and still tolerates me.
Having reached 23, I was posted to an Ocean Weather Ship rather than a forecasting course. Only the intervention of Sawyer and my dodgy duodenum saved me.
And so the prospective weather-guesser went to College.
As I was saying:.
Memory being dimmed by time, I may have told some of these tales before, and differently. All I can say is that I tell no deliberate lies, some names are withheld to protect the guilty, and the good guys sometimes get a mention.
In the autumn of 1955 I was a bus-conductor in leafy Hove, an only child, an only grand-child, with ten ‘O’ Levels, Physics at ‘A’ Level and fails in Pure Maths and Applied Maths. Also a Scoutmaster and Queen’s Scout, probably the cause of my poor Upper Sixth performance. Like all boys I was air-mad, and had nearly joined the Royal Navy at Dartmouth, but slight-colour blindness vetoed that and thus the Fleet Air Arm. A further snag was health: a burst duodenal ulcer at about 16 hindered education and employability.
My father [who had served as RAFVR flying barrage balloons] found me an advertisement for Met. Assistants, but the Board wanted to turn me down as over-qualified and likely to become dissatisfied They relented and I was trained at the Met. School at Stanmore , passed out second in course [every professional course ended with me second] and posted to RAF Uxbridge. At that time I think it was Regiment and Central Band, and a Main Met. Office. The Station Commander probably lived off-station, drove an open-top sports car with a black Lab, and his arrivals at the gate were greeted by a Guard turn-out.
The standards demanded of a plotter were high, and I was wrapped on the knuckles [literally] for a 280 degree wind arrow which the supervisor measured as 270. It mattered, seemingly.
National Service beckoned ‘In the Trade of Met. Assistant’ but the Medical did not want me. I was thus spared the square bashing and scratchy trousers but, as carefree youth, I was not too upset by the prospect. A few years later I had six National Service airmen as assistants in Nicosia, the last of the many, and all of them nice highly-qualified blokes.
The Uxbridge Chief Met. Officer took me off shift-work [£28 per month, wealth even when living in digs] and, as a great kindness not appreciated, had me posted to the big office at Harrow Wealdstone. This was so that I could have day release to bag the missing ‘A’ Levels and thus apply for promotion to Assistant Experimental Officer. Such a move promised three week’s extra leave and a chance to be a forecaster. These days were the depths of the Cold War, and the Wealdstone Office had a big Civil Defence team. Being rufty-tufty I joined and, ridiculously, ended up as the Rescue Team Leader, white helmet, big R, and two black stripes, overalls, boots, respirator and a green vehicle stuffed with ladders, axes, ropes, stretchers and lifting gear. All this at age 20 with some very senior old-boys as the team. Unimaginable today.
‘A’ Levels duly hacked, my promotion board turned me down. I applied to join the Atomic Energy Commission, was accepted and about to resign from Met. when my old boss from Uxbridge came to see me, exceedingly wrathful, and demanded that I sit a second “special” Board sitting. This was a farce, a rubber stamp exercise, but my joy was tempered by a rule change in the interim: no longer three week’s extra leave, but three days, with the prospect of edging up to three weeks if I lived long enough.
Although young men not out of their teens were entrusted with Her Majesty’s aircraft, forecasters were not allowed to brief the RAF until they were 23 year’s old. There was thus a gap, the equivalent of Holding, in which I went to the Central Forecast Office at Dunstable. Somehow my Civil Defence boots followed me, neatly wrapped, posted and presented to me publicly by admin. For the next two years I was “Jim Boots”.
A new unit had been set up to use the first-generation programmable computer. This filled a wooden hut the size of a village hall, and was a direct descendant of Turing’s work at Manchester. Called the Ferranti Mercury, six were built, the first for Joe Lyon’s cafes’ pay rolls and stock control. Jim Boots was trained on the job as programmer and operator. He was not very good, but good enough to be assigned the role of PA, gopher, bag-carrier and fixer for the brilliant Chief Forecast Research Officer, J S Sawyer. He was the brain, with Fred Bushby, behind our first successful weather forecasting model. I believe your laptop has more computing power.
I had met and married a Met. Assistant during this time, the best thing that ever happened to me. She gave me four marvellous children, packed and unpacked about every three years from posting to posting until retirement, and still tolerates me.
Having reached 23, I was posted to an Ocean Weather Ship rather than a forecasting course. Only the intervention of Sawyer and my dodgy duodenum saved me.
And so the prospective weather-guesser went to College.
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As a navigator plotter, on Canberras in Cyprus , 249 Gold Coast Sqn, and subsequently Vulcans, 44 Rhodesia Sqn at Waddington I was used , on a regular basis, to the very high professional quality of our Met services. We used to always endeavour to provide Met feed backs post flight, if only as a back up. In the period 1963 to 1975, things were very different to today.
44 Sqn were fortunate because the Met Office was in the same hangar, next door. Thank you very much for the service provided.
44 Sqn were fortunate because the Met Office was in the same hangar, next door. Thank you very much for the service provided.
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I remember Ocean Weather Ships that facilitated the prediction of the change from blue to red, with remarkable accuracy.
Rapid stack, and down to the Swan at Littlehaven to observe Brawdy's personal lump of fog on the cliff.
I think the met services took a while to recover from their withdrawal and replacement with satellite data. And computers!
,
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I recall a certain Met O at Gutersloh who did our squadron met brief one winter morning without mentioning the snow that was covering the back of his blazer as he walked in! Must have been a “good do” the night before.
Also, the tale told about another at his dining out at Linton on Ouse. Having been yelled at over the garden fence by Wg Cdr Ops because his bonfire was smoking him out he replied “Sorry I didn’t know the wind was blowing in your direction”
.
Also, the tale told about another at his dining out at Linton on Ouse. Having been yelled at over the garden fence by Wg Cdr Ops because his bonfire was smoking him out he replied “Sorry I didn’t know the wind was blowing in your direction”
.
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LB, I'm sure you were far too wise to ever commit such a "schoolboy error"!!!!!!!!
Please, please continue. You write very well and the subject matter is fascinating. Having been briefed by your ilk for 42 years I feel I know the metal of the character...
LB
First I always read your posts, they are amongst some of the most interesting on here.
Second I thank you for your service, as I am sure anyone who benefited from your forecasts did or does.
Third please continue with your memories as I and I am, sure many others will enjoy them and they will be a record for posterity.
Finally have you considered writing a book ? you can sign me up as a subscriber here and now.
First I always read your posts, they are amongst some of the most interesting on here.
Second I thank you for your service, as I am sure anyone who benefited from your forecasts did or does.
Third please continue with your memories as I and I am, sure many others will enjoy them and they will be a record for posterity.
Finally have you considered writing a book ? you can sign me up as a subscriber here and now.
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Your genuine reminiscences will be most welcome - and a blessed relief from a lot of the doom and gloom posted by keyboard warriors these days on PPRuNe!
We had a MetO at RAFC Cranwell in 1975 who briefed vile weather one Autumn night when the Dominie squadron was due to fly. So they stacked to the bar. On re-emerging some hours later, they were surprised by a totally clear sky and lots of stars. The next day their somewhat enraged boss went to see the MetO, who meekly advised "Sorry about that - I misplotted my tephigram".
It was another 2 weeks before conditions were again suitable for night astro!
We had a MetO at RAFC Cranwell in 1975 who briefed vile weather one Autumn night when the Dominie squadron was due to fly. So they stacked to the bar. On re-emerging some hours later, they were surprised by a totally clear sky and lots of stars. The next day their somewhat enraged boss went to see the MetO, who meekly advised "Sorry about that - I misplotted my tephigram".
It was another 2 weeks before conditions were again suitable for night astro!
Last edited by BEagle; 3rd Apr 2024 at 20:57.
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LB
I recall you did a time in Nicosia - did you do any stations in a*sehole places like Idris, El Adem, Khormaksar etc - they had good memories from myself but I'd never want to go back.
I recall you did a time in Nicosia - did you do any stations in a*sehole places like Idris, El Adem, Khormaksar etc - they had good memories from myself but I'd never want to go back.
Thread Starter
I recall a certain Met O at Gutersloh who did our squadron met brief one winter morning without mentioning the snow that was covering the back of his blazer as he walked in! Must have been a “good do” the night before.
Also, the tale told about another at his dining out at Linton on Ouse. Having been yelled at over the garden fence by Wg Cdr Ops because his bonfire was smoking him out he replied “Sorry I didn’t know the wind was blowing in your direction” .
Also, the tale told about another at his dining out at Linton on Ouse. Having been yelled at over the garden fence by Wg Cdr Ops because his bonfire was smoking him out he replied “Sorry I didn’t know the wind was blowing in your direction”
.
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Thread Starter
No, the good fairy kept me away. I will tell a tale about "Manning" or "Postings" forthwith.
Thread Starter
The Initial Forecast Course was [inevitably in those days] all male, eleven AXOs and one Chinese. Most of us wore grey flannels and dark blazers. Teaching was on a chalkboard. The senior instructor had a pet, simplified, model of a little chunk of air, he called it the unit cube, each axis one centimetre. To save him trouble, we painted [I painted] a cube on the board. Which went well not at all. I think we were at it for half a year, with much emphasis on punctuality and how to brief. Even now, in my dreams, I am late for the mass briefing. Theory and practice were well mixed, afternoons spent playing at station Met. Offices. Come the final exams the Chinese gentleman came top of course.
Postings must have been tricky because no sensible S Met O wanted a rookie on strength, but I fell lucky and went to the shiny new office at shiny new Gatwick, which had taken the flights and work from Croydon. Gatwick had a senior and a junior forecaster on watch, such that I had a succession of mentors. Like all workers, I soon learned to copy the good guys. In those days we prepared dedicated cross-sections for booked flights. Ken Richardson drew beautiful Constable-like cloudscapes so I emulated these, but always added an eagle among the Cbs. Rastus Racey drew charts with isobars like flowing rivers, and I tried to copy that too.
Captains were briefed individually, there were no despatchers or Ops staff, so we met famous faces like Douglas Bader and Sir Malcolm Campbell. The Independent newspaper launched, with flights to all quarters of the UK. Like Lars Porsena of Clusium, the messengers were sent forth, east and west and south and north, but this time by charter from Gatwick. Fortunately it was benign anticyclonic, so one bland forecast and a sheet of TAFs sufficed for most, and I was trusted with the whole job. The Channel Isles were fogbound, but the captains said they would line up with their usual church towers and deliver. Fingers crossed, and 100% success.
S Met O took a deep breath, rolled his eyes and signed -off my competency.
Now the infamous Postings people put the dartboard on the wall, picked up a handful of arrows, and the one marked LB stuck in the space called RAF Nicosia. In those days there were more overseas jobs than volunteers, Met. was slowly withdrawing from Home and Empire, and there were lots of stick-in-the-muds who had never left Lincolnshire or Yorkshire or HQ for an entire war. Neither my wife nor I knew where Cyprus was ………. I thought it was off the coast of East Africa.
Postings sorted passports, jabs, flights in no time so a green rookie junior forecaster and his 20 year-old beautiful wife arrived at Hendon on 1st April 1961, to sever all contact with home except by letter.
Postings must have been tricky because no sensible S Met O wanted a rookie on strength, but I fell lucky and went to the shiny new office at shiny new Gatwick, which had taken the flights and work from Croydon. Gatwick had a senior and a junior forecaster on watch, such that I had a succession of mentors. Like all workers, I soon learned to copy the good guys. In those days we prepared dedicated cross-sections for booked flights. Ken Richardson drew beautiful Constable-like cloudscapes so I emulated these, but always added an eagle among the Cbs. Rastus Racey drew charts with isobars like flowing rivers, and I tried to copy that too.
Captains were briefed individually, there were no despatchers or Ops staff, so we met famous faces like Douglas Bader and Sir Malcolm Campbell. The Independent newspaper launched, with flights to all quarters of the UK. Like Lars Porsena of Clusium, the messengers were sent forth, east and west and south and north, but this time by charter from Gatwick. Fortunately it was benign anticyclonic, so one bland forecast and a sheet of TAFs sufficed for most, and I was trusted with the whole job. The Channel Isles were fogbound, but the captains said they would line up with their usual church towers and deliver. Fingers crossed, and 100% success.
S Met O took a deep breath, rolled his eyes and signed -off my competency.
Now the infamous Postings people put the dartboard on the wall, picked up a handful of arrows, and the one marked LB stuck in the space called RAF Nicosia. In those days there were more overseas jobs than volunteers, Met. was slowly withdrawing from Home and Empire, and there were lots of stick-in-the-muds who had never left Lincolnshire or Yorkshire or HQ for an entire war. Neither my wife nor I knew where Cyprus was ………. I thought it was off the coast of East Africa.
Postings sorted passports, jabs, flights in no time so a green rookie junior forecaster and his 20 year-old beautiful wife arrived at Hendon on 1st April 1961, to sever all contact with home except by letter.
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OLD WWII era USN Met Officer cartoon chewing out DILBERT reproduced in Naval Aviation News
Dec 1973 https://www.history.navy.mil/content.../pdf/dec73.pdf
Dec 1973 https://www.history.navy.mil/content.../pdf/dec73.pdf
1980s, Vale of York. Fog at CF - 10 O'Clock clearance said the metman (every day). The crewroom clock had 10 for every hour digit. Lovely people; terrible liars!!
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