Anyway, Bob, what I did find amusing was listening to 'Jones the Motor' (as he was nicknamed), who ran the little garage in the village, conversing with one of the locals in Welsh. Except that every so often a technical term was in English. So there would be lots of lilting Welsh, then 'carburettor' or 'fuel pump' or whatever. Someone rather unkindly said that was because the Welsh didn't have words for anything modern, such as 'wheel' or 'fire' - a bit harsh, I thought.
Jones the Motor was a star though - one Friday afternoon the throttle cable in my MG Midget failed. I thought I'd have to wait until the following day and get a lift to Llanfair PG for a new one, which would have ruined my weekend in London. But after a few minutes of delving in his parts shed, out he came with the necessary!
Do many people stationed at Valley for any length of time make any effort to learn some Welsh? I certainly would have done.
Personally I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Valley, although the winter weather could be rather bleak.
Back to the thread about bang seats - I had a fascinating time visiting Martin-Baker last week. 'Eject' was the word everyone used, rather than 'Bailout'. Watching the 2 Meteors flying in idyllic weather was the icing on the cake! But the new F-35 seat and the clever auto-eject system was extremely interesting. The time between ejection and parachute deploy has been really cut down since the days of the old Mk2 'gunpowder' seat we had in the Hunter 6/9 and even surpasses the Mk10.
But why on earth didn't the RAF specify ejector seats for the Grob Prefect? Most other customers do..... If, perish the thought, there's ever a fatal accident due to no bang seats, heads should surely roll at the MoD!
Last edited by BEagle; 21st Aug 2019 at 09:58.