On a lighter note, pupils in my son's class were asked to write a short story entitled A Typical Day at Brüggen. This was his offering (he was 10): 06:30 A nasty noise coming from mum and dads bedroom - an alarm clock go’s off, dad struggles to turn it off before mum (code name old nag) wakes up. Then he washes, shaves and gets dressed in 30 seconds. Then rushes out of the house to try and catch the squadron transport, but he’d missed it. He jumps on his bike and pedals furiously so not to be late for the 07:00 brief. Then it starts to rain - another typical day at Brüggen.
07:00 Arrives at the squadron to get met brief – they said ‘it won’t rain today.’
07:15 Starts the plan for the sortie. Four aircraft to Northern Germany.
09:15 Finish plan for sortie go to briefing room to brief sortie briefing lasts half an hour.
09:45 Going to ops room, the engineers say ‘the planes are not ready yet.’ Typical.
10:00 Going to planes Alf the driver says ‘Mind your head sir.’
10:30 Take off. Fly mission, mission success on the way home it rains!
12:15 Land Tornado still serviceable. Surprise surprise!
12:40 Back at the squadron for the debrief last 30 mins then looks at film. Dad says ‘The target must have moved, it’s not on my film!’ Typical!
13:30 Five minute lunch break in the crew room. Go back to office to do some paper work, mostly rubbish. Typical.
15:00 A short coffee, back into the office more paper work.
16:00 Look at copy of tomorrows flying ‘why am I not on it.’
17:00 Go home and it’s still raining.
That was 34-years ago. It still makes me smile.