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Old 14th Mar 2021, 20:46
  #387 (permalink)  
Tengah Type
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: S W France
Age: 80
Posts: 261
Received 2 Likes on 1 Post
The Padre at RAF Hullavington in 1962 spent his spare time tending to the Officers Mess gardens, usually in tatty gardening dress. It was always fun when a new course arrived for the Nav School as there was always sombody who would arrive In their new MG/Morgan, present from Daddy for being commisioned and demand from the "Peasant" where to park his beautiful car. The Padre in full Wing Commander uniform would make a point of sitting at the same table as the new arrival for lunch causing a certain amount of discomfort as well as a valuable lesson in respect for others.

Back in the mists of time (1966/67) the RAF Telephone system relied on a relay of exchanges manned mainly by WRAF. To connect from Marham to Leuchars/Lossie or similar required connections to "Eastern", "Stanbridge","Northern" "Scottish" ( or some such). The call would arrive at the station where the operator would plug a jack plug into the appropriate socket to achieve the connection. Sometimes calls were misdirected.
Most flying squadrons had a dozen phones, one of which was the "Ops" phone. There were no "Ops" rooms, as such, so the phone was in the corner of the crew room manned by a co-pilot or Nav joed for the day.
It was common practice for "Jokers" on the squadron to call the "Ops" number and announce themselves as "AOC", "the Pope", "Station Commander" and other humourous appointments.. The story goes that on a Vulcan squadron that the phone rang for the caller, who was the AOC, to talk to the Station Commander. It was not the first "Spoof" call oi the day so the duty responder said "Why dont you just F--k Off"
It was the real AOC ( Ted Le Bas?) who after being connected to the Station Commander requested the culprit in his office at Bawtry at 0800 the following day.,

The following morning our hero in best uniform, shiny shoes etc is there at the appointed hour. The PSO tells him to wait. AOC arrives and proceeds to his office ignoring the trembling Flying Officer. At 1230 the AOC departs for lunch and the PSO tells the Flying Officer to go to the Mess and grab a quick lunch and the AOC will see him after lunch. At 1400 AOC returns and ignores the quivering jelly of a Flying Officer. Eventually at 1700 the young lad is summoned to the presence to hear his fate. After a few minutes the AOC looks up and says "Why dont you just F--k Off". There were no further recriminations, but people were a bit more carefull on the telephone afterwards.

I suppose in these days it would now be "Bullying" and deserve a multi million compensation.
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