The Sixties - Raven it up in Lincs...
That remark about the Flying Officer in the pool reminds me of where the pool came from.
It wasn't all hard work at Waddo in the sixties. We drank hard and played hard too. Remember The Raven Club (our NAAFI)? Lincolnshire wasn't (still isn't?) exactly the wildest place in UK - its the only city where I've been stopped by the police and asked what I was doing on the street at that time of night (it was only eleven-thirty!) The Raven Club committee were unusually efficient and organised the most amazing entertainment ever seen on an RAF base. There was a dance every Saturday that attracted most of the younger population of the entire county and the takings were phenomenally good. Once a month there was a 'special' with a well known guest band. I remember Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Jethro Tull, Unit Four Plus Two, Status Quo and Pink Floyd. The place was a paradise on a Saturday night - you couldn't move for totty in mini-skirts and the barrack blocks shook as much as the NAAFI. Eventually when we had the Bee Gees and people came from all over the country, their Airships sat up and took notice. They ordered the funds wound down and the entertainment placed on a more modest level. The Raven Club wasn't on the high security part of Waddo but this was after all a nuclear bomber base - not a nightclub.
We then had a Grand Gala night to get rid of as much money as possible. Entrance was free, beer was half-price, Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball played alternate sets all night and a free raffle handed out TV's, freezers and the like in abundance. The left over money was used to build that swimmiing pool that F/O Davis enjoyed so much...
I am reminded that the RAF of those days' wasn't much like the present in more ways than one. But then we all believed that MAD was inevitable and so lived only for today
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Through difficulties to the cinema