Blacksheep, That’s better. Your previous talk of NBC suits and shooting people in the head made me think I was in a different air force. I don’t recall even seeing an NBC suit, let alone wearing one.
Now the Waddington Raven Club! That was my sort of operation. I’d always assumed that the name Raven came from a squadron badge of some sort, but the real story is this;
‘On the 9th May 1941 our European Union brothers made their worst attack on Waddington, severely damaging 71 houses in the village, including both the Horse & Jockey and the Three Horseshoes pubs, and the NAAFI on the camp. 11 people were killed, among them the NAAFI manageress, Mrs Constance Raven, after whom the all-ranks club is named. 3 of the dead were airmen who had been in an air raid shelter, the only military installation recorded as damaged, although this may be due to wartime censorship. The damage was mainly caused by two aerial mines, large bombs dropped by parachute and fused to explode before hitting the ground.
Pictures at;
http://www.raf-waddington.com/specia...thenandnow.htm
Thursday night was also dance night. If Bomber Command had ever done an analysis of Vulcan serviceability against weekdays they’d have found that the best time to have a war was around 9.30pm on a Thursday. By that time every aircraft on line had long been signed off as 100%, buttoned up, and ready.
It did sometimes get very tight on time and the future Memsahib, a vision of loveliness still in black stockinged nurses uniform from the late shift at Lincoln General, became very adept at operating mini-winches to help me change the odd Red Shrimp, Blue Diver, Green Palm, or whatever. This moonlit scene, subtly enhanced by the sodium orange pan lights, could well have made the RAF’s ideal recruiting poster.
She never did get the hang of running up ECM equipment but I do recall her first visit to the cockpit when the only two placards which caught her eye were Fast Erect and Artificial Feel. The rest is history.