Originally Posted by
rolling20
As a UAS cadet, there was always something special about the officers mess.
Even when my subsequent career gave me access to some of the finest eateries/ hotels in the world, I looked back on those days with fondness.
I know what you mean. I gave a talk on AAR to the local branch of Air Britain at St Mawgan a few years ago. I was met at the guardroom by my host, a serving officer, who signed me in and got me a temporary pass. He then stood me dinner in the combined officers/SNCO 's mess on the base, the first time I had come across such a thing. RAF St Mawgan was a shadow of its former self in the days of Shacks and later Nimrods and as a major diversion airfield and by then was little more than a lodger unit of Newquay airport, and consequently had none of the atmosphere of an operational RAF station mess. Dinner was paid for with cash (do mess bills still exist?) , and was ok-ish, but nothing special. When we had a swift one in the bar before my talk I think we were the only two in.
What a contrast to my first experience of an officers mess as an awe struck 18 year old APO. Polished tables and waiter service at all meals in the dining room, dining nights with all the silver out and dinner announced by the band playing "The Roast Beef of Old England", nervousness at being the most junior mess member and having to be "Mr Vice" and standing to propose the loyal toast to a room full of officers, many of whom wearing WW2 miniatures. No cash involved, everything on your mess bill, lounge suits during the week and sports jackets and "flannels" at weekends only. Not to mention having the services of a shared batman, and sending clothes to the laundry, your mess dress stiff shirt coming back so starched you could stand it up! Pay was pretty poor in those days, my carpenter brother was astonished to find that I was earning about half his salary, but I felt I was definitely living the high life in the mess.
Yes I know, yet another post from an old fart of a cold war warrior. I do admire the young men and women of today's depleted RAF who have had a much tougher time on ops than I ever had, but I feel sorry for them as they are missing many of the things which made life as an RAF officer special and made a rather ordinary product of a Northern grammar school feel he had entered a different world.