I believe they move civil servants round in MOD every few years.[/QUOTE]
Tiny digression on MoD civil service mobility back in the day.
Indeed so. I ran a sort of refresher course at the Met Office College for three years late 1970s. About 5 courses of 12 or so bodies on each, total sample about 180, 90% men.
I gathered stats of their careers to date ........ aged mid 30s to early 40s, borderline HSO to SSO material [SSO being charged S/Ldr Mess rates].
Average period on one station or civil airfield before next "permanent" posting 3 years, average detachments during each posting about 4. Thus most of them had moved house [or undertaken long commutes] a goodly number of times. In those days many wives did not do full time work. The big shift to working wives was when mortgages could be based on joint salary income [my opinion].
No complaints, it was a mobile contract and we had a degree of say over most moves, or at least the timings. The one kiss of death was to a day job at Bracknell. [Me? One Bracknell stint of 19 weeks, and later-on another of 12 weeks. More than enough].