Maybe distance lends enchantment but I have happy memories of growing up in what is now Merlin Road at RAF Binbrook each side of 1950. The prewar terraces were well built and if there were any faults they were promptly tackled by MPPW (Ministry Public Building and Works). But then the country still had respect for the Servicemen who had saved them from German lessons only a few years before.
Now and again we are shocked by TV pics of the mould and dereliction in married quarters which are farmed out for maximum profit by the stock exchange cowboys. Indeed some MQs are considered uninhabitable for our thousands of illegal immigrants. And we wonder why our Services cannot recruit? Kipling knew this feeling:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play[size=8333px].[/size]