Originally Posted by
langleybaston
OK ....... Dinger Bell and the tale of Finningley Homos open for input!
Finningley? Never been there AFAIR, so much for my suggestion then! We'll have to wander rather more off-piste than that I'm afraid, LB. How about 5FTS, RAF Oakington October 1962? I and my fellow students, shiny new POs all, were training on the Vickers Varsity prior to moving on to various ME operational types. Saturday the 27th happened to be the day following my 21st birthday and a group of us repaired to nearby Cambridge to acknowledge such a solemn occasion in the traditional way. As we mingled in various bars with the local population, mostly university types of our age group, it became clear that the last thing on people's minds was the Cuba Crisis, which in retrospect reached a crescendo on that date. Nearby RAF Wyton, together with the rest of Bomber Command, unbeknown to us was brought to its highest state of readiness in the crisis but we returned to Oakington, albeit somewhat the worse for wear and in blissful ignorance, knowing no more of the situation than the rest of the population, ie what appeared in the newspapers and on the radio and TV that a U2 had been shot down over Cuba.
So, a not dissimilar experience to yours in Cyprus, LB.