Chaos Theory.
Two weeks later the Head of Personnel phoned “You will be pleased to know ………….” And offered me two managerial Principal posts and no forecasting ones. [There were about 20 Stream 2 forecasting posts: CFO, Strike, Heathrow and Intervention. There were some 10 managerial posts: RAF Groups and Weather Centres].
Actually no Arnold, I am not pleased. My wife is very not pleased. My teenage children [one reading Maths at Leeds, three at Queen’s School JHQ] are not pleased. But turning down a promotion meant automatic blacklisting for three years, so with a heavy heart we packed for HQ 1 Group at Bawtry. If you can't take a joke, don't join.
Whereas I could not be trusted to run one outfit, total 15 staff, I could apparently cope with a Main Met. Office and eleven RAF outstations each with 15, ranging from Leeming to Marham.
It was 1981, a time of great change for us and for our RAF customers. My handover took less than an hour, my predecessor had nothing worthwhile to tell me except the safe combination. The task of Regional Met Officer Bawtry resembled a horse designed by a committee: a camel. First the on-site Main Office had morphed into two teams, one fed by Strike providing guidance and operational supervision to all eleven RAF outstations, the other one under CFO for Civil Aviation and Public Service. Unbelievably, the “story” running that day might be rather different between teams. The first reform was to order an 0900 internal briefing to ensure coherence. The air staff brief each morning was also badly done, and a senior forecaster needed removing from that task asap. I took over the briefing every Friday.
Secondly, primitive computers, glorified word-processors, had been issued to all stations but there were no central protocols or formats for output. That needed addressing.
Thirdly the mix of roles of the eleven stations was absurd. Nearby fighter stations Wittering and Coningsby were not my responsibility but Binbrook was. The V force and its support at Waddington, Scampton and Marham was included, but so also were the Training locations of the Vale of York, Finningley and Cranwell. Wyton needed special attention and more clearance and indoctrination. Cottesmore was the Tornado trials station and that too was up to me. Added to which every Eastern civil airport and little airfield had to be inspected annually.
My great good fortune was to inherit a very good deputy in Bob Ward and an excellent admin team. Had it been otherwise, the foolishness of my posting would have been fully exposed. If I had heard about stress and mentalelf I would have thrown a sickie. [The entire Met. ethos excluded sickies, they just meant some other poor sod had to do one's work. This contrasted sharply with other parts of MoD where sick leave was habitually added to annual leave].
The Office was becoming commercial, such that work for civil customers, hitherto regarded as paid for by taxation, was to be charged. Hence the need for a commercial manager, and hence some very unhappy erstwhile customers. Doncaster Royal Infirmary refused to pay for weather warnings [affecting ambulances and patients with fog, frost, ice and snow]. They had received these buckshee since Bawtry opened. Commercialism sat heavily on us all .......... viewed as vulgar trade.
The light note of the week was happy hour, when AVM Mike Knight would sometimes demand that the Bawtry song book be dished out and the piano played by an unblushing female officer.
The Falklands, the miners and the closure.