Originally Posted by airborne_artist
In the late 1970s almost the entire Forces had a pay rise of 35% in one year - Mrs T pre-the 79 election promised us the AFPRB award in full in that year. Callaghan offered to pay it over two years.
As Mrs T won, my pay went up by about 65% in six weeks, as I started getting flying pay, and had a seniority pay rise on completion of my first year. ISTR it went from £2,600 to £4,500
Yes, that's correct (but it might have been 1980). I was in similar circumstances except I was already receiving flying pay by then. The big pay increases followed the fire service pay strikes over the Christmas period, when armed forces personnel were "volunteered" to lose their stand-down to man the Green Goddesses. It became highly political when it was subsequently made known that the firemen were already on more money than the servicemen required to cover for them. IIRC, some servicemen were on income support at that time.