Generic thread

[Wholigan]

since they started parking cars and caravans on the parade ground

Parade ground?? PARADE GROUND??? You namby-pamby spoilt load of brats probably don’t even know what a parade ground is!

When I were a lad, we had to get up and run round the parade ground 50 times before we were allowed to have breakfast. When we’d had breakfast we did 5 hours drill on the parade ground, including 2 hours of precision rifle drill with no orders. After that we had to do 6 hours of ground school with full written exams that lasted for 30 minutes every hour. If we passed all the exams with a pass mark of 98.4%, we were allowed to have some lunch. If not, we had to sit all the exams again.

After lunch we had to learn all of the checks for the Bleriot Monoplane, the Tiger Moth and the Chipmunk. If we got through the oral exams satisfactorily they let us sit in the Chipmunk for 25 minutes before we then ran 50 times round the parade ground again. If we got round the parade ground 50 times in less than 8 minutes, we could have some dinner. If we were too slow we had to keep running round until we DID get 50 laps done in less than 8 minutes. One lad I knew was running for 9 weeks once.

Once we had eaten, we spent the next 14 hours bulling the room and making bed packs before we then got to bed. If we were lucky we managed to stay asleep for 45 minutes or so before we were woken to start running round the parade ground again.

After 9 months of this we started flying. If we hadn’t gone solo in 2 hours and 30 minutes we were chopped. The whole flying part of the course lasted for 5 days and then we were sent off to Peshawar on 20 Sqn flying Westland Wapitis against the “they don’t like it up ‘em” brigade. If we managed to kill 4000 enemy troops in the first 2 years, we were allowed 2 days off to sleep and drink. Otherwise we just kept on going. Chum of mine was a lousy shot and he was there for 37 years non-stop.

And during all this time we had to pay the Air Ministry £3 - 14 shillings and threepence for food and accommodation costs, not that we had any real accommodation. I slept under the aircraft wing for 7 years.

And this lot whingers in here think they have it bad. BEagle will tell yer I'm right.