BDiONU
Shall we get to specifics, I was not accucisng you of lying, merely misleading.
If you owned your own home in the forces, the cost was all down to you the individual.
If you lived in forces accomodation, you paid, but at nowhere near the cost of a similar sized house would be to rent - FACT. If you lived in the junior/senior rates or Officers mess, you paid depending on the grade (call it comfort factor) of the accomodation (used to be 1-4). The lowest grade used to be circa £90 a month in the late 90s.
Heating and electricity was all included in the accomodation in the messes, but not if you lived in a house.
When you lived in the mess, you also got your food for approximately £3.50 a day for
all meals (again late 90s prices).. I believe PAYD is now in force in some, or all of the establishments. However, if you were a live-er out you could get lunch on a pay to dine basis (i.e. pay for individual meals) and it was cheaper than you could get it outside - i.e.
it was subsidised.
Council tax, again if you were lived in accomodation on the base, was very cheap... I remember paying about 16p per day - late 90s prices.
Now, how in any way can you state these things were not subsidised?
IF you as an individual never lived in a mess on the base, or never lived in a service house, then you probably never had a subsidy (as long as you never dined in on the odd occasion), but I know of no serviceman who has never lived on the base at some pioint in their career.
Now, I may still be mistaken - I may be the only serviceman who has ever paid these prices, whilst my colleagues all paid full whack..... maybe I should keep quiet before someone tries to claim it all bacK!
as you asked
Any other serving or ex-serving readers care to join in the debate?