Towering Cu
I can not disagree at all with your post; however my initial post was to point out to the originator of this thread that his reply to 'minesthechevy' was perhaps unwarranted.
Back in the late 70s/early 80s LL had a fearful reputation as a place to validate. I remember when I was at DM having applied to go there an, ATCA who was ex-LL said to me 'LL is a funny place Brian, I saw people who seemed to be doing OK and all of a sudden they had 'looked at someone in a funny way' and then boom they were gone!, but there would be someone who was initially struggling and they pulled the stops out'.
What you have to take on board is that people like HD and I arrived when the training culture was different. As an example, I trained on aerodrome at BB - on my first weekend in the TWR the phone rang and the ATCA taking the call said to me that I was wanted downstairs in the radar room. I went down and another ATCA said 'OK sunshine, part of your duties on the weekend are to make the tea for everyone, there's the kettle,make sure you get it right'. Six months before I had been the most experienced Herc nav on my squadron at DL, people respected me and asked my opinion. So what did I do? I made the tea, I wanted to validate as I had a wife and 3 kids to support,I had applied to the CAA for a job,they hadn't come headhunting for me.I can not imagine anyone being so accepting now!
When HD started at LL there were some fearful people about,who did not take prisoners - many of them had seen service in WW2 - the modern touchy feeling way of handling u/ts did not exist.
As I said, times change, but thankfully even my 37yr old son who is now an OJTI,LCE,Assessor etc at TC preferred to be trained by a 'hard bastard' (sorry CB!).
When I retired I promised myself I would never pontificate about ATC and RAF navigation matters,restricting myself to swapping memories and where are they now type posts - but as I said earlier Garibaldi's rude response struck a chord.
BTW.
PS I hoped you noticed that both HD and I wished him good luck!