Dare we be so reckless ?
or learn a valuable lesson ..
I suspect the lessons we olde phartes learned in days of long ago are no longer as relevant as they may have been back then.
Indeed, a mate flying with one of the current carriers observed in a telecon the other day that one of his management folk had issued some document purporting to direct pilots how to behave themselves on overnights ... we had a collective chuckle and observed, with weary visage, that it probably was time to put ourselves out to pasture.
I recall, quite fondly, folk such as the wonderful Chrissy M
et al who trained up us young chaps in RON protocols and woebetide if any of us stepped out of line without an invitation. Then there was Margie C who, for reasons known only to herself, took me under her ample wing as a young F/O in the best protective grandmotherly fashion ... I learned, very quickly, that hosties younger than a respectable age really had a way to go before attaining the goddess-like aura of their elder sisters ...
I recall, although through great haze, my very first RON on the Mouse in Mt Gambier .. the girls drank both of us under the table and proceeded to throw us one each over their shoulders and carried us back to the pub. There was a scurrilous story (about the other bloke as I recall
) and something to do with skinny dipping in the pool at a ridiculously late hour.
I recall, with the greatest of fond memories, Alice during a track trip with a gang of four whom one would die for. The four of us went out to Standley Chasm in the Moke, complete with survival kit .. the girls weren't too sure as Graeme and I were singing our silly heads off all the way .. stone cold sober. Wonderful night ...
That's enough G-rated nonsense from me ....