Sun Who and Wander00,
Swinderby for me. We weren't trusted with the electric bumpers until our final week of recruit training (its the little things!). Until then, we had to use the manual floor buffers that give me cold sweats every time I watch Curling. I don't know who had the contract to supply them but with the training machine at full pelt then, they should have made a fortune.
Our course starting coincided with our Sgt's final few months in uniform; he told us he was finishing his 22 years and was about to be pensioned off ('pension', what's a pension?). 22 hours seemed a lifetime, 22 years just didn't compute. As we waited in the dark outside Gibson Block, some SAC in a flasher mac walked past and started screaming at us for, I don't know, breathing probably - I forget. I don't know if it was contrived or not, but the SAC then got a bollocking by our SNCO who appeared out of the dark, for having a go at 'his' men. Every Wednesday night, the NAAFI had an 'exotic dancer'. It was only the early 1980s and that, to me, is still modern. But reading that makes me feel I'm tapping away in black and white whilst happily munching on a iced bun and quaffing a refreshing mug of steaming tea. WRAFs had just started to go through training there then - I don't imagine any suggestions for Chippendales equality would have got particularly far.
It is maybe a reflection of the times that my Flt Cdr is now a LinkedIn connection but we then received a visit from our future instructors at Catterick who threw an extra pair of boots at us and who put us through a day of gym tests and various runs. I wouldn't have been so eager to leave if I knew what was in store. Debussing at Catterick, resplendent in Number 1s and doing bunny hops around the airfield with a bedpack on my back before doing shuttle runs up and down the main drag with a Gimpy, hurt. I think we lost 2 within half an hour but we probably all went into some form of medical shock.
26 of us started (which cast Swinderby in a golden wash of nostalgia - rose tinted spectacles,
as a teenager??) and 4 or 5 finished. The attrition rate may have been due to having to break the ice at 0400 after being chucked out of bed to do Swale river crossings or it may have been due to the relentless section battle drills across a sleety airfield - or maybe we really
were useless! We had 'leccy bumpers at Catterick (which also had to be bulled up of course) apart from the final week (when no one cared). Then, the lofty heights of being an LAC though, well.. that was a completely different story. But even as LACs, we used to sit to attention when an SAC walked into a room (that may have been a peculiarity of my trade tho'..).
Roland; we are of similar vintage then, but alas, I didn't graduate - I merely passed out.
