Akrotiri Christmas Bars
As a new arrival at Akrotiri in December 1968 I was somewhat taken aback when, after being invited to the section Christmas do on the night I arrived (with the complication that it was at Berengaria and I had no idea where that was so the prospect of possibly having to find my way back to the camp put a little bit of a dampener on the evening), I was informed that the section bar was located in my barrack block so it might be a bit noisy over Christmas! On investigation in the daylight of my second day at Akrotiri I found one of the rooms in the block had been transformed into a perfectly formed drinking establishment, permanent bar and all.
It appeared that for the period from Christmas Eve until early January, sections could have a bar in their blocks and a Station competition was judged by the Station Commander and his minions to decide whose was the best and a prize awarded each year. I gather that as the Boss had a drink in each bar and Akrotiri had a lot of sections the final judging was normally carried out by O.C. OPS as the Boss was by that time not really capable.
The bars were open 24 hours a day for the whole period and as can be imagined some serious drinking took place over that period.
The only downside in the whole thing was that as we were the M.U. we were excluded from the competition as we were judged to have professional assistance as we had the chippies as part of the M.U. Just try doing that these days!