Lightnings Binbrook 66 to 68 mostly holding southern Q. At first we held Q from the hangar, and as such we were at 10 and I think 5 mins (cockpit). During a week day normal work went on round you, and on occasion pilots were swopped to get the daily task - as we flew 0830 (woe betide the first pair if the burners didn't light as the boss sat down to met brief) till late pilots could easily get to 4 trips and so need 'resting' on Q. At weekends it was quieter as in those days weekend flying did not happen. At one stage us bachelors used to go up to the hangar to race Scaletrix cars round the crewroom and have a coffee with the Q team. For the aircrew it usually meant 24 hours sitting around in flying kit - goon suits in winter. The squadron used to fly all the time in pressure jerkins and so we had to learn to don this garment quickly if needed. Our MRS was Patrington and, as alluded to above, the telebrief used to beep all the time in the ops room. Usually the alert came unannounced over telebrief: 'Binbrook alert 1 Lightning' - more rarely via land line. This led to a rush to the aircraft on the line, hitting a hooter to alert the groundcrew enroute. Once strapped in a check in was made and scramble instructions issued as necessary. As this was all going on the duty ATC watch were also alerted if this was happening out of normal hours. Usually we got airborne and headed east. Sleeping was in a small room in the hangar and I think food was from the mess - so usually not hot! At the time our aircraft were brand new (they were new when I arrived, but without hooks and we replaced them with more new hooked ones half way through my tour) and so usually there was a spare - a request for a scramble to offset boredom was normally accommodated. To sleep or not was always a dilemma. I slept. but a scamble at 0245 showed me how difficult it was to go from sleep to airborne in 10 minutes fortunately adrenalin helped. Mid tour we moved to the Q shed. Will post more later if interested