Hope you don't mind another ex ground crew bloke adding to the thread
The charge given out to camlobes when he joined up reminded me of my first start in the RAF at the tender age of 15 ½ in 1968 as a craft apprentice, airframes. I had to go to RAF Halton 6 months earlier than most, as my school achievements were ok but needed a top up so to speak.
Firstly my choices for joining were;
1. Aircraft Electrician (always liked messing about with electrics as a kid)
2. MT Fitter (always liked messing about with car engines etc)
3. Airframe Fitter (suggested 3rd choice)
First choice was out as my mathematics skills were apparently not good enough, cannot for the likes of me know why I was not deemed suitable for MT Fitter (although once I left training I then started to find out that it is not so much what you would like to be, it was what trade needed people), so I started in my 3rd choice, which after 30 years I had the right choice made for me.
So first things first the arrival and splitting up into alphabetic groups to be allocated block/room, introduced to a discip staff, cannot remember too much shouting at this stage, although my memory of small details like this are not as good as others on this fine thread, some of that came later.
Bed packs, the use of the bumper etc and all those other turning men into boys stuff described previously all bring back the memories of a time gone by. My first ‘run in’ with the management was at a briefing, which included form filling and taking the life insurance with the company that went bust, they introduced us to the term ‘re-mustering’ with the explanation that one could change trades within the same trade group, which just happened to mean that I could change to Aircraft Electrician.
Silly me decided to pose the question that if my maths was not good enough to be an Aircraft Electrician when I applied, and I had done no more maths and improved what I left school with, then how come I could now change to the trade I wanted to be, don’t you just know that when there is a total silence in the room that you begin to think (sorry I know that does not bode well for a young erk to start thinking at this stage) that maybe you are not supposed to question the management.
Anyway the brief continued after the pregnant pause as if I had not said anything, after those 30 years, I never did get an answer to that question. Next time I fell foul was on a Saturday when we were given the task of cleaning up the surrounds of the block which I duly joined the rest of the room and id our bit, having demonstrated the keenness I was carrying out this onerous task by showing the amount of rubbish I had picked up to the discip sergeant, put it in a bin and went to my pit.
The discip Cpl then ordered me to go outside and pick up rubbish to which I politely replied that I had just finished doing that and that the other blokes were finishing off, again funny how I did not learn from my previous sortie into expressing an opinion, this ended up with him charging me for disobeying a direct order, which for those in the know is an automatic Courts Marshall offense.
It turns out that you cannot Courts Marshall an apprentice so it was dropped to the lesser charge of non-compliance with an order, which got me 7 days jankers and a £12 fine, and yes I also found the delights of working in the mess hall kitchen (without the bonus of food and not so nice staff), blancoing belts, bags and harness, best blue inspection by the orderly officer.
I know for my first post on this great thread it is a bit long, as I don't know whether to add anything further as I am still trying to keep with all the other memories. By the way I was told that all disciplinary actions taken at training did not end up on your proper RAF files, funny how you also believe everything you are told while in training.