Oh, hahaha
Danny42C.
A masterly summing up (Part 1, I note with pleasure). I avoided the 'Bricklayer's Course' by moving, on retirement, seamlessly from Assistant Secretary of an RAF Sports Association to the post of full/part time Secretary and Treasurer, so my future employ had [to a large extent] been pre-destined. Accordingly, after some 20-odd years on 'T Committtteeeeee, I had the pleasure of another 10 years of that bizarre light blue comradeship that transcends rank/role/whatever in the sporting world.
In theory, 90 days a year. In reality, probably 3 days a week = really about 160, but at least it made the separation after my humble and inconsequential 29 years in light blue slightly more bearable. The disinterested receipt of my Clearance Card and RAF F1250 at SHQ, RAF Uxbridge in 1993 * , summed up one reason I left early. But the continuance of the REAL relationship with RAF comrades in my chosen sport for another 10 years in a voluntary role compensated fully for that experience. (Both I and my wife still have our 'boilerplate' letters from various 'High Personages' which may have some decent phrases but mean virtually nothing, as they run them off by the hundreds with exactly the same wording, it seems).
And so I swept out of the gates of RAF Uxbridge in my [then] Jaguar XJ6 4.0L, mentally raising 2 fingers to the bloody place ** but, at the same time, looking forward to spending another decade with real people in the RAF sporting environment.
* I first entered RAF Uxbridge in 1963, to be kitted out for the International Air Cadet Exchange to the USA (along with 'C4' of some later repute) with my Tropical No 6 uniform. No badges of rank or any sort to be attached, and none of my issue fitted anywhere - the crotch of my trousers was somewhere near my knees, IIRC. Difficult to be a cool young stud, dressed like that, in 1963
** Bloody Uxbridge ... too many years there, one way or another, either working there, or in OMQs or parented. Despite the long and 'distinguished' history, I have mixed emotions about bulldozing the place. Probably 15 of my 29 years on their books ... "Join the RAF and see the World (or West London/MoD)"
