Holding postings were virtually unheard of!
There was a bad period mid 57 for a while until things settled after Sandys' proclamation. My course after wings at Swinderby in June 57 were all sent home on indefinite leave. After six weeks they sent us to Valley for Vampire continuation training. After four months of that we dribbled off to OCUs. After our Hunter OCU finished in Jan 58, four of us were sent on a ground tour because we were direct entry and only Cranwell graduates were allowed to go to flying jobs.
A ground job after doing all that was necessary to pass a single seat Hunter OCU in those days was hard to accept. So after a few weeks of this, two of us went to Bently Priory one sports afternoon and posted the four of us back to Chivenor, which had 64 Hunters and no studes worth talking about. This worked fine for a while until the system caught up and we had the inevitable interview with the Station Commander. After some pretend (it didn't seem pretend to us at all) very serious comments about interfering with Her Majesty's posting process, Group Captain Pleasance said it was the best thing he had heard of since WWII and asked if we would all like to go to Hunter squadrons.
That man (a WWII commander) knew that the motivation of the troops in a military unit mattered and we were motivated.