One of the benefits of being on 431 was the infamous yellow arm band....worn away from Bruggen as we usually were, and which offered complete protection against whatever the Warsaw Pact could throw at us !.
It also used to annoy those who were compelled to play of course
Sometime later, at the secret Lincs base adjacent to Horncastle, this time with 71 MU ( even if it had been rebranded by then ) we were impressed one night when they had a war....notably when a blackout was declared....and lo and behold, the lights on the domestic area did indeed go out.....there was but one small flaw however....looking towards the ramp and those large towers with lights on.....all glowing happily away.
HAS's were much more fun the second time around. You simply took your own provisions, shut the door, and remembered to hold the gas mask over your face when answering the phone......and it was amusing to watch our German colleagues at Memmingen doing exactly the same....
There were always the purists of course, who took these events rather seriously, in contrast to those of us who took a more realistic view....these little events were just a mid-week inconvenience between the weekend holidays....