Unlamented Christmas Past .
It could be relied upon that this time of year, somewhere in the entrails of the Upper Echelons of power there lurked a Grinch type staff officer who would order a repeat of "Operation Deny Christmas" on some vague precept. The phones would ring in little family homes around Wiltshire and Ascoteers would launch a slip pattern to somewhere obscure, or Akrotiri, to await orders to proceed to a perceived threat area. After a few days of inactivity there was usually a general recall and the slip crews returned to Braise on a VC10. At this stage the fog would roll in over southern England and Alberts would be scattered around the country.
To those of us now retired it is but a bad memory but in this season of good cheer there remains a fervent hope that even now the Grinch bloke suffers from inoperable piles.