Danny & MPN11
Continuing the digression, with the Mods approval of course, - After I took my 8yr option and left the RAF I joined CAA as a trainee ATCO, a natural progression for many navigators. In fact when I joined aged 27 just about every ATCO over 30 was ex-military aircrew, mainly navs and signallers/AEOs but with a fair sprinkling of pilots and all those over 50 were ex-WW2 aircrew.
Foolishly, many of us thought that you couldn't really be a good controller without aircrew experience - in fact the recruitment of cadets mainly straight from 'the street' in the last 40 or so years has proved how wrong we were.
With unusual foresight the Civil Service had forecast that the end of national service would eventually lead to the military source all but drying up ( to train as aircrew, national service men were eventually required to sign on for up to 5 years as that at least repaid some of the cost of flying training ! ) so in about 1963 they introduced their own cadet scheme - the 2 ways of becoming an ATCO ran side by side for about 10 years.
For many years the upper age limit to enter training was under 35, but about 1990 the CAA found it was short of ATCOs,( having thought it had a surplus 5 years before!! ) and sponsored 3 or 4 courses of ex-military ATCOs and assistants at Dundridge College near Exeter. IIRC we had about 8 come to Heathrow and the pass rate was about 50%, these all being young fillies. The most notable example of a man who really didn't stand a chance, was that of a guy who had left the RAF at his 38 point, whose last tour had been as a trapper and previous tour to that, an instructor at Shawbury. He didn't stand a chance and it really was a stupid decision to post him to LHR.
Re going straight to Area from training, I don't think the civil world has had a particular problem except that to train at Swanwick I guess would take twice as long as most airfields. My son went that route in the late 90s and apart from a few weeks famil' at Brum has never looked out of a control tower. Very sad!
In fact I went the opposite route - after aerodrome training and validation at Brum I was posted to LATCC and hated the 'factory environment' in the middle of a council estate in West Drayton. In my 8 years in the RAF I had served at South Cerney, St Mawgan ( 2 weeks hold ), Gaydon, Stradishall, Thorney Island, Colerne, Changi, Fairford, Lyneham and Abingdon - all wonderful green places! I found the escape route was to volunteer for Stornaway ( ugh! ) after which I was posted to Boscombe Down and finally Heathrow. To my mind a control tower is the only place to be!
More digression - Union Jack -- one of my female colleagues at LHR married a matelot who had served at sea before the fairer sex were allowed aboard. He hated having Wrens aboard - he served on HMS Ocean and said that on his second tour the ship constantly smelt of Old Spice, as the boys were taking more care of their 'hygiene', there was less space as separate wash facilities had to be provided for the girls, and when the ship was being resupplied at sea only about 1 in 50 girls were strong enough to help catch and carry the heavy items such as bags of spuds.