I was posted from Brüggen to Leeming for my second tour there, just in time to partake in two momentous happenings, one was the beginning of Desert Shield and the other, of course, the move from the old tower to the new tower, unofficially christened by the staff as "The Happy Eater", due to its architectural similarity to a travellers rest further along the A1. I suspect that if asked for an opinion, a certain member of the Royal Family may have likened it to a carbuncle. But hey, what do I know about architecture?
One day, not having been tasked with caravan duty and saving flying airmen from themselves,I was otherwise busy, along with a few other tower staff in returning to the old tower to remove items on a list provided by the admin Seargent for removal to the Happy Eater and to scavenge for anything that may have been missed from the list but which might have been "useful" I espied a piece of Gucci looking kit (no, don't ask, I can't remember). Said Gucci piece was obviously mains powered, considering the size of the wire it was permanently attached and which disappeared under the floor of local. Now, I considered myself as a cautious type so, before attacking this mains wire, I asked the ground radio guy, who, like ourselves, was busy plundering things, if the power had been disconnected. Assured by his confirmation that the power was off, I used my trusty pliers (my own, from the tool kit in our beloved Mazda 626) to cut through the mains wire which resulted in, of course, a loud BANG! a bright blue flash and my pliers, having totally shorted out the 240v AC, fell to the ground with a ginormous hole burnt in them, never to cut another cable and my so called colleagues laughing their heads off.