P/O Prune ?
 

Just recently registered with PPRuNe, and rather assume the site's title associated with the cartoon character, Pilot Officer Prune. Can it be true that he still features in the RAF publication that, I imagine can be found at Dispersal, or nailed to the canteen noticeboard? If not, there must be an awful lot of people trying to work out the dried plum connection. Maybe somebody currently serving could enlighten us?.........or even put up a copy of one of those cautionary tales.........last one I saw, I seem to remember featured a crumpled looking Meteor in a static, and out of context setting. - the way they tend to in a field of cabbages. (..or,maybe that was the " Good Show " panel on the opposite page )

I think I am correct in stating the P/O Prune was a feature of Air Clues. Whether it is still published I must call upon the Service Members of this forum to confirm.

Air Clues ceased publication a while ago (although there are rumours that it'll be brought back in some form or another) and has been replaced by a tri-service publication called, IIRC, 'Aviate'.

From what I can recall, P/O Prune did make the odd guest appearance in Air Clues in the years up to its demise, but he wasn't a regular or major feature. I'm sure someone who read the thing more avidly than I did can confirm, though.

P/O Prune originally featured in Tee Emm, the predecessor of Air Clues which passed into history long before even my time. Amongst the 'Prune' features was the MHDOIF - the Most Highly Derogatory Order of the Finger (or was it 'digit') awarded to folk who did things like landing downwind or taking off in coarse pitch on short runways... The idea being that others ould learn from such fictitious 'Prunery'.

Sadly, even Air Clues (which improved hugely after the 'air power' articles were $hitcanned) was later replaced by some thoroughly boring Purple party line prose - 'Uninteresting Helicopter Quarterly' as someone once termed it...

Which no-one ever reads; it isn't even soft and absorbent, so it serves no use whatsoever!

Not entirely true, BEagle. I saw one in use just this week, propping up a wobbly desk...

I seem to recall that MHDOIF stood for "Most Highly Derogatory Order of the Irremovable Finger". :E

Wasn't it MHDOID with digit rather than finger??

And Percy Prune was well-born, having a family coat-of-arms with a motto of Semper Inanum which was published as meaning "Always inane".

Classical scholars may disagree .......:E

ISTR (possibly from this forum) that all the Tee Emm (old phonetics for "Training Memorandum") articles were/are available on CD. Anyone have details??

[Edited to add:] found it using search - inevitably it was from BEags[Edited yet again to say:] ...and BEags' advice still works - I've just ordered the CD!!

Prune had companions; a navigator whose name I can't recall and a WAAF (Winsum?).
I used to have a book about Percy's home, Prune Parva, written and published in the '70s but regretfully I've now lost it. Think it was called 'The Passing of Pilot Officer Prune'

Prune is still alive and well and living in Sussex as Squire Prune on Ineyne Manor, Pruna Parva (where his family have held manurial rights for centuries).

http://www.canberra.plus.com/pics/Prune1.jpg

http://www.canberra.plus.com/pics/Prune3.jpg

His drunken bull-terrier, "Groupy" died many years ago and so far has not been replaced.


:ok:

From memory, a cautionary tale from the pen of P/O Prune:

'I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high in straggling bits
When all at once I saw a crowd -
A host of yellow Messerschmitts.
And now, interned for the duration,
I wish I had not lost formation.'

With apologies to Wordsworth and Tee Emm!

This, and many other gems.

The old hardback Tee Emm books are like rocking horse $hit.

Don't suppose they are worth much but I look high and low for them
- got 3 so far.

The thing about the village of Prune Parva is the roads leading to it are not surfaced, making it difficult to find (the main access looking like a farm track)and being situated in a partly hidden valley in the Sussex Downs, it tended to get bypassed by 'day trippers', however with the advent of in-car GPS units which don't tell you if a road has a hard surface, I would expect the village to be re-discovered in the near future!(always provided the GPS software shows the access roads that is!)

One of the funniest P/O Prune facts is that the Luftwaffe, who most certainly DO have a sense of humour, actually awarded him the Iron Cross for the number of Allied aircraft he'd managed to destroy by Prunery various!

Allegedly there is a full citation, completed with impeccable Teutonic efficiency, awarding him the decoration.

..........Well good to see that our erstwhile fictional colleague and teaching aid, the much put upon P/O Prune survives in retirement. I guess that our host's acronym for this rumour network is singular and merely coincidental.

Not only was it the MHDOIF (Most Highly Derogatory Order of the Irremovable Finger) but the "good show" award was the MDOVO (Most Desirable Order of the Vacated Orifice)!

Just found this thread.
IIRC a book was published a few years ago detailing most of his exploits

Sorry to be a bit late on '1G&H's enquiry, but to confirm PPRune has nothing to do with PO Prune, it standing (sometimes unbelievably:uhoh: ) for the 'Professional Pilots' Rumour Network'.

There is no RAF blood in the child, although it now has several "godfather's" with pedigree.:)

Published by the then HMSO proving that government paper pushers have a sense of humour too.

Good book, recommended. Nails a few of the above Prune myths...

Not worth much? Bookseller here looking for $200 for one. :ooh:

For us wot fixed the broken toys, there was "Fred the Wheeltapper" who infamously changed all the wheels on the train and then found out his hammer was cracked. In another poster he taught us to give our instructions clearly and concisely, as he told his hammer wielding assistant - "When I nods me head, hit it."

There were lots of similar 'Human Factors' posters, long before HF was invented: I suppose the fact that we remember them so many years later shows how effective they were.