Pull up a sandbag ~ "I remember when..
 

.. you used to get 4 travel warrants a year."

Next!

MT was blue, with F/11 on the front.:)

I remember when the RAF had more aircraft than Air Marshals....

....and 'biz-speak' hadn't been invented!

Nah, your head was smaller, is all.:)

Spartan was a rank, not a tank.

And when you could draw £50 out on your 1250 (Lloyds, Abingdon, Summer of '83).

Nope, only what appears to be a First Aid Box.

The Mess bar was full with people having a couple of pints at lunch time.

Every radar site crewroom was full of pissed off ex-V force and Brittania crew, ashtrays and cigarette smoke - and if you didn't play bridge you got stuck in the ops room.

Politicians were admired and trusted............:confused:






OK, perhaps not, it was just a dream.,

When Y-fronts lasted for so long it was embarrassing.......

...there was twice as many people in the RAF as there is now!

There were 4 times as many people in the RAF as there are now.

Dog poo was white and crumbly.

Cross-country mil phonecalls were frequently interrupted by some old battleaxe at 'Central' or 'Rothwell Haig' bellowing "Are you working?" every time you pasued for breath....

eggshells were generally white!!!
you'd see another Albert when taxiing in at Gander and pray Stan-evil were not in town!!!

Later..MOG:cool:

You could go and watch jets at Coltishall, Alconbury, Bentwaters, Sculthorpe, Woodbridge, Honington, Wattisham, Brawdy, Chivenor, Wyton................

When engine technicians still had pistons as a Q annotation
When there were no such things as Q annotations
When RAF was written R.A.F.
When direction signs to RAF bases (stations) had red white and blue backgrounds
When railway warrants were green
When 1250s were laminated blue cards
When "hairy" No 1s were still issued to Boy Entrants/Apprentices
When the RAF still had Boy Entrants and Apprentices
When Cardington was still the Youth Selection Centre

and.... OK

When the Tornado was first introduced at Honington (and yer couldn't get near it 'cos it was SO secret!)

1963-1993

MRCA was the bees knees........ and the EAP was to die for.:8

You could go to the pub for a pint or two in uniform and get a blue light taxi home

.... and that concludes the Fido memorial lecture for this year from the Turdmeister

Someone (sorry, but I've forgotten who you are and I can't be arsed to go back and check because my puter is running slow at the moment) said;Wagon Wheels? What about Cadbury Creme Eggs?!:sad:

Some of the JPs were still getting free milk when I left as I recall too.

Anyway. I remember when..

You could get a shag simply by being on GDT (sorry chaps, but its true.. we took your women and deep down, thats why you hate us)
You had pay parades and it was still exciting to wonder what you'd get paid.
The highlight of most weeks on ops overseas was getting the weekly BFBS video box.
The Rag and Oil Company still baked compo bread with the day of the week on it.
You could count the amount of times you had seen the wheel reinvented by young officers, on the fingers of one hand.
NMS was still a nasty rumour.
Being caught in the WRAF Block was almost worth it.
NBC smocks had seperate and velcro attachable hoods.
You had to press puttees.
You could hitch hike in uniform.

They issued underpants

and there were pale blue aircrew ones too, with rubber buttons

Flying suits were blue and had buttons to close the pockets.

YS

They have started issuing underpants again, except they are skintight ones that you're meant to be able to wear for a week under your desert kit - not that I've tried, despite being out on ops just now :).

More information than we needed thank you.:sad:

No2's were hairy and you had to blanco your webbing belt.....:{

...puttees were issued, to be worn with with Boots, DMS

Wimmin weren't allowed into the mess anteroom and your man put petrol into your aircraft...

Surely you would need to see the SMO, or get a back, sack and crack:\

Airborne;

[QUOTE
...puttees were issued, to be worn with with Boots, DMS
[/QUOTE]

Remember DMS high leg extensions, to look like NI patrol boots? :O

I remember when;

Leave passes were put firmly at the bottom of the in tray.
Keo was 19 cents a bottle.
'58 pattern webbing was still under trial (I don't actually, but I thought we were overdue some creep).
We still had NAAFI shops.
A budget holder was a tatty red briefcase.
You still had a duty POL storeman sitting miserably in that little hut.
Combat Soldier 95 was still a twinkle in his dad's eye.

Whatever happened to that little speccy kid that advertised Milky Ways?

Ahhh... Pay parades... I always felt somewhat akin to a beggar... The right hand flatters with the snappy salute while the left edges forward in a surreptitious fashion while whispering " 'ere Guv, can you spare a tanner"

Talking of tanners... Octagonal threepences, big old pennies, ha'pennies, shillings, half crowns, crowns, ten shilling notes.

Finding a ten shilling note - buying three pints, ten No. 6 and a box of matches and still having one and six left over... :D

Hitching in uniform was one of the best though. In uniform I was home from Catterick in less than 5 hours guaranteed, (home was south of Oxford)... Out of uniform it wasn't worth going home for the weekend.

We talked about CC? On BCTS he rasped my name and I marched smartly forward and stamped my foot in.

"Corporal!" I bellowed.

"You f#cking ranker, he rasped.. "What have you done to deserve £88?"

I had had a tax rebate and blew it all in the Boot and Shoe when we were next let out.

Agree 100% about hitching. On the FT, I once got to H in about 8 hours. :D

RAF issue PT 'shorts' were calf length!

RAF shirts had detachable collars and dhobi-ing was done in the Airmens Block sinks with 3" x 2" x 12" blocks of soap that would defy a woodworker's rasp. Manual bumpers to polish the billet floor. One individual sheet change per week. Yeah - those were the days...

Battle of Britain days at Middleton St George with "new" Lightnings displaying above Hunters, Javelins, Varsities, Beverleys and Twin Pins.

The mess rose bushes at 1GP were laid out for comfort :eek:
Imagegear

AI R mate I think you mean Centurion, technically speaking a Spartan is just an APC!:=

And NAAFI sold plastic collars that looked like the starched one.

Officers carried swagger sticks.

Officers wore hats in civvie so they could doff them to Mrs Sqn Ldr.

Batmen.

Sports afternoon.

The station commander was the only one with a staff car Standard Saloon.

The senior engineer was the Station Technical Officer, a sqn ldr.

Admin Wg was staffed by aircrew :}

People used to be nostalgic :ouch:

:cool:

TOG

Real controllers did Papa Golf 19/20 Deltas with acetate overlays and chinagraphs from the 30. Delta 310 was active as was the Bentwaters ATA

FKI's once a year.
Standard Vanguards
Towing aircraft with David Brown tractors
Queen Mary trucks

Soprano gently chastised thus;

Alright, alright.. fair one, no one likes a smartarse. I did think I might get away with that one here. And come on, at least I didn't say, 'I remember when we didn't have ID cards, because we both knew each other.'.

We'll be going back to that after the next round of cuts......