In A Crewroom, Long, Long Ago!
 

Oh Yes;) Good effort!

I was only telling a few friends about uckers the other day.
Not having served in the Forces they couldn't understand the passion with which it was played.

Introduced to it in 360 Sqn crew room 45 years ago - by the Navy - never did come to terms with the wretched game!

As V-Force QRA was a 5-man crew we needed a special uckers board. Someone made a superb 5-leg board. It was hugely different from the 4-man game. While a 4-man game could last 20-30 minutes a 5-man game typically lasted 2 1/2 hours.

One night we had two guest crew members from another crew until our own crew members returned. One came back at 9pm and the other gone 10.

The 2 stand-ins from another crew remained to battle out the game while we all repaired to the mess and to bed. The game held more attracations that than a comfy bed and a hot body :p

The 2 stand-ins from another crew remained to battle out the game while we all repaired to the mess and to bed. The game held more attractions that than a comfy bed and a hot body

Whatever turns you on PN - presumably it depends on whose bed and whose body!

Jack

A test of character...
 

...In the all-ranks club at Comnavsouth at a games night some SOB paired me with the ADMIRAL against a couple of killicks. They were wiping the floor with us and there was lots of smirking as I failed even to "Chesty-chest" to get started. His admiralship was getting grumpier by the minute and questioning whether I'd ever played "this bloody game before". The honour of the RAF was at stake. And then my luck changed; I threw an unbroken run of sixes, blew both killicks back to the start, rolled up the admiral's counters with mine and had a clean run home. Phew!!

Sometimes on 210 at Ballykelly one had to queue to get a seat at the board in the crew-room, and sometimes most of the squadron stood around to barrack. There would be a collective intake of breath as a hand reached for a piece - "Fuzzy thinking" was the cry. Broke the confidence of many a strong man. Psychological warfare it was, I tell 'ee.

They wouldn't believe you nowadays.

The Ancient Mariner

At the 'Slipit Inn'(GRSF's fantastic bar) at MPA, we played to lose as the losers had to down Applecorn or Whisky. As us mortals were'nt allow to buy spirits it was worth losing !!!!!!
:ok:

ludo is still ludo no matter how much jolly jack tries to convince you otherwise:p

Seem to remember a card game called Kirky (spelling?) which reigned jointly in the crewroom with uckers. Sort of whist with different hands such as mizaire, hunt the c**t etc, but its all a bit vague now. Occupied many happy standby hours.

Ah! Yes! Brings back memories - the yell 'syph on his donk' rang throughout the Squadron and you knew someone was in trouble!

I was uckers champ of the Med 97-98:ok:

Great. "Official" rules of uckers! Whose rules? Commendable trying to bring it on line, but it's going to create some serious arguments

"Up table!"
"Timber-shifting &^****!":ok:

The problem with sitting in a crewroom these days is that some senior will walk in and instantly give you a job - regardless of what you are doing. Playing Uckers became an invitation to some long arduous and usually boring task that led to no gratification whatsoever. The result is that few crewrooms are now used as everyone rushes in, grabs a coffee and then departs to shut themselves ointo their office to show how busy they all are.

I would be interested to see if the card games and uckers return, but I am afraid that, like a busy Officers' Mess bar in mid-week, they are a thing of the past.

Tankertrash.
You are probably thinking of Euchre, which is a pub card game favoured particularly in the west country and adopted by the services ? try wiki/google for rules. Top card is the benny (adapted from german 'Bauer'), with left and right etc.

Oh the shame of being caught up in a mixy blob!:{

Handysnacks - that is as sensible as saying sex is all handysnacks and nothing more..........................:)

Suckback double three..............

Ah now Euchre, a really skillful game.................:ok:

Happy memories of the crewroom in Guetersloh waiting for an 'Alma Cogan' or a 'one at one on'. And also remember ' Kirky' and another card game called 'Clag' but don't ask me how to play now 30 odd yrs dulls the memory!!!!!!!!!

I'm with TankerTrash.

First came across kerky in the Hastings crew room at Lindholme. The kerchy school would open the moment the crew room filled up from morning prayers. As aircraft came up and people left, others would take over. 6 hours or so later the game would still be running, different people but still running. People like Merv Parry and Dolly Grey.

At 5 the school would relocate to the bar where the old salts, or whatever you called old truckie drivers, would continue with the odd phone call from one of the wives "your dinner will be in the dog if you don't get home NOW."

It's Kierke which is apparently Polish for 'Hearts'
Six 'deficit' hands - All the Hearts,King of Hearts,Kings and Jacks,7th and last, Misere,can't remember the last one -was it 'all the Queens'?
Four benefit hands.
We put the winnings and losses in the Bridge Book

Clag - most difficult hand to play was 'resting on arms reversed' either 'blind' or 'rolling' or even 'rolling blind' or even 'misere'

Not often heard, was the call of "CONDOM":

Come Out, Nip Down Over Mixi

But whenever it happened a cheer went up in the crewroom.

Uckers was a great game but by far the more frustrating game was Acey Deucey - the most aggressive form of backgammon. Happy days...

Rules????? In uckers??????
On the back of the board!!:D
3D

Portland SAR
 

I first came across Uckers when I joined 99 sqn in 1957. As a very junior second pilot I rarely had the chance to play as the old Hairies hogged the boards!

Back of the board
 

The back of the board should contain a list of every "8 piece dicking" that has been done with the "8 piece (base) dicking" highlighted as a master-class in Ucking.

Ah yes an eight piecer all at home !!!! Too easy is the shout. The old boy who taught me uckers had a lovely shout of " once at your f#####g reds you c##t " top of his voice during the weekly championships :ok:

So where is he getting all his spent ERU cratridges from then? Or is he going for the low grade sawn off bits of broom handle?

Will he be allowed to sell boards with pictures of Mary Millington, Xaviera and other sundry 70s Porn stars pasted into each corner?

Did he buy up the whole surplus stock of those square wooden tables with the corners cut off and a shelf underneath, so he could paint the boards directly onto the table top. Will he cover them in perspex and accurately crack each sheet around the screw holes?

If not it will just be a ludo set, the likes of which you can get from Mr Waddington any old day of the week.

Ah the joy, when in Culdrose SAR in the 60s, and your game was falling apart, the scramble came and you could accidentally up board with the toe of your two piece goonsuit. If you were winning on the other hand one could always let the grockles hang on to the cliff for another twenty minutes........... :ok:

Anybody know of the card game known in the navy as "$hit on yer oppo"?

Sounds almost as bad as the 'soggy biscuit' game the RM play :yuk:

Thanks for the explanation NRU74. That last hand you cant remember was the one I referred to as "hunt the c**t" as you had to get one of the queens, maybe queen of spades, or am I thinking of a Pushkin short story?!

I live in Cornwall Peter Perfect and some of my mates play Euchre, but I've never indulged myself. Would be interesting if Kirky and Euchre were the same game.

Some harsh rules in Uckers. I thought it all got a bit A-level when "touchy movey" evolved into "thinky movey"! Passed the time on my RNEFTS course all those years ago.

I well recall a potential Uckers player being thrown out of the crewroom window for arguing about the rules before the game had even started:ok:

I've seen inter-mess feuds erupt over disagreements on the more finer points of the game. Many of the problems occurred when WAFUS couldnt agree on WAFU rules. Ive seen blood drawn over an attempted "bendy-blowback whilst playing skimmer rules.
Potentially, uckers can be more dangerous than deck-hockey!

NRU74:
Indeed, and like Pontious Navigator I observed (though never participated in) the ever continuing game in Hastings and Hercules Crewrooms (Changi and Fairford mainly for me). We still had Polish aircrew in my time. Victor F***** comes to mind, who used to charge German tanks on horseback for a living until they told him he could pack it in and embark for France, just in time for the fall of that country. Thence legged it over the Pyrenees, was arrested by the Spanish, escaped and evaded them via La Linea to the Brits in Gibraltar. When told that they had no vacancies for Cavalry Officers agreed to train as a Bomber Pilot, though he had remustered to Navigator by my time. Very typical of the larger than life characters from Eastern Europe that leave the RAF the poorer now they are gone. Hopefully some of their culture, such as Kierke, still survive in it.

Tankertrashnav
Perhaps at the V Force reunion next year, in addition to a Valiant [reception] table,Victor Bomber table,Victor Tanker table,Vulcan table,etc, we could have a Kierki table ?

Sod that..just put an uckers board there and let the dice speak:ok:

Aaahh - reminds me of the monumental game - HC723 RANFAA - RANAS Nowra NSW - circa 1969 - combatants Big Ted and Giffo VS the evil twosome and halves Eddie and Zork - all flying cancelled - crewroom thick with smoke - never before or since witnessed that number of pieces "illegally" going around the buoy.
Crewrooms are not the same!
GAGS
E86
Hunt the C alias Chase the P1sser alias Chase the Lady or in polite civvy circles "Hearts"

I'll admit making my own uckers board when I left the mob, primarily so when ex-mob mates came to visit we had something to play and tell stories around. I had to ditch the board when we moved downunder, but made a new one when I got here!Before I left the UK I was chatting to an ex-REME bloke who worked in the same office as me, and to cut a long story short we ended up organising a game of uckers one lunchtime. Half way through we were getting into the spirit of things, and also getting a few comments from passersby. At one point one of the senior managers wandered past and stopped to watch. After a couple of minutes silence he quite seriously asked "do you reckon we could get a fourfor?" Unfortunately we could not find the elusive fourth member.