One of those http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...9/untitled.jpg events, Dan?

When I was holding at RAF Biggin Hill after my pre-Vulcan Buccaneer lead-in course :\ , one of the single living-in WRAF officers was going out with an unmarried officer. Nothing wrong with that, one would have thought. Yet unbelievably this was the era when such things were frowned upon - one was not supposed to show any interest in officers on one's own station....:rolleyes: So they would have to make clandestine arrangements to meet up off-base to avoid the gaze (and displeasure) of the Queen Bee.....

Mind you, what the Queen Bee didn't know was that the fresh supply of moist young chopped Fighter Controllerettes we'd get every few weeks was made to feel particularly welcome....:E

Ahh the old "Old Man Out", used to be a big thing in the remote mining towns.

It hasn't quite yet, but this could become as irresistible as Mrs Bloggs 'At Home' was last year. Why do PPruners find this mix of rank, social status, etiquette and downright snobbery so compelling? Perhaps it's the time of year.

RNZAF MQs - not quite true that they were desegregated. Woodbourne and Hobsonville both had senior officer patches and rules for Messes etc were the same as here - indeed, stricter. A Woman colleague of mine (Flt Lt) met and married a Cpl - the only grief came from her father, a 'dyed in teh wool' Sqn Ldr who had risen through the ranks himself.

Although the formal RAF requirement to get your CO's approval for marriage, when I got married in 1995 I had to get the Stn Cdr's signature on the application for an Archbishop's Special License and had to take an oath in the stn church, with the Padre, just outside the gates at Lyneham.

No brainer if you're a socialist.

This is a fallacy.

While it is true that both have the same housing needs it is not true that these needs would match either wants or affordability.

In civvie street the cpl might aspire to a 4-bed house but not be able to afford it. The sqn ldr can certainly afford a larger mortgage. That is one reason why quarters should not be desegregated.

Again, in civvie street, would you expect to find the boss of a company both socialising and living near his work force? I think not.

PS

When serving at ISK and living in private accommodation my immediate neighbour was an MACR with another round the corner and a sgt opposite and another on our crew nearby. Two flt lt from our sqn were within 100 yards and another flt lt was on the next estate. There was no one on a lower pay scale than aircrew. You can also sure that a cpl and sqn ldr in the same scale FQ would not pay the same rent - would that be fair?

I lived in MQ's as a SNCO and would not have felt very comfortable living next door to a Sqd/Ldr, or any Officer for that matter, for all the obvious reasons. However when I purchased my own house, not far from the Base, it was on a small new estate of 20 or so houses, of similar build. The residents were a mixture of Officers, SNCO's and a few civvies. Regardless of rank we all jostled along very well, especially at Christmas!

Truly pathetic, this has nothing to do with socialism but more to do with snobbery! The Cpl might aspire to a four bedroomed house but can't afford it, have you heard yourself?
If the Cpl needs four bedrooms then he should get them, if the Sqn Ldr doesn't then why should he have it?
I can think of nothing worse than living near to all my work colleagues and fellow crew members, it would be just like living in quarters!
The percieved earned eliteism of some of these "Sqn Leaders" will fall by the wayside pretty quickly if they have been made redundant and become just another mister, whilst many of the Cpls (techies esp) go onto highly paid jobs in the civil sector.
This argument reminds me of several incidents in Goose bay many years ago, the dining arrangements were combined messing, The Canadians, Americans,Germans and Dutch were all happy to share a common dining room for a few weeks whilst detatched there.
Not the RAF! they arranged for a small segregated section to be made from partition boards and potted plants so that their officers could dine away from the irks!
History and tradition or snobbery and eliteism?
Whilst in the hangar there were officers only toilets! Their **** was the same as ours and it was proved regurlarly to them!

Would it be expected? Not necessarily.

Does it happen? Oh Yes.

In a cul-de-sac near me reside those ranking from Wg Cdr down to a married Cpl & SAC, including all ranks in-between, except any Chief Techs strangely.


As Herc crew we always ate in the main dining hall. Got a feeling one of our Sqn bosses once ate in the segregated area. The rest of his crew, officers included, did not.

I recall at a flying station in Cambridgeshire, then about to become Harrogate-in-the-South and take a large influx of people, we had to shuffle some people out of what ISTR was called "inappropriate" MQs - eg, SNCOs in the officers' patch. Staish decided to call a meeting with those who would need to be shuffled down, and as OC Handbrakes I offered to go with him, but he preferred to play it low key and handle it himself. Next morning, 0830 phone goes and it is the wg cdr at Innsworth who handled Parlaimentary Questions. "Did your boss have a families meeting last night?" "Yes". "Is he likely to have said....". "Life's a bitch then you die" I replied before she completed the question. "Oh, heck", she said, a Petty Officer's wife has complained to her MP (who happened to be the PM!) on two counts, one being moved, and the unsympathetic line by the staish. What she did not know was that he had served on exchange with the USAF, and every second sentence was LABATYD! Resolved eventually, but a lot of grizzling, and that was after we had manipulated the station budget, and the change in the price of aviation and heating fuel, to spend well over a million quid putting in double glazing and central heating into AMQ that in the early 90s still had single glazed metal windows and one lousy coal fire.

As I've said previously her description is not true of the Lyneham I knew, her's is a gross caricature, so don't disrespect the finest AT base in the RAF!


I've generally found that the RAF OFs & ORs are happy to muck in together (coming from a C130 Sqn we all mix at work & off duty away from base). At Goose Bay we all ate together, non-segregated. At Camp Souter in Kabul the Pongo OFs had separate tables from their men, we all ate together with the latter.

And as we speak combined messing (offs and SNCOs) is working well at RAF Akrotiri ...

..... shame to have to spoil good (sic) stories with facts .....

Teeters and Ken,

As you both well know it was not always thus and thankfully some of the dinosaur them and us attitudes, as shamefully displayed on here by one or two, are dying out.

Hopefully the class society I spent my many years experiencing is about to become extinct and not a moment too soon :ok:

SFFP,

No, the Victorian attitudes still prevail but much less in the light blue service than either of the others, particularly the brown one which in my experience is positively feudalistic.

Fighter Controllerettes
 

Beags - to what did you attribute that moisture?:E

Beags drool most likely... :}

I remember being at Goose not too long as a Jengo and being moaned at the Sqn's Aircrew because I ate with my techies rather than sit in the screened off area. It even got mentioned on my assessment by my Sengo.

Officer snobbery? I remember having to go into the sncos mess at MPA (when O's Mess was shut). They have poxy little wooden models that represent your section and therefore where you eat. Wo betide you if you actually sat elsewhere and actually tried to make conversation with others....

A more divisive and segregated system I have never seen surpassed.

No, I can assure you that is socialism. Neither peer group needs four bedrooms unless they decide (presumably of their own free will) to breed to the extent that nothing smaller will suffice. I assume that if you have three or more children, then you need four bedrooms? The desire for four bedrooms doesn't equate to a need and who doesn't desire a bigger house with more bedrooms? The world doesn't owe anyone a living and breeding doesn't change that fact.

The services are without doubt still class based societies. If you disagree with that system, then your morals will prevent you from living, eating or socialising in the Sgt's or Officers' Mess. Is it right? Probably not, but if you don't agree with the system, don't join.

Yes we had models, and you tried to sit within your own section, but it was not a sin if you didn't. Conversation was normal as in any SNCO mess in the RAF.

Maybe the SNCO's just didn't want an Hossifer sitting with them talking down at them!.