And although funny parking slot stories are few and far between I still remember sniggering at the addition of 'Oooooooooh' above the word 'MATRON' in her parking slot outside the Officers' Mess Akrotiri after a particularly well lubricated evening.

Carrier landings seem to be some sort of mess tradition in various air forces?
An old boss who was a former RNZAF blunty driver told me a story about Mr Vice initiating such a session at the mess at Ohakea.
Long tables, lubricated with beer, travelled along by young, sliding flying officers...

Parking story, well sort of...One sunny day in 1982 ,I and an APO on UWAS were driving past the St Athans Officers mess at a spirited pace in a early 1960's Vauxhall Viva owned and driven by the said APO. There was IIRC a car park round the back?
Unfortunately slap bang outside the ante-room was the SWO with a litter party.
SWO must have thought it was Xmas come early, to catch what he thought were two eerks taking the michael!
'SSTTOOOOOPPPP RAGHT THEEREEE'
We did. He then proceeded to put his head up very close to the drivers window. I am sure the car rocked as he then shouted:
'WHHATTTT DOO YOU THINK YOU ARE A DOOOOING, DRIVIIING PASSST THE OFFICEERS MESSSSS?!'
Before he could administer any further diatribe, APO had produced very coolly his 1250. The SWO lent back , stood up straight , gave a quick salute and bade us a good day.
APO and me laughed ourselves stupid round the back of the mess, but we daren't do it in the SWO's presence.

Gentlemen/Ladies, not being a member of the military, I hope this post will not be deleted. Food, being one of my enjoyments in life I've often wondered about Officer's mess dinners/day to day menu.

On a normal day come dinner, are you offered a 2/3/4 course? I would be grateful as to starters, main and sweet courses. Do you have a cheese selection?

Regards.

Daz

ps. I am not employed by the MOD

I may have posted this story before (under a different name), but here goes....in the mid 80s at Wittering OC Admin was extremely possessive about his parking spot which was adjacent to the front door of SHQ. Unfortunately that position attracted anyone paying a quick visit to SHQ if the slot was empty for any reason. If the offending vehicle was still there on OC A's return he would go ballistic. Successive orders in SROs failed to cure the problem and each occurrence simply added to the accumulating angst.

I decided that I needed to do something about this (I was OC PMS) so, once he had departed for lunch one day I called up the Armament Support Unit who kindly parked a Scimitar tank in the slot for me.

The look on OC A's face as he came around the corner on his way back from lunch was priceless! No one-way interview because he fortunately saw the funny side of it.

Certainly did in the 60s and 70s when I was in. Some days we even had a savoury (eg angels on horseback) to finish - first time I had come across them! Wine was only for dining in/guest nights, so we normally drank (tap) water only with the meal. Cheese always available and you helped yourself from a side table. Coffee always taken in the ante room, and there was strictly no smoking in the dining room except on guest nights, after the loyal toast. Standards of food varied from mess to mess but I always thought it was pretty good.

Seating arrangements were generally around tables of eight, and you could basically sit were you wanted, so a new PO could find himself sitting next to a crusty old wing commander, although human nature being what it is people usually sat with their friends. Dress codes were pretty strict - suits on a Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, sports jackets or blazer on the other days (with collar and tie of course).

No idea what it's like now - they probably all kneel round a communal trough of baked beans (with apologies to Basil Fawlty ;) )

There was an occasion at a Dining-In night when Mr Vice was the subject of great amusement and embarassment. The sequence of events was something like this:

The port was circulated and the fellow officer on the right of Mr Vice only 1/2 filled his glass with port and then topped it up with cigarette lighter fluid.

The chap to the left of Mr Vice distracted him whilst glasses were switched over.

The PMC called "Mr Vice, the Queen"

Mr Vice picked up his glass, started the loyal toast with "Gentlemen"

Chap on right flicks his gas lighter at Mr Vice's glass, which immediately ignites

Who then finishes the toast with "Jesus H Christ", drops his glass and spreads fire across the table!!

The Door
 

100 Sqn dining in, boss v unpop. Laurie Davis Mr Vice.
Loud noises from kitchen during bosses speech because door opened by someone crawling across the floor out of sight.
Bos, B...B.... Mr Vice the door, meaning Laurie should close the door


Laurie stands raises his glass loudly announces "gentlemen the door", we all stand and toast the door, B... B.... goes funny colour.


Laurie later killed in PR9 crash. Photos of body on fire in gutter published by photo journo. G.... G....

234 Sqn Backwards Dinner (Start: Lying on floor of bar with empty pint glass in hand...)

Unable to face the soup course after the main course, one of the old hands stood up, drained a glass of wine, announced "Gentlemen, sorry I'm late" and left. :ok:

"Gentlemen, the Queen. You may now bring your cigarettes out from under the table."

Pianos
 

Valley. A Saturday night in 1973 ish. Piano on veranda goes bang. A BIG BANG !! French doors in bar open. Curtains catch fire. Much fine ale wasted before extinguishers found and used. Many windows on the south side of the mess shattered. Something to do with a Lightning boss from far-off Germany celebrating 2,000 hours on type at missile camp. The story goes he took out a Jindivik with the guns (unconfirmed).:D

Seen on another site
 

Because so many pilots died during World War I, the RAF was forced to select its pilots from the general population, instead of the preferred upper class. The RAF believed that piano lessons would not only increase the pilots' level of culture, but also improve their dexterity. The tradition of piano burning began at RAF Leuchars, where the building housing the only piano on base burned down accidentally. The RAF could not afford to replace the piano, so piano lessons were cancelled. Word quickly spread, and soon pilots at other RAF bases burnt their pianos to avoid lessons. This act became a sign of triumph, defiance and celebration. Various stories exist as to why this became a tradition to mark the death of RAF, officer pilots during WW2. A beer for each dead colleague was placed on the top of the upright piano. The piano was then burned, along with the issued contents of the officer's clothing locker. His fellow officers then drank on the bar bill of their fallen colleague and the bill was subsequently written-off by the mess. It is still followed by today's Royal Air Force and has been adopted by other Air Forces around the World.

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...06&oe=56C656E3

Unauthorised mess guest at RAF Sidi Barani (Tripoli) (1953). The biggest cockroaches seen anywhere wandering thriugh the mess.

Fiery pianos?
Met forecaster RAF Nicosia c. 1962 punished for pouring a pint into an ill-
tuned but not flambeed mess piano!
As a pianist it offended him.
Made it soggy and difficult to light.

Orange wine
 

Can't think of any equals to the tales that have gone before.

I can only think of very tame examples of wine glasses/bottles/anything filled with p**s when one could not hold on any longer...or of people crawling under the table (and getting a good kicking whilst down there) in order to get close to the exit/entrance and watching them leopard crawl the rest of the way...of hiding people's chairs as they left when permitted to relieve themselves...or of trying to get the newbies to touch the mess silver ... etc

Great memories all the same. And much of it done with the silent approval of the PMC. Sadly I wonder how much of this one could get away with today with the ubiquity of the mobile phone and the instant photo upload before the dinner is over?

Not an RAF story but it is military...

In my youth, and after the RAF declined to offer me a flying commission I found myself with a Short Service Commission and serving in Germany with an infantry regiment of northern persuasion.

The loyal toast in this regiment was 'The Queen, The Duke of Lancaster' and it was the practice of the more senior subalterns to endeavour to get the most junior (who would be 'Mr Vice' on the night) sufficiently intoxicated prior to the loyal toast so that he would utter the immortal words 'Gentlemen, the Queen, the Duke of Tadcaster'!:E

I've yet to go to a dining-in night that equalled or bettered many of the evenings during my first tour. The Mess went through peaks and troughs of livers in an JOs and my arrival coincided with a surge in the number of junior guys being posted in which made for a party atmosphere most evenings but especially at dining in nights.

I remember at one particular dinner with a PMC that was a nice guy but a bit hard work at times and a couple of rather stuffy Wg Cdrs on the top table. Having sat through dinner the top table finally got round to asking why there was a big gaffer tape cross on the carpet in front of the top table. Almost immediately a remote controlled tank made its way across the floor from under the table and proceeded to park up on the cross. The turret rotated towards the top table and then the tank proceed to open fire on the top table with little plastic pellets before driving off again once it had run out of ammo. Said Wg Cdrs really weren't happy. Stn Cdr thought it was hilarious.

On one other dining in Mr Vice, a very young plt off, was given a McDonalds Happy Meal which caused a good deal of harrumphing from him and sniggering from us. At the same dinner a good friend of mine who was being dined out decided to 'improve' on her Mess Kit by ditching the normal shoes and replacing them with thigh high PVC FMBs. Stn Cdr didn't know where to look when she got into position on the floor for the tug of war!

Unfortunately the last dining in night I was at a couple of weeks ago was pretty dull, no jolly japes or hijinks. By all accounts that's par for the course these days. We've definitely lost the art of a good dining-in night.

Any chance of combining these two facts ........? :E

.......... thought not. :(

Talking of name boards, who remembers DC at Binbr..k having a name board made by PSA for the Staish's house (but cannot remember what he called it) , whereupon the wg cdrs cajoled PSA into making boards for the other big houses - "Maple Manor", Lions' Leap" "Eagles' Eyrie" etc. DC less than amused ISTR

Colt (72ish?)
 

I recall a water-themed dining-in which started benignly with the Stn Rock & one water-pistol, escalated via the ingress of the Stn Rock's Austin A35 through the front doors whilst all were under fire from two mk6 (?) crash trucks and ended with the coming together of the A35 and one of the mess cast-iron radiators. The central heating system ran gamely until all the piping hot water was in the mess carpets, which shrank alarmingly. It was remarkably cold (and humid) in the mess that weekend. Not much chance of getting your mess kit dry.

Muharraq
 

There was a renowned pyromaniac hunter pilot in Bahrain, recently arrived from Khormaksar whose inventiveness in jolly japes was legend. At one Dining In his work was evident when after Grace the top table's snacking irons all fell to the floor as chairs were pulled back, having all been painstakingly attached with black thread to the chair legs. The Staish, "Twinkle" indulgently called for more cutlery and then the suspicious lump under the carpet uttered a loud bang and a liferaft inflated and lifted the table again with much rude gassing off. This too was removed and the meal resumed. At this stage the two artillery shell cases each end of the top table detonated and what appeared to be flour bags shot up and hit the ceiling. The contents then spread out and descended in fine graded grains on the senior officers. The whole top table diners suddenly became old men with white hair and eyebrows. The rubicon had been crossed. "H*****r-H***s" bellowed the Staish. "Sir" came the reply. "Leave the Mess". "Sir"
It was rather boring after that.

I remember H-----r H----s when I was a Rockape at Khormaksar. Some years later when I had become a nav I bumped into him again, and his opening remark was "I see you've become talking ballast!"

Top bloke though :ok: