Infamous metmen/women
 

Here we go. I was one such Metperson.

I worked with/under/over some mighty characters, many of whom taught, or attempted to.

Some I learned from and admired. Ken Winspear " 100% more effort 10% better results, your choice". Topcliffe. Ended up a PSO. Dirty jokes told with all the appropriate gestures and accents. Top man.

John Dixon, SMetO Scampton in the last days of the V force. Said to have set up a race with a taking-off Vulcan, JD in his souped up Chevette [!] on the peri track. Result close.

Chris Chubb. Getting out of bed shagged him out, bags of style, cravat, and a dressing gown on the night-bind.

Ann Wiggins. Extraordinary top SMeto Church Fenton, sharp as a razor, took no prisoners, not easy being her boss but real value.

Harry Templeton. Ex-Swordfish aircrew WWII, relaxed boss at Guetersloh.

Effing George ....... Topcliffe, a legend in his own lunch time, shocked even his colleagues with his expletives. One per sentence minimum.

Mac Cameron, SMet Finningley many years, some 7 children, a very good teacher, and a very good boss. Said I would never get on, and did his best to make sure he was wrong.

Pete Tweed. Best briefer we ever had.

And we never found out who piddled in the rain gauge at Leeming.

John Tucker at RAFC.

Vince ? at BZN '74-76 'ish

The lovely guy with the stutter at RAF Valley late 60's.

John Tucker very good cool and competent ..... it was my pleasure to be his boss, inspecting Cranwell was always a pleasure but I found little to complain about, waste of a day really!

I think the Valley man with stutter was KKKKKenny KKKKKemp? I had little to do with the western half of this sceptered isle until Cardiff/Bristol/Plymouth in the late 80s.

A succession of SMetOs at Linton failed to notice/ report that their anemo mast was 2 metres short, thus causing significant under-reading of wind speed. Ruddock, Hindley to name two. Outrage when I insisted we measured it! "Its been good enough all these years ........!" I borrowed a Chinook to airlift [slung] a spare mast from Cumbria, and the Linton dwarf went for scrap.

Oh! And I should also praise Peter jackson, Finningley, later SMetO Cranwell, also I think Wittering, with his passion for interesting cars driven too fast. Far too fast.

I can see the face but can't recall the name - one of the early TV forecasters who then turned up at Gan circa 1970. After ages of having seen him in his best civvies on the box, he looked a bit different in flip flops, shirt and shorts around 2am local in the hot and sticky forecast office down there.

Bert Foord could be the Ganman, he was one of the early TV blokes and he was an occasional overseas tourist ..... did Guetersloh for sure.

And I recall Jack Hulbert at Wyton in the 1970s ...... i/c probably the least modernised met office in the land, in the least modernised hangar. Biggest moustache in the organisation. Jack, that is, not the office or the hangar.

Dougie Farmer was at Waddington or Scampton, hard working and diligent, probably took over from the Wasps or Quins rugger player Glyn Owen.

Cu-nimb Charlie at 242 OCU Dishforth in 1957. His nickname was due to a prominent lump on the top of his bald head. He was an excellent climatology lecturer.

Ken the Met at Linton around mid-90s - incredibley tolerant of trainee pilots stupidity!

Forget the name, but MetO at Lossie who wore outrageous ties.

langleybaston, am I missing something significant here? You describe yourself as an "infamous" Met wallah but then list a series of, clearly ace types.

My simple fish-head loggie mind interprets "infamous" as those that stand out as embarrassments to the trade.

:confused:

Never saw our Met Man ... he was always hidden behind his seaweed :E

I thought that was a pre-requisite for a met man? Certainly was at Church Fenton mid-eighties.... :}

Ian McCaskill - early 70's at Luqa.

Shawbury
 

More recently, (2004 - 2008ish) Grianne (hope the spelloing is right). Lovely lady, great sense of humour, very nice personality, wonderful Irish accent that melted the guys hearts, always smiling. We were sad to see her go.


Never forgetnight brief back in the early 90's (before IT briefs). Met man came accross drenched and placed his slides on the OHP, he turned to look at the screen and said "oh! sorry about the mess, I used a water soluble pen and didnt know it was going to rain" cue much laughter.

Then the black flag brief given by the met office. They produced some stats that disclosed that 45% of their forecasts were accurate. The question was asked "Why dont you reverse your forecasts and you will be accurate 55% of the time?" = 1 dumbfounded met man.

I was expecting/ hoping/ dreading the victims to come up with a few villains or twerps.

My personal blunders:

1. turning up at a night fly briefing, white stuff in hair and on shoulders, no white stuff in forecast.

and

2. "being gratuitously rude to the AOC in C's pilot in that you said
"sod off sunshine I am briefing a properly pre-booked captain and crew and I don't care whose pilot you are I'll get back to you!""

Standing interview, no coffee.

3. Being consistently and predictably wrong re. contrail levels for three whole years at Guetersloh ....... at my last brieifing the staish said it was a relief not to have to make the usual height corrections any more.

Re. the above: Linton Ken was probably Ken Dart, with black beard? The spectacularly outrageous tie to be seen these days is at Coningsby I believe.

I was wondering when you were going to 'fess up, LB - they do say that attack is the best form of defence.

Regarding:

1. turning up at a night fly briefing, white stuff in hair and on shoulders, no white stuff in forecast.

Seems fair enough - I never heard dandruff mentioned in a forecast ....:E

And I'm equally sure that you never had dandruff!:ok:

Jack

Thats because the adiabatic lapse rate was too low :8

I was going to quote that incident - were we at Gut at the same time (early 1980s) for that is where I experienced it, or a similar one!

How about the lovely Jan K. at Odiham who was asked to give a forecast, which she did. On the basis of that, the station snow clearance team were stood down for the weekend. Almost immediately afterwards it began to snow very heavily. About fifteen inches of the white stuff fell in a few hours, making the whole airfield, including the camp roads, impassable. What's more, it was so bad that the snow clearance team couldn't get back in because all the local roads were blocked. :p

The Linton Met man was taken to task by OC Ops one Sunday, for lighting a big smelly garden bonfire, which completely smoked the adjacent MQs out. The apologetic reply went along the lines of "Sorry, sir , I had no idea which way the wind was blowing.....!"

After your tale about the anemometer mast being too short, now we know why. And also why we poor studes found crosswind landings a bit tricky! ;)

Tiny Mentz, Midway Island detachments, and again in the Falklands. Top chap!

Tiny was OC Mobile Met Unit when he retired, either as S/Ldr or Wingco ...... the MMU guys collected more gongs than most, as they deployed here there and everywhere and often for unusually short detachments.

Did anyone suffer at the hands of Paddy Gilfedder? At FY he once offered Holme on Spalding Moor as the only good div ........... the site was sticking up out of the clag, had an observation, but no runway.

FY had the best set of assistants I ever had the pleasure to work with, including Ken Dart [see above].

Yes - that's the chap, although I don't remember a black beard.

Harsh to mention, but MetOs failing to forecast is a theme....

Bruggen in the late 90s/early 00s had a rather large, Scottish lady forecaster and you could pretty much plan for the opposite and be safe!

Was that the rather...'camp' chap who drove one of the rare Chevette 2300HS homologation specials?

Other met men:

- The dunce who persuaded the Domnie (the jet type!) squadron at Cranwell that the aerodrome would go out in fog - guaranteed. So they cancelled night flying, repaired to the pub and watched the twinkling stars....:( The MetO later admitted that he'd misplotted his tephigram - but the Dominie squadron didn't get another crack at night flying for a fortnight!

- The newcomer at Brawdy who hadn't been briefed on 'supersonic stratus' and other local quirks. His starring moment came when the gathering crowd asked "Any chance of snow today?", to be told "No - none!". "So is that white stuff gathering outside some mysterious new phenomenon?". Enter the Stn Cdr who greeted him with a cheery "Hello, Mac - have some actual!", then slung a snowball at him - it landed on his water-based lumocolour slides which then turned into a multi-coloured ruin.

- Griff-the-met who taught us at RAFC Cranwell. In those days the groundschool was down at the 26 threshold end, in wooden huts. One day, Plod declared bikini red, so the road was blocked solid. Griff eventually turned up and asked a chum "Have you seen the queue!". "Looks more like stratus to me, Griff", came the reply.

- And, of course, 'metman-with-waistcoats-of-many-colours' at Brize!

A colleague and I stopped in the rain at Abingdon to offer an RAF officer a lift to the building he was walking to some distance away. I was later taken to task for telling him to hop into the back when I should have in fact changed seats to allow him to sit in the front.

There may or may not have been a Met man who soon after built a nest under the ceremonial eagle on a plinth and slipped in a few hens eggs for good measure.

:O

Brawdy was fantastic for embarrassing met men. I remember late 80's, when the met man would remain in the windowless building for the half-hour between early & main briefing. He stood up once, forecasting gin clear, at which point one of the standing back row lifted a boot and tapped open the fire door. The back 3 rows disappeared in the fog which rolled in.

Fair dues. Next day he forecast ginners again, followed by an apologetic "Mind you, I said that yesterday."

Aaaaah, Helen McKenzie at St Mawgan. Now Helen Roberts,

Whoever they were, they were far better at forecasting (weather ships were useful) than the present crop. They used plain English (isn't the constant emphasising of words and phrases annoying?), and didn't flaunt about, theatrically. And they didn't cost us zillions, with satellites et al, all to no significant improvement in performance.

But some of the tottie is worth watching :)

The 'Duck' at Leeming in the 70's.

2 inches of snow in 10 minutes followed by him issuing a 'Snow Warning' which muggins had to Tannoy. I was known as 'Snowy' for weeks.

Then, months later, the Met Office roof blew off and landed on the ASP. 10 minutes later 'Ducky' issued a 'Strong Wind Warning'. Guess who had to Tannoy that one! Correct, I was 'Windy' for weeks.

Then there was McCloud at Cranwell in the 60's - forecast a gin clear day, as behind him through the windows we could see fog rolling across the airfield

Best forecasting ever by a Weather Girl...

http://www.toytownmunich.com/archive/scorchio.jpg

:ok:

Somewhere in Biscay in 2002 - about 0900.

Met girl briefs 'Blue,White', but says that Green is a possibility later - when we question this she gets a little defensive and dismisses the possibility of Green. 'Ace' we say because we are off to go splash bombing. The met girl leaves our room at 0915. At 0920 the met office pipes (tannoys) 'Green, Green'. At 0930 the met office pipes 'Yellow 1' and at 0935 a Bag shuts down on deck because he can't see the ramp. Good job!

Nazaneen Ghaffar (Sky News weekdays 6 -9; one of Eamon Holmes 'crumpet collection')

Was that the rather...'camp' chap who drove one of the rare Chevette 2300HS homologation specials?

I'd go for eccentric ........... and yes, thats the car. Lived in Doncaster, and drove to work via roundabout at Beckingham near Gainsboro. I lived near roundabout. On a quiet night the roar of the car under full steam was very distinctive. Distinctive enough for me to phone him once: "Dixon, were you spectacularly late for the morning shift, or ditto early for the evening?". "Admin day boss!".

He always answered phone "S Met O, YES YES!".

Dave Duck was a local farmer first and a met man second, in his mind. He was a bit too near a nuclear test earlier in life, and had more than his fair share of health problems.

In the dim distant days when Watton was one of ours, they phoned "Watton here". "Its ****ty here too!" said he.

Met Persons
 

We had three very good guys at Aberporth late eighties...we called them 'The Three Tempos'. Same place saw a lady met person arrive...so we called he 'Claudia' (Think about that one!)...the powers that be decreed it was time for the Met Office to be decorated, they let 'Claudia; pick the colours...she did and left shortly afterwards. The guys then had the pleasure of working for the next 10 years in what could only be described as 'menstrual' pink walls:O

Infamous met-men
 

I Remember some of those characters well Dave!
Tweedy dressed as a fairy to do the COs brief one Christmas at Scampton was outstanding and very funny!
Effing George was a joy to work with and real value in the bar (as was Tweedy)
Do any old Meteor boys remember the 'ice queen?'
'Hopeless' the weather girl at Lossie?
Les at, I believe, Laarbruch standing at the brief and saying, "fog" before sitting down again. Station Commander says, "come on Les, you've got to say more than that" Les gets up, "Thick fog" Sits down again!
Another who will remain un-named taking a water pistol into the brief in his inside pocket at Cottesmore. One of the A Sqn pilots had a dog which went to the front and smelled your willie whilst you were briefing. Met man at this point drew his water pistol and shot the dog between the eyes! The room erupted with laughter and the dog never did it again. Happy days!

Nige 'The Wrong' at Brize - you earn a name like that over years of trying, and failing, to forecast Brize's infamous Foggy Fortnight...

Never knew the name but the local at Aldergrove in the 1970s who answered a question on what the night weather was likely to be with
"Like today, only darker".

Langley

Dave Duck is still going strong. Still farming. I see him every so often. Not sure if he still glows in the dark. His Blessed Good Lady does.

(And I mean that in the nicest possible way)

I had the extreme good fortune to work with F-ing George in the Vale of York years ago. George Stevenson was an absolute LEGEND. He started his career as a Sgt pilot flying Met Recce Halifax's out of Ballykelly. On demob he moved to work for, I think, Post Office Telephones before being seconded to the FCO in East Africa. He was one of the few forecasters who could brief in Swahili or Urdu or probably both, knowing George. No mean shot with a 12 bore, he and Mark Gilson(?) ran the Linton rough shooting club. George was a skilled bee-keeper and a keen golfer. He packed more into a life than you could reasonably expect 3 men to do. At his funeral there were as many outside the church as in. And yes, he had a wide lexicon of industrial strength Anglo-Saxon and could use it to great effect! An utterly utterly brilliant man and we will not see his likes again.Thanks George. :ok:

Ah, the Gilson. If it walked the land, flew the air, swam the waters, he would eat it.

Sorry, thread drift.