Oi!! KPax...
 

....You still haven't answered the original question.
Suggest you describe this "strange manner" of stick waving so that the thread can get back on track.
The way that it has drifted suggests that aircrew might be infesting this forum.

The Ancient Mariner

Scorchio! ?

You've finally handed out enough bedding and swept enough guardroom floors to earn the right to carry the stick.- You'd wave it around too.

If only they all lived up to some of the standards already mentioned on here. I've met a mixed bunch during my time, some utterly brilliant at keeping JOs in check and others who wouldn't say boo to a goose let alone pull up some scruffy airman/JO. A good SWO is worth his (or her) weight in gold.:D

AP818, Part 2, Chapter 16 also refers. See Para 9b.

RAF Sharjah 1963-64. SWO post was a FltSgt. When I got there the SWO was FS "Sid" Reilly, ruled with a light touch. His replacement (on his first overseas tour in 20+ years!) spent the first morning marching around in KD and Nr 1 SD hat b*llocking all and sundry for minor dress infringements then spent the next 48 hours in SSQ with heat stroke and severe dehydration. He did calm down a bit but was never as popular or as effective as Sid Reilly.

I was in the NAAFI at Akrotiri one lunchtime and observed the SWO ticking off a young F3 pilot for long hair, long sideburns, flight suit zip to his wait and wearing a blues brothers t-shirt. The SWO was simply and calmly pointing out that it was a challenge to keep the airman in line when the officers looked like a bunch of louts. The next amusing thing was the same JO then coming up to me complaining about the SWO's 'attack' on him..! Oh I laughed and suggested he registered his 'complaint' with his sqn cdr... The SWO however had beaten him to it...

One of the best I've seen was the SWO at Wittering in the mid 70's, if he caught anyone really out of line he would march them to the photo section for a front and side pic. The first a sqn cdr new about it was when the monthly stn mag appeared with the guilty mans pics complete with what section he came from. It really made the mag essential reading.

That same SWO bollocked me for holding my future wifes hand at the bus stop outside the camp, it was a Saturday morning and we were in civvies! - happy days..........

I never came across a SWO who was a patch on the Garrison Sergeant Major at Aldershot. Now he really knew the meaning of discipline and maintaining standards, but I never heard him raise his voice or be anything other than perfectly polite . . .



. . . in a menacing sort of way.



"Speak softly, but carry a big stick"

And some of them wanted the equivalent tying around their ankles and shoved overboard..


..

Does it actually matter how it is carried and in which direction the stick faces?

In fact, what is the point of the stick at all?

The SWO needs his stick so that he can leave it on the table at the entrance to the Sgt's Mess thus announcing his presence therein

Blacksheep,

What vintage?

Tim

Isn't it also his pace stick for marching etc?

Nutloose

A pace stick, yes.

A swagger stick not sure but don't think so.

In the RAF?

Sorry... ambling...

Ambling? Dear God, have standards dropped that far? Perambulating maybe, but never ambling.

Strolling ? :O

Wandering. ;)