WUH

Fascinating post ref the station files - do you mind my asking which station - I'm doing some research on this sort of thing based on national archives work and this sounds fascinating.

Cheers

JJ, I would guess any station. It is simply a case that no one really wants to get a grip.

The FI F540s were mentioned, GW1 F540 will be even less illuminating. One GR1 Sqn wrote "Too busy on operations to write anything." This was the operational record book!

On an operation 50 years ago I was responsible for writing the Det F540. Only snag was, no one told me! AFAIK nothing was written and many sources, Wynn excepted, even suggested we had never gone!

ImLad - check your PMs.

WUH - Completely agree. When doing some research in the National Archive a few years back I happened across one formerly Secret document sent from, IIRC, one Captain John Glubb. On the back of the secret letter was a handwritten note exchanging pleasantries, some other no doubt classified observations and asking if the recipient fancied meeting for a game of polo. This small snap shot of a long past time will be lost to future historians and it will get even worse with e-filing!

Does anyone really know how to save a document nowadays? So that you can find it whenever you, or your successor(s), need to refer to it? Before or after the latest fad on how a document is supposed to be named and saved? And depending on whether it was saved on CHotS, or JOCS, or DII or DII/F or.....? Bring back the paper file for document archive!! :(

Some years ago, a chum who shall remain nameless, but might be known to some as 'Snake', was on a tour at the MoD. One day he found a carelessly discarded document lying around - it was the minutes of some Air Force Board meeting....:uhoh:

What matters of high policy, he wondered, had these worthies been discussing? Surely something of huge national interest?

Err, no. They'd wasted most of a day bickering about the policy for the wearing of 'Sqn cummerbunds' with No. 5 dress at Dining-In Nights.....:\ Which everyone ignored anyway....:ok:

Amazing what over classification used to go on. Shortly after PhanDet was established at RAF Stanley, we started getting classified IntReps sent to all F-4 squadrons. I wonder whether sufficient time has now passed for me to reveal that the subject of the flooding in the RAF police dog kennels was one such classified tit-bit....:confused:

On my first sqn (No 35 Sqn), a chum recovered a number of wartime secret files which had since been downgraded. Fascinating reading - as was the F540 of the time. A great shame if people haven't had time to maintain their F540s in current times....:mad:

I recently read the minutes of a meeting of the JIC in early 1952, just after Gen Templer was appointed High Commissioner and Director Operations in Malaya. A couple of Colonial Office mandarins comented on the minute sheet about the inappropriateness of another old war horse being sent to the East, but accepted it as a fait acompli. Of course Gerald Templer was much cleverer and had persuaded the same Mandarins that he should take over control of all intelligence activities; they beieved this be be a short term expediency - but he made it permanent. Now without marginalia or minute sheets, this rather delightful exchange (written in best Public School-boy English) would ahve been lost forever.

Interestingly, in the same minutes, Dick White of MI5 opposed the appointment of a leading socialist academic (not Milleban Snr) to be Director of Intelligence, on the grounds that the candidate's university vacations varied from the Civil Service ones!

Roland,

Easy really - you create a new subject file on the left side of your Microsoft Outlook Inbox and drag and drop all e-mails with attachments into the relevant file folder. If anyone asks you a question, you can access your own file/folder network to answer it. If you are not there, no-one will answer the question as none of your colleagues will have the same access as yourself!

For standalone documents, you save them in the 'My Documents' folder found on your desktop. Same result as above!

On posting, you delete all of the above as you will no longer care and your successor will start from scratch. Of course, corporate history and knowledge is limited to one person for a period of 2 or 3 years but as the rate of change of organisation is probably on a 12 month basis, no-one will care or even remember the name of the post you used to fill when you started. The other bonus is that you will be far more productive by not having to wade through 15 pages of questions trying to save stuff to Meridio! :ok:

Part Animal

I suspect you are absolutely spot on. :D

PA, when I retired and my unit disbanded I could see no need for the miscellany of emails that I had not previously binned. Documents that were of a temporary nature - to schools about work experience, requests for authorisation to spend 3s 4d etc were deleted.

To save any trouble for the IT department (if such existed) I ran the HDD through a wipe program. It took 36 hours but the drive appeared quite clean and I am sure, after they installed an operating system, everything would be fine :}

Some months later my previous boss, in correspondence about my annual bonus, to which I had aspirations, said there were no files on my PC - quell surprise!

IIRC, I believe that policeman chappie, when he was at Strike Command declared the 'paperless office.'

Did they ever install a paperless office filing system? One where all paper correspondence is passed, unread, into a sorting, scanning, filing, shredding machine. Once scanned and filed it would then wiz electronically over the Dii/F bearers to the appropriate SME never to see the light of day again.

What? You mean like this???

PA

I am sure your description of how to store e-mails and documents is entirely correct, and therein lies the rub. If you make it overly complex to store stuff, whilst also removing the registries and their staff (whose knowledge and experience was second to none) as a "savings" measure, then you should not be surprised if people find a way round things. The illogicality of Meridio and MOSS means people do not use it. The search engine will find a plethora of documents that you have to open, check and close again whilst trying to find the document you are looking for, makes it an impractical system. Just try a Google search for anything and see how many "hits" you get. A station/unit file structure at least had an element of logic to it and flicking through a paper file was soooo much easier than doing it electronically. :hmm:

Roland - if, as I suspect, your link was to the DII Intranet site for the AHB, that was who I tried to contact many moons ago. After tracing 'them' (via dead-links to previous addresses and units), I eventually found one poor overworked guy who seemed to be the AHB in its entirety! Hence my tongue in cheek remark about FTRS (which I'm guessing the guy I spoke to was anyway). Maybe the solution is to state that the MoD archives/records are in fact 'Government' property (which I guess they are in fact) - therefore pass the whole lot over to the civil service to administer and deal with. If the head of the civil service then decides to 'contract it out' - so be it - let those who use the records pay a small fee for the privilege and make it a self-financing process?

SP

Not the intranet but internet link AFAIK. AHB are a small team but they have responsibility for lots of classified, all of the F540s as an example. Not sure how many moons ago you are talking about, but AHB have been a Northolt for quite a few moons now; they are well worth a visit if you are passing. They have their own library, have some dedicated researchers and are also the custodians of all unit badges that are no longer in use/issued (which is quite a fascinating collection/history in itself).

Indeed when we closed that was one item, amongst others, that they asked for. Sadly the original signed copy had gone walk about probably after a unit move. And I think I know who had it.