Check digit certainly there when one joined AOTS in early '68. During training one was enlisted as an airman, so the number was 802****Q.

When commissioned, it changed (sic) to Q802****.

Wingco Arthur was no longer actively flying then. My instructor was Charlie Parker. CFI was-----Bishop who went in with 3 others in a Piper Caribbean later that year by hitting the trees on take-off.

Sept 66, G196....

My late Father, join date 01.04.1957, number L420****.

At that time was there not something about National Service entrants having a different style of number, maybe without a letter? He certainly used to tell me anyone could tell if you were NS or Regular from your number.

Yes they could. NS Nos. started with a 2 Regulars with a 4. Your father's 420***** denotes, I believe, that he was a Regular who had been in the ATC. The L pre-fix came later.

It is not just a matter of when he enlisted, in 1957 we did not have the check character, it was a matter of if he was still serving at the time of the change.

Yes there were seperate groups of number depending how you started your service.

National Servicemen had two groups of numbers, one was used for former ATC members and the other for 'ordinary' National Servicemen.

There were two similar groups for Regular's.

There were the well known numbering scheme for Apprentice's and Boy Entrants.

With the latter, most of us could work out the Entry of anyone within +/- 1 Entry, just form his service number.

Tengah Type, greetings.

I'm know how you feel. I to, did the Singapore run courtesy British Eagle. Two tours at Tengah, 60 /62 on 60 Sqn and 67/69 with the 74th (Wiwols again !). First tour happy days down Bugis and single. Second tour married with kids!! Happy days though on both.

The Tengah Troop here seems very numerous! :ok:

ATCO WSRT, 67-70.
British Eagle out, RAF VC-10 home ;)

Lightning 5. Greetings to you as well.

I only managed one tour on 45 Sqn between 63-66. But may have tanked you on your second tour.

My last run to the real Bugis Street was in 82, en-route to Hong Kong, where one of the Kaities demonstrated "her" operation to a very bemused WRAF Wing Commander passenger on the trip! The next time in 95 to the new Bugis Street was a great disappointment.

Happy days at Tengah
 

Out with British Eagle, back by VC10 which was much less painful apart from the smoke pouring out of the air conditioning vents, forcing a longer stopover at Gan.


My Dad's number was 343*** (1921 vintage)

You mean some of you got more than three numbers?
No, I'm not that old....

I did feel quite old when I saw an actual airframe in which I'd done some of my flying training arrive as the station gate guardian. But a whole lot older when they took it away again because it had become too old even to be the gate guardian.... :eek:

Now they've changed it at least twice more! :(
But at least I'm still getting airborne.

I was called up for NS in Nov '49 and allocated a number 3124*** which I was told indicated I had been in the ATC. As I had volunteered for NS pilot training before actually going to Padgate I must have mentioned the ATC thing at the recruiting office in Ealing. As far as I know nobody had actually confirmed my ATC service. Others had numbers starting 4******. After two years I became Plt Off Bloggs RAFVR with the same number. After a few months I rejoined on a short service commission, retraining the same number. In 1956 I was granted a permanent commission and the number stayed with me until I retired in 1969. In 1976 I joined the RAFVR(T) and still kept that number until they kicked me out kicking and screaming in Dec 1996. Incidentally when I joined BEA my staff number ended in ***75 which I was told indicated a pilot. Don't know if BOAC had a similar system.

Goudie, #165, correct, he was a Regular, but not ex ATC, unless he BS'd about ATC and it wasn't checked.

Do families still have to quote "last three" when going to eg medical centre on camp. In fact, do families still get cared for by medical centre/dentist, or is that another "you know you're old when...?

IIRC the requirement for Service Medical Care for Families was binned in 1997.

The Med Centre at Wittering certainly covered families in 2009 - I can't say after that as I was posted.

We used to call the white thigh gap between the top of the stocking and the knickers the Giggle Zone, 'cos if you got there you were laughing.

Then someone who should have been publicly hung invented tights...I've lost count of the number of women who are bemused by the male delight at a stockinged leg. As I always tell them, you don't have to understand, just indulge us.

Hope begins where stocking tops end.

alwayslookingup

Apologies, my error re. ATC. Former ATC's Nos started... 320 or 350 not too sure which...must be getting old!:sad:

And the suspender clasp was always known as the "chuckle buckle"!;)

Goudie, see my post #172. 3124*** ?

Thing, you said I have to point out that it was my uncle Harold, who worked for Pretty Polly at the time, who built the first commercial machine to manufacture tights in bulk, in the early 1960s.He didn't deserve hanging, a good old boy was Harold (if somewhat under his wife's thumb).

Cheers 26er:ok:

So what was Harold's nick name then, "Spoilsport"?

The late great cartoonist, Tugg Willson, was a fan of stockings and WRENs who wore them:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.n...62526760_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...91506462_n.jpg

FWIW, the old man had a 6 digit number as NCO aircrew which was then changed to a completely new number when commissioned during the Second World War, no letters involved. Mind you, he also had to change his Stalag Luft IVb prisoner number when he swapped places with a fusilier in Stalag IVd so that he could escape, and at 91 he can still remember all of them!



You know you're getting old when you remember that you didn't have a service number: Naval Officers were only issued them in times of hostilities and the cold war didn't count.

Re: Giggle Zones.
 

Quote:

---

"Never let a sailor get an inch above your knee !"

---

I've made a note of that Danny:ok:

You know you are getting old when someone pays you a compliment......

.....which is immediately caveated with "for a man your age"!

Letters in service numbers
 

Joined on January 5th 1965 as Craft Apprentice 202nd Entry with no letter, shortly after letters were affixed to service number, however usual cock up as my letter was the letter " O " , promptly used as zero by all and sundry, yet again very shortly changed to " P " and still can't forget the thing, comes in handy for passwords and pin codes on cards!
And old is when you can remember the torqe loading on a Beverly prop securing nut ( 720 lb ft )!, and moving them into a hangar sideways as the fins wouldn't go under the roof if you tried it the normal way, oh what a laugh that was!

On the day that the Royal Air Force is 96 years old, you realise that it was only 34 years and 7 weeks when you joined :bored:

....and not quite 47 when you were demobbed :uhoh:

Happy Birthday!

You are old, Father William.......
 

When you realise that the RAF is only three years older than you are ! :(

Many happy returns ! (maybe sometime soon they'll give you a few aeroplanes as a birthday present).

You know you're getting old when......
 

.....when you answered the telephone with 'Windsor 252'

After a perfect landing and taxi, you find that the HF antenna is hanging in the fence.

Up until 1988 my telephone number was South Cockerington 628. Them were the days eh. Talking of phones do you remember public phone box handsets always use to smell of the sickly sweet odour of decaying tobacco. Ugh. There was also a ruse that I can't remember clearly now where if you pressed button 'A' (youngsters-don't bother asking) a certain number of times as soon as you connected you got a free call.

Ah yes. Then there was "Tandem Dialling" when you dialled a long code which put you in ,then out, of exchanges along the way , enabling you to make long distance calls at local rates , or so I am told.:O

Then you had Steve Jobs and Steve Woznak, who started Apple who worked out that certain tones sent down the phone allowed free calls !!!

500N - that was known as 'phone phreaking'. There was also the famous 'Cap'n Crunch whistle', which came free in cereal packets in the US. Some kid discovered that it was the exact frequency used by single tone dialling systems and it was possible to bypass the toll system by blowing the whistle at the appropriate rate.....

In the UK, before DTMF tone dialling, in the old 'button A and button B' public phone boxes, it was (allegedly!) possible to make free local calls by tapping the cradle to simulate the number of pulses caused by the dial. Long distance calls (allegedly!) required a special code to be dialled, knowledge of which was passed around amongst university students during the early 1970s.

The solution was simple - just reduce the cost of phone calls so that there was no point in phone phreaking!

I now fly for an airline and just had a serious 'you know you're old' moment when I checked into our crew hotel in downtown Bangkok, a stone's throw from Pat Pong and all I was interested in was how comfortable my bed was and what time does breakfast start!

Get up and go well and truly got up and gone.

I knew I was old when.......................
 

My wife and I emerged from the theatre in Chesterfield at about 2230 one November night.

The wind was blowing and cold, the rain was torrential and horizontal, so I pulled up the collar of my coat, wrapped my scarf around my neck, pulled my hat down, and considered if we could make it to the car without developing hypothermia or drowning on the way................

I looked across the street from the entrance to the theatre - which, in Chesterfield, is lined with bars, pubs and other venues to make it "party town" for modern yoof - and saw streams of young "ladies" scantily dressed, tottering along the pavement in the highest of heels, shortest of skirts, and with only limited covering of their firm, smooth breasts....................I digress :E

They were clearly on their way to a holiday in the Caribbean, or their meagre benefits/allowances/minimum wage payments meant that they simply could not afford proper clothing.

We ran to the car, turned the heater to max, and drove home.

That's when I knew I was old.......................:eek:

I've actually driven up Silver Street in Lincoln in a snow storm and seen the same queueing to get into a nightclub. Yet if you gave them all the right kit and asked them to go on a refreshing five mile walk on a frosty morning they would look at you like you had two heads.

Off to take the grandson to the Space Centre in Leicester now, no doubt there will be stuff there which will give me the opportunity to regale him with 'I remember that' moments.

BomberH - nothing's changed since your visit. :ok: