Would they be Welsh, then?

I recall reading in the Army magazine some years ago (yes, I was that bored) that to commemorate Rorke's Drift, the Royal Welch Fusiliers had been on a trip to Seth Efrika and played sports against a Zulu Regiment. The Zulus won almost everything - cricket, soccer, rugby...the only event the Welsh won was spear throwing!!

Names
 

My first night in the Officers' Mess at Laarbruch and a nice lady said she would introduce me to a tall man at the bar. She introduced him as "Mike " so I said " Hello Mike, what's your job ? " " Station Commander " he replied. A good Knight by the way.

I would bet that he still remembers your first name too!

Once had a Wg.Cdr. called "Ramus". His unfeeling officers called him "Igno" (but not in his hearing !) He was a nice chap.

We had a Sikh Cpl. engine fitter at Scampton known as turbine by everyone from OC Eng. down.

The executive command for launching a flame float from a Shackleton was "Mark Mark". Hear that on the intercom and two floats were dropped through the hole in the rear fuselage floor as soon as possible! Anyone with that name was renamed for the tour!

I well remember a fellow rigger on second line at Cranwell (JPs) being known as "Punkah Wallah" ! It owed nothing to his obvious "brush of the tarbrush", but to the fact that he had seriously cocked up the replacement of the "Punkah louvre" on the pilots side during servicing. I've no doubt that many, seeing the man and hearing the moniker might suspect racist innuendo, not so, simply extracting the urine for a job badly done.

Smudge:ok:

At Catterick, many many moons ago there were two stewards in the OM called Dawn. For obvious (but non PC reasons) one was known as Dawn and the other was known as Zulu Dawn... no offence seemed to be taken:D

There is a famous story, well famous in the AD world...OK it's not that famous, that at one particular pilots wedding, the Vicar got to the bit...


"Do you Catherine take Steven to be your(might have been the other way round) lawfully wedded husband"


At which point, there was a not so hushed chorus, from the Sqn mates in the cheap seats of, "Who the F*#K is Steven. Oh, he means Sxxx"

I only remember the names of pretty ladies (and more, sometimes :E).
Am I getting senile?

A new civilian appointee came into our office on his first day, wearing walk shorts, long socks and mirror sunglasses. One of the blokes said "F@# me, it's Joe Cool", and Joe cool it was from that day forth. Thirty years later, when he retired, there were people there who believed that was his name.

I can remember most of the names of those on my first Nimrod squadron back in the early 70's when I was a very young AEOp. They were mostly Sir!

I've had instructors and Flt Cdrs etc ask me what my real first name was, cos they had to write XYZ report. Nicknames much more important, my wife (of 20+ years) still calls me Floss. I think she knows my real name...

Which is better than an old XO who's wife (along with everyone else) called him Fugly :)

Had a guy with downgraded medical who moved from FJ to Truckie. He was once heard to say in the crewroom "I can't cope with all these first names; on my last squadron it was eithe "Shag" or "Horse"!!

We had three Marks, Mark one, Mark two, and Mark three

Slightly off topic, but I once knew the worlds oldest Flight Lieutenant, whose name badge and everything else said 'FLTLT Gramps'. I always thought it was a p1ss-take, it was only years later that I learned that it was his actual name!

p.s welcome back Nutty :ok:

Great to see you back, Nutty! Very happy that you survived!!! You take care now and no overdoing it on the cap com.

Thanks guys,

Still work in progress, home at the moment, but stents to go in other vessel in 6-8 weeks, and that ones blocked, main one causing the angina has been triple stented, other one is 40-50% but is below their 70% baseline for re plumbing.

One of our navs at Brize was of Asian descent - he thought the nickname "Chartwallah" was hilarious. Which was politer than 'De Black Ron' as some termed him - which had led to a Wg Cdr from Group once ringing up asking to speak to a Flt Lt 'du Blaqueronne'!

One day the phone went in the crewroom - it was some Fighter Controller lass who wanted to know when sunrise would be at the Taj Mahal on some specific date when her parents would be visiting. The chap who took the call went to look for Chartwallah, who launched into an hilarious Peter Sellers style accent "Ah, good lady, I am looking in my books, indeed to goodness...." which he assured her were from his days at the University of Bombay. She smelt a rat and started giggling, but good old Chartwallah kept it up..."Now, this is indeed most serious research I am doing...". He gave her the answer and hung up, to see the whole crewroom doubled up in hysterics! As was he.

Nutty, great to see you back - take care of yourself.


I am off to the Reunion weekend at the Towers in the morning - 50th year since slow marching up the steps - will see lots of guys I have not seen that day or before - will have trouble with surnames, let alone first names. Should be a good weekend though. Now what is my name?