First names
 

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been little activity in my job so I thought it might be an interesting exercise to go through my logbooks and list everyone I've flown with and try to remember their first names.

Over a 27 year fast-jet career in the RAF followed by 9 years where I am now, I have flown with over 840 different people. Maybe its a sign of old age arriving but I can't remember all their first names!!

Does anyone else have the same problem?:p

No, but I do smell of wee. :)

I never remember anyones Proper name - but I usually remember any nickname and normally am good at faces - which helps to avoid the to$$ers :)

Humans evolved to live in small nomadic bands or tribes, I believe there have been studies which show most of us have brains which can't remember more than 60-80 odd other people.

I was able to identify about 90% from a sqn photo 48 years previous and it wasn't that clear a photo.

I don't have any problems remembering, er, ooh look, a squirrel!

Nicknames yes. It's only later that you realise you never knew the actual real names of most of them! I answered the crew room phone at Brawdy one afternoon.

Person: "Hello, can I speak to Flt Lt XXXXX, please."

Me: "Bottle? I'll see, hang on."

Person: "His name is not Bottle."

Me: "Oh, yeah, I mean Sid."

Person: "I'm his mother and is name is YYYY!"

Me: "Really? I never knew that. Hahahaha, wait till I tell the guys. I'll find him for you."

Phone: "Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"





Tu Chan Go, how long did it take you work out that you'd flown with 840 people?

tu chan go,

It's your age, duckie. Comes to all of us in time. Me, I can remember names, fine. And I can remember faces, too.

System goes into spasm when I try to attach the name to a face ! :confused:

Danny.

We had two flight lieutenants called Miller on our squadron. One day one of their wives rang the crewroom and asked to speak to Flight Lieutenant Miller. On being asked which one she meant she replied "Oh, Dusty Miller please".

:ugh:

Can't remember either of their first names!

Can't remember either of their first names! - TTN

For some reason TTN's post reminded me of a First Lieutenant I had who was hobnobbing with an Army wife whilst her husband was on temporary duty elsewhere. At a subsequent cocktail party, which husband and wife attended on board following his return, wife was introduced to her husband as Mrs First Lieutenant.......:eek:

And yes, I remember all the first names and surnames concerned!:)

Jack

We had a cracker in RAFG many years ago when a Wg Cdr ( IIRC) told his wife that he had been posted to, regrettably, an unaccompanied tour in Rheindahlen.
However, as far as RAFG was concerned he was, as was routine, accompanied.
Said officer then got the allocated quarter, in to which he subsequently installed his girlfriend.
He almost got away with it until, near the end of his tour, he got nailed with a "wives will attend" function. He had to attend "mit frau"

Unfortunately for him a certain Group Captain's wife was also in attendance, who just happened to be a bosom buddy of the real Mrs Wg Cdr.....

Oh, what fun followed!

First Names?? ..reminds me of my first ever contact with RAF flying training -at 662 gliding school, Condor; the OC introduced himself, explaining the school was run on first name terms, followed up with "My first name is "sir"..

So, is this a flight-deck, min crew or total crew thing?

OAP

i assumed my first name was automatically changed to you there

First tourist arrives on his Lightning Sqn. During the arrival chat, the Boss asks his name---'Adrian' was the reply. Boss----'I'm not having an Adrian on my Sqn, we'll call you Harry'---it stuck throughout the years.

Bunch of people lined up on the shores of the lake by North Luffenham about to embark on a course to upgrade their windsurfing qualifications. The instructor was an enthusiastic young Cpl who started off,

'This is an informal course, lets just use first names, mines Dave, lets all say who we are'

Goes down the line getting the names until he arrives at a gentleman possibly somewhat older, 'OK what's your name'--------'Sir Roger'

Nicknames
 

I was sat in the Boss's office (where the Welfare phone resided) on a certain S Hemisphere multi-engine detached Flight. Phone rang, VS answered and heard a female voice ask for "FS Wxyz".


VS turns away from phone (slightly), and shouts loudly:


"Oi Shagger, phone call".


Only later did I learn to my relief that Mrs Wxyz was already well aware of his nickname. :O

We had 2 Flt Lts called Grant. They were often referred to as "Grant Blanc" and "Grant Noir" to differentiate ... it was an obvious distinction, but probably not permitted these days.

On one Sqn I was on we had Skull, Navbag, Slaphead, Huffy, Spit and Wiggy, to name a few....

29 had nine Johns at one point. They had namebadges made up with John 1 through John 9.

Unit I served in a long time ago had 2 called Keen. Known as Extra and Notso.

Following a stint in an excellent Freight Airline,a certain Ex Truckie and Training Captain,as well as Ex Laker and others in the Magestic DC10,christened two chappies from the Foreign Parts,"Spear Chucker One" and "Spear Chucker Two".These two appeared regularly as such on the Crew Room Notice Board,and Crew Roster sheets,and responded to them cheerfully in Crew Room Banter.Happy days,and both seem to thrive on it!!!!

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?