And the other way round - when on the rare occasion we took back a base from the Pongoes (Kirton-in-Lindsey 2004) we had an expensive and lengthy programme to get the place back to normality. The OM was in a state - dreadful dark wallpaper, I seem to remember and those ghastly Pongo brown leather armchairs were rapidly dumped, and the rooms needed a lot of TLC. The place had been trashed. OMQs were not much better and also needed much maintenance and major works.

We digress, but the RAF OM at JHQ Rheindahlen was fine. Then it became "Joint" with the run-down, "Churchill Mess".

The army behaviour [and worse, that of their offspring] soured several major events. At OktoberFest walking on and across the table was perceived as nothing extraordinary, and the bogs were in an indescribable state such that the civilian cleaners refused to deal with them in the morning.

We more or less blanked the Mess for our last year or so.

Pity.

A certain army officer in JHQ kept his pony in the OMQ cellar......

57mm, they grew mushrooms too?