Nutloose - you bad person.....

Back in the early 80's, yours truly was Orderly Corporal at RAF Linton on Ouse. The fact that I was permanant staff at RAF Topcliffe held no water, so we were Joe'd to help out the LOO JNCO's spread the load.

Saturday night, Trafalgar Night. The LoO Officers Mess was handed over to our Dark Blue brethren to celebrate some unpleasantness somewhere off Spain or whereever.

The junior course attending RNEFTS at RAF Topcliffe had, that weekend, been despatched to do 'Adventure Training' for the weekend. This consisted of loading 10 RNEFTS students into a minibus and sending them to Scotland.

At 0 early o'clock, I received a telephone call, in the Guardroom, from a hospital in Scotland, telling me that the RNEFTS student minibus had had an altercation with a ditch, and that the minibus had come off worse resulting in a number of walking wounded (minor cuts and bruises) but one casualty that the Docs were concerned about. This RNEFTS student was mentioning abdominal pain that seemed to be getting worse.

The Docs at the hospital were requesting permission to do an exploratary op to ensure the studes kebabs were where they should be and OK.

Now, trying to find a SDO or RNEFTS Topcliffe Naval Officer who (at 0130 on a Sunday morning) wasn't 'tired and emotional' was even beyond the magic powers of Corporal's, so, yours truly, gave consent for the exploratory op. (Possibly illegal, but humanitarian................)

Outcome was, the RNEFTS stude with gut ache survived the op, with his innards declared Fully Serviceable, but had / has to endure an operation scar across his (no doubt) nubile body for the past 35 years courtesy of the LoO Orderly Cpl.

For that, if you are a PPruner and recognise yourself, I humbly apologise for the pain you suffered. I also thank God for the anonymity of these Forums.

Sounds like a close shave to me....

Jack

I wonder what was said after the GP was matched out.

ORAC ... OMG, Pay Parade! One of the nauseas of being OO at Tengah on Pay Day for the hundreds of Locally Employed Personnel. As with your dit, Accounts issue vast sums of Singapore dollars and cents, worked out somehow to the last coin. Fortunately the pay was done indoors, in an office, and the LEPs came to us. But ... the prospects of getting the denominations correct [as envisaged by Accounts] every time was minimal, so although you might get the payments correct, the last 2 guys would each want [say] $12.50 and all you had left was a $20 and a $5! :(
One always did Pay Parade with a personal stash of small change and small notes to allow final adjustments to be made!

In the 1980s, at very short notice I was made heli detachment commander for supporting a NATO joint special forces exercise in Denmark. I was told a sub-imprest was ready for collection. Having not been to Denmark before and having just come back from another det in Belize (and being based in Germany), I had no idea about exchange rates. I counted out the money (which seemed to take forever and filled most of my nav bag), signed for it, went back to the squadron and we departed very shortly afterwards. On arrival, I discovered we were living in very basic conditions at a training camp (sleeping in a bunkhouse with no furniture) and there was no secure place on site to lodge the cash because there were no permanent staff. After a few days it suddenly dawned on me how much cash I actually had in my bag...it was more than the value of a small house! I used my nav bag as a pillow for the rest of the week. When I took the money back to base SHQ it took them two hours to re-count the cash - thankfully all was correctly accounted for. It appeared someone at Gutersloh had made a mistake with exchange rates and issued me with ten times the value of the cash I was supposed to have taken.

I was OO at Finningley, a proper parade. I had a shade over £1,000, about a year's pay for an aircrew PO. The airmen were drawn up outside and the FS called each forward in turn. I short changed one airmen £10. He had to wait until all were paid and I had £10 left over.

Thankfully bank accounts were then introduced

PN (#90)We had our troubles in earlier years, too. From my memoirs:

In 1993, we were taking part in EX BOLD GAUNTLET at Guetersloh. A multi-national borex involving a display of commitment escorting transport aircraft along an imaginary corridor.

As usual, our F-4 detachment was being stitched up by the penny-pinching scribblies. However, my time on Vulcans and knowledge of entitlements meant that, after a few curt words with the local acker-basher, I was able to go down to the flight line to give the FS i/c the good news that I'd secured some allowances for him and his lads and would be able to give them the cash whenever he wanted.

At this his eyes became moist with distant memories. "Sir", he said, "That means we can hold a pay parade! Haven't seen one of those since the days when I was in (some obscure corner of empire). All the lads formed up and marched forward one by one for their pay. It'll be just like old times!"

I assured him that we didn't really need to be quite so spit and polish - just a nominal roll would do and I'd tick them off one by one as I paid them. That rather spoiled his day, but the lads were very glad to get their detachment beer vouchers. Of course no-one ever thanked me....

BOLD GAUNTLET had its moments though. At one party, a schoolie decided that she fancied a French Mirage pilot with whom we were chatting, so went up to him in the bar, threw her arms around his waist and gave him an obviously lustful look. So he put down his cigarette and beer, excused himself, went down to the Kellerbar and DCO'd, then returned to his conversation having relit his cigarette and picked up his beer as though nothing unusual had happened. Quelle sang-froid!

I was taking a Puma,XW209 to the factory in Marseille to have the poly intakes fitted. It was suggested that one of the HQ staff might come with us for the experience. Eventually a brand new Pilot Officer in Accounts was chosen. As he was an accountant then logically he should hold the imprest and this was approved by OC Admin who would personally brief him. We couldn't crack the south of France in one go so we night stopped in Nantes. We gathered in his room to collect out allowances and when he opened his briefcase it was packed with blank French taxi receipts.

Once upon a time the Corgi Carriers had some trip to Russia. One of their number managed to find some Russian till receipts on the floor of wherever they'd been, then tried to submit them to back up the rather large FSI claim he'd made.

A few days alter TQF received a polite request from the acker basher querying the size of the claim and inviting that it should be resubmitted. To make the point, the request was written both in English and Russian....

You may be interested, or otherwise, to learn that your own, and many others, trip to Denmark directly benefitted from my own on 431 MU.

Denmark was our "jewel in the crown " location, made a change from the usual RAFG locations after all, and XV kindly provided the opportunity when two of their Buccs had a brief but passionate meeting mid air when operating from Karup. The trip was "memorable " from the onset, however, it was the not so little matter of LOA that came to prominence .We were pleasantly surprised to learn we had to pay for our food and that the cheapest meal cost Dkr 9 which was the total daily sum of the LOA. This clearly did not leave much to contribute to the local economy not helped by, when we said as much to Bruggen, the bean counters asking the very last person they could have chosen to confirm all was well, a senile C/ T who drove non stop "to save money ", the RAF's, not his, from Bruggen to Karup and who found one meal a day was more than adequate, for him, plus his nights did not involve anything more than Horlicks.

Our boss, being one of the very few Engo's who actually knew about both engineering and management decided to investigate himself. He diligently followed our advice, to comply with driving regs, obviously, to night stop in Hamburg and then carried out a detailed investigation on arrival at Karup over the course of about 5 days. The result, on his return, was an almost overnight increase across the RAF as a whole to an LOA of Dkr27....how he managed this we never found out but he did have some useful contacts it seems.

Back to the tedium of the topic and it wasn't my fault I was soaring over Bruggen one Saturday when on O/Cpl when it was lunch time and one of the delights was to sell meal tickets at the Mess. Some people got a bit upset about this so called dereliction but, as I pointed out, had it been that imperative they could have contacted me on the infamous "Storno " we were expected to cart around, and which I duly had with me. Unfortunately, "Storno's" could be temperamental as we know and the "on / off switch was notable in this respect. Thankfully, the glider radios were less so and the broadcast to report "immediately !!" was heard by somebody returning to the launch point.

For various reasons I had a "chit" in 1975 to grow my hair and moustache long preparatory for an upcoming detachment from Coningsby to Aldergrove.
As a going away present, naturally I was made O.O. on my last night before departure.
Looking like a part-time bus conductor I turned up to inspect the defaulters' parade. On questioning the first lad as to why he was in attendance I got the predictable answer......

" Having long hair, Sir"

Of course.

I did only one Orderly Sgt in 5 years substantive in the rank. Is that a record? I also distinguished myself at the evening defaulters' parade. After sniffily looking them up and down and sending them away, I saw myself in the traditional guardroom big mirror. I could have died- my tie was loosened and askew, and my top button undone. I had had a little lie out on the OS's scratcher in the mess, timing my walk to perfection. But I forgot to smarten up. Sounds lame, but I was mortified at the time. The OC must have noticed... Git!:O

CG

Hmm, pay parades. Watton, mid 60s, and 360 was 25% RN, aircrew and ground crew. Pile of money on the desk, long queue, and the money pile always seemed to go down more quickly than the queue. usually worked out OK in the end. Navy you stacked the cash in their upturned cap. I remember being astonished at putting in excess of £100 in one guy's cap, when £100 was worth.....

Early in second career at Binbrook as OC Accts, OC Admin, the lovely Mike west, on first working day of the New Year came into the office shaking a signal. Apparently, at the back end of the previous year a number of Lightnings had ended up in Norway, ferrying engineers and bits for a broken jet. None of the guys had any civvies and the Embassy had advanced a fairly large sum of money for then to but shirts, slacks and shoes. The Embassy wanted their money back. Rang the impromptu imprest holder, then a young fg off, later gp capt, and enquired gently where the change and receipts might be. "No problem" he said, "in my bureau at home , I'll bring them in tomorrow". apparently a phone call from my boss to his hastened his arrival, with cash, in my office. I even persuaded the stn cdr to write off the clothing bought so they did not have to give that back as well. Hey ho. Happy days

When Coningsby re-opened after its refurb to V-Bomber standard in 1956, I was one of the 1st people posted in on a Monday.

The job of virtual SWO was taken by several Sgt's, Flt Sgt's and W.O.'s as a more senior person was posted in.
Each guy in the job seemed to draw up a new Ord/Cpl and Ord/Sgt list in alphabetical order.

My surname begins with 'A':{

I was only there for 12 months, but I think I did more Ord/Cpls at Coningsby than the rest of my service.

Obviously why you were never invited to do it again.... ;)

RAF Macrahanish, turfs up at the guardroom wearing flying kit to hand in the keys for what was laughingly described as transit accomodation and looking the worse for wear, SWO looks at me and says we don't get many Sgt aircrew up this way, thinks to myself "and you haven't got one now".... But who was I to burst his bubble.

Had it been an invite I'd have politely refused the first one!

CG

I think I ran into him after that as a FS, when he attempted to drive non stop [bar driving around in a circle on the ferry ok ok] from Leuchars to Beauvechain [on the very last of the mighty F4's exercises] the only thing that stopped him was [no pun intended] the accelerator cable first melting then solidifying on the sherpa.

Hey look BMC we got cruise! :eek:

You know your lunch is over when.......
 

Officers Mess Cpl Steward advances on you with a deadly gleam in his eye.'Are you the duty ATC camp orderly officer sir?, Can't deny it. 'Flt Sgt cooks compliments would you please come to the airmens mess asap he has a problem with a cadet' Arrive at mess find 6ft 2" Flt Sgt holding 4,8" cadet by scruff of his neck at said Flt Sgts shoulder height Cadet looks terrified but can't see grin on SNCO's face. 'Problem Flight?' 'Sir I can't stop the little beggars eating one meal they's paid for it' Shakes cadet. 'Some of 'em comes round twice.' Shakes cadet. 'If I'm magnaminous I ignores it'. Shakes cadet. 'However sir there are limits and when they comes round a third time', well that's why you're here'. Drops cadet who stands quaking. 'Alright Dale, for that's the miscreants name, a slight built, undernourished lad from a poor family. Hop it I'll sort this out with the Flt Sgt' .
Outlines cadets home situation to the still grinning 6' 2" Irishman'. 'Right Sir, I'll sort the beggar out just you send him to me every morning from now on'. So they worked him to death and fed him up, he left that camp a stone heavier and unsurprisingly went on to become an RAF cook. I caught up with him some years later at Linton on Ouse just after his kitchen won the Command Catering competition. My lunch? Stone cold.

It was about 55 years ago and I was young and daft. A Saturday night Squadron Do was on the horizon and I invited a nurse that I had recently met to be my partner in joy. Then I discovered that two other young ladies that I had an interest in were also going to attend. I could see that my life would shortly not be worth living. After some considerable thought, I went to see our Adjutant who was a wise old Master Siggie. "Mister Evans" said I "I am in some difficulty and the only solution that I can see is for me to become Orderly Officer on Saturday night". A couple of hours later he sent for me and told me that the matter had been arranged so I was off the hook. What is the punch line? The miserable sod who was rostered to be Orderly Dog that night charged me £20 to do his duty (and £20 was a lot of money in those days)!

The reminds me, when £20 was a lot of money impecunious officers could buy duties and certain wealthy ones could avoid such onerous task. Bosses didn't like JOs that were financially independent.

Was that the same one that would only address you by your surname?

Ttfn

Ah Macrahanish. One hot ( for there) summers day,whilst standing at the steps of an Andover listening to a SAC describing the job he had just done changing one of the aircrafts radios, a Dove taxied up, might have been a Devon and a small gathering was there to meet it. Suddenly a fierce tyraid was directed our way. I looked up to see an apoletic Squadron Leader storming towards us, shouting 'do your jacket up!' Being attired in my best UAS flying suit, I didn't know what he was on about, until I realised he was talking to the poor SAC. The poor chap had been sweating in his shirtsleeves, in the stationary Andover and he had done the job in quick time so the crew could get on with their mission. He muttered, ' I don't know why I bother'.

Well, at least you used the imprest as a pillow, rather than stowing it under your bed and using an under-age Norwegian girl as a pillow...........

lsh
:E

I have no idea who that was! :eek:

(But I did once meet a very attractive Norwegian granny who wanted me as her pillow ;) )!

Quite normal in the Army for CO and RSM to be Orderly Officer and Orderly Sgt respectively on Christmas Day. Or Duty Field Officer and Orderly Officer respectively, if the unit has that structure.

Been lurking for years, here's one of my memorable duty dogs:

Ord Cpl / Dep Gd Cdr RAF Scampton mid to late '80s, approx 22:30 I received a phone call from Lincolnshire Police along the lines of "One of your neighbours north of the airfield has reported an empty car in one of the passing places on the single track road outside the fence. We've checked the registration & it doesn't exist! Thought you ought to know."

PIRA activity aginst mainland military installations was at it's height (Ternhill, Wyton) so I wasn't happy. There are 5 of us (6 if you count the Duty RAFP) to defend the unit. so i called out the Ord Sgt / Gd Cdr, who in his turn called out the SDO. Meanwhile we tried contacting the Duty RAFP who was out on his SSA site checks and of course in the STORNO blackspot.

As everyone was assembling in the guardroom, the Duty RAFP arrived back and said "Hang on that registration is familiar" and scooted of to return with his duty book - in the back of which was a list of civilian registration plates applied to HQP&SS military vehicles and there it was. Panic over - sort of, we were subject to a penetration test. He advised we just carry on as normal & when they completed what they do, they would come & make themselves known.

Sure enough an hour or so later a Sqn Ldr Provost Officer came to the guardroom and then got a strop on when I asked to see his F1250 before letting him into guardroom. This was defused by his Flt Sgt showing me his F1250 & warrant card, but he did query the incresed security as it wasn't normally like this. " Been like this since we've been live armed Flt" said I. Big pause, then business carried on.

Later the SDO showed me the flash signal ordering all physical penetration testing to cease immediately. Seems HQP&SS didn't know all Support Command Stations were now protected by Airman with actual guns 'n' bullets!


Incidentaly, witnessing the Stn Execs first ever weapons handling tests with a SLR made me think that Christmas lunchtime was definitely a time not to be anywhere near the main gate.

Ahh Station Commanders.

Brize LSS used to man the gate 24 hrs a day leading onto the airfield in lieu of doing Station gate guard duties, Anyway a certain J/T on shift was doing his week on the gate and in the early morning rush quite a queue could build up as airfield driving permits were checked, up rolls the Staish and hands over his pass, eagle eyed J/T notice it has expired by several days, it went like this...

"Sorry, you cannot come on the airfield Sir, your airfield permit is expired"
"You do know who I am Airman"
"Yes Sir, you're the Station Commander"
"And you do know who it says authorises the use of these airfield passes on my Station?"
"Yes, you do Sir"
"Then please let me on"
"Sorry, no Sir, If I was to do that you could charge me for failing to carry out my duty, now could you please turn your vehicle around, others are waiting to get on."

At which point the said J/T walks back and starts ushering cars full of grinning faces to reverse up so the Station Commander can reverse up and turn around.
Staish reverses up turns around and bogs off at speed to MT or wherever to get his permit reissued.

Later called into the office and asked did you stop the Staish from entering the airfield, apparently after he had calmed down he had phoned the section to congratulating him for being fair and correct.

I remember the live armed fiasco in the 80's at Brize, for some reason we were called to bolster the main gate, muskets were issued and then it was rumoured we were going to be live armed, so green cards were requested, ammo duly arrived and was being handed out and then removed again, muskets later on incidently were replaced with pick axe handles to be replaced with muskets again some time later..

Some poor Civi contractor turned up during all this farce and vehicles were thoroughly checked during the heightened alert, an air pistol was found in his boot ( left innocently in there by his lad apparently ) and he ended face down, palms up on a wet road in the rain, shivering with cold or fright and with a musket pointed to his head, while the Civi plods were called.. I hate to think what he said to his kid when he finally got home.

Not quite Orderly dog, but manning the gate at scampton early evening, vehicle pulls up.
"Can I see your ID please?"
"Don't you recognise me Cpl?"
"No Sir, that's why I wish to see your ID."
"Is there a Stn Execs board in your guard post?" Alarm bells in head and cogs whirring now.
"Yes Sir."
" Well I suggest you familiarise yourself with it!" As he hands his F1250 over.
Fortunately I do read SRO and recognised the name, so I replied "The board still has your predecessor on it. You're the new OC Admin Wg. Have a good night Sir."
Didn't get an apology, but there was a new photo on the board when I started shift the following evening. He'd only been in post a week.

Ord/Cpl at a large base in South Wales, you know the one, it had two of everything... picked for duty on the training side, part of O/C duties involved security container aka safe checks, cos RAFP were too busy fending off the viet taff or something. O/S has gone to close up the mess, gets a phone call, "better go start your rounds, I've been held up by mess admin". So taking obligatory walkie-talkie, map of the secret safe locations and a few bunches of keys toddle off.
Crossing the parade square car park notice a Renault 5 getting a suspension work out, quick shout "O/Cpl! What's going on here" , window of said Renault 5 opens to reveal the O/S having it large with the camp bike... think my comment was something like "nice admin"

Ttfn

A long time ago, at a large transport base somewhere in Wiltshire, I was catching up on a backlog of station duties that I had fallen behind with due to my fulfilling various downroute commitments. These backlog duties included a couple of Orderly Sergeant slots, one a weekday and one a weekend, a spot of gate guardianship, plus another weekday Ord/Sgt that I was detailed for, at short notice, due to one of my colleagues becoming a temporary 'fixture' somewhere in the Caribbean.
After completing a couple of these duties I noticed that the SDO whose name appeared on the duty board was the same person as that on my previous duty. I was absolutely amazed to find this 'coincidence' reoccurred on my next duty, some two weeks later.
After dismissing the duties and defaulters from the 6 o'clock call, I struck up a conversation with the Orderly Officer who I knew from a previous posting. On mentioning the 'coincidences' regarding the SDO's name, the OO cracked a smile and told me, in confidence (of course!), that the SDO had transgressed the boundaries of behaviour expected of an 'Officer and Gentleman' at a Mess function. Apparently, his behaviour following an OM Summer Ball involved him making an entrance in a public area on a bicycle, totally 'sans kit', and with a monocle dangling from his manhood. Normally, this event may have passed with some jocularity, or perhaps ribald derision from his, by now, unthirsty fellow officers: however, there just happened to be some ladies present, including the wife of a senior officer. The aftermath was that the name of the naked cyclist (sorry, SDO!) remained on the duty board for one month. There may be those Ppruners who remember the occasion (in the 70s) and could give any further insight.

AS guards have been mentioned, late 70's at Odiham and the station finally starts to move into the 20th century, the old gate barrier with the concrete block on it as a counterbalance is replaced by a new raised heated building and electric barriers...

Enter the Station Commander in his new staff Mini, said Staish flag flying drives up to the gate and the guard opens it and salutes him, Staish being low down in a mini and the new box being raised up does not see this, so decides to reverse up to ask why he wasn't saluted, unfortunately by this time the barrier is on its way back down, design oversight means it does not have a stop button, nor does the guard have a line of sight on the Mini and as these things play out, the barrier comes crashing down on the new Mini pinning it in place and damaging the roof....

Staish now on the way to a coronary gets out and starts to berate the guard, enters the SWO who watching this all happen from the pavement as he is coming out to see the guard and confirms he did salute and that the Staish is all at fault.. car dragged out from under barrier causing more damage as it needs to complete the cycle before it can go back up, days later barrier hastily modified to allow it to be stopped mid travel and the direction reversed.


..