[QUOTE=Richard Dangle;10928519]Slow news day??

Maybe times have changed but back in 75 (oh lordy I'm old) I signed up for a job which entailed 356/24/7 working.

You forget, in those days we didn't quite work 24/7. We did get some free time, it started at 2359 every night and finished at 0001 the next day. Mind you, since then some bugger has introduced 2400, so they don't even get those precious two minutes off any more!

Me too TTN.

...or as the DI said - I own your little pink body.

Well he would say that wouldn't he. (Circa 1967)

IG

At one point, my Mum actually included a stamped, addressed envelope in one of her letters to me.

Cool Story
 

Times they have changed in the 45 years since. Much like they had changed in the 45 years prior to you joining. In my 14 years of service I have personally worked for 11 Christmases of those 8 of which have been deployed on operations far away from home. The Royal Air Force is a much smaller organisation now and even fewer pull their weight when it comes to deployments. Luckily you joined in the lazy 70’s.

I remember one head to head with my flight commander when the Squadron I was with had a detachment running in Italy for several years. It went on the lines of:

"Wensleydale - we need some personnel on 6 hours standby over Christmas in case someone goes sick on detachment - it will mean staying locally and not drinking much I am afraid."

"OK Boss - I'll have my leave cancellation form to you shortly...can I take my week in January?"

"No - you are still on leave - you are just on 6 hours standby".

"So I am on standby and can't go anywhere such as a visit to parents, but this is my leave?"

"Yes"....

...and on it went until a visit to the Boss and common sense.

There are also lots of jobs in civvy street that require working over Christmas and other public holidays. What's so different?

Xmas video fron CAS and a Warrant Officer
 

Has anyone seen this year’s video? There’s a lot of chat on FB, but I can’t find it.

Not that I’m an old boy, but the working Xmas thing draws breath, paid well for 24/7 I worked 4 out of my 14 years and half a dozen NYE. TOIL was very handy, and unless we were NS it was still chilled.

try post #4 of Xmas Message

Popeye, if it does not show up in post click quote and it will open in another window showing the address

I can confirm that ..

Civvy job, 365 x 20 (not quite 365x24), and we worked shifts covering 'morning/lunch' and 'afternoon evening'. Every year the bosses put up memos on the notice board reminding us that there would be no days-off over a 2-week period covering xmas and new-year We all moaned and grumbled, but got on with it. If you were lucky, your 'days-off' coincided with xmas, but then they wouldn't coincide with new-year; and vice-versa. Oddly enough, we worked with a lot of Asians (Indian or Pakistani descent), and there was never a ban on days-off over the periods of Diwali or Eid!

Also, the 'no days-off over xmas and NY' edict didn't seem to apply to the senior managers, so something usually happened to make them come into work at the most inconvenient time (for them).

One year, the top boss came in to see us all on xmas morning, maybe spread some cheer, shake hands and thank us personally for all our hard work. In a quite astonishing gift of personal generosity he bought in boxes and boxes of mince-pies for us all. There must have been 20 boxes in total, some for the morning shift and some for the afternoon shift. At vast personal expense he'd bought us Tesco mince-pies, so not really high quality ones. No cream, no brandy-butter, just cheap mince pies.

The boxes were duly opened and shared around, the boss did his 'thank you' speech. Somebody cheekily asked the boss what he got for xmas, and he asked the questioner what he'd got - the reply was (as he looked at the box of mince pies) "I got a single mince-pie with a 'best before' date of 2nd December".

Suddenly, nobody wanted mince-pies any more.