Negatory AA

Wetherby High School....where we also had "Isaiah" whose lopsided features meant that one eye was slightly more elevated than the other.

We had a German PE teacher at school nicknamed Mengele. His method of teaching us to swim was to stand you at the deep end and whisper (he always whispered) in your ear 'You will now swim or drown' and give one a gentle nudge in the back. We all swam. Quite effective really.

Trainee at Locking called Turtle, get her on her back and she was forked. No I didn't however.

Kintyred:

Well, King Alfred's had a Clarence too... For exactly the same reason. I didn't go there but many of my friends did.

They also had a teacher they called "tat" for his unkempt demeanor. A female teacher arrived and Tat and her struck up an obvious friendship. She became known as "Tit for Tat"... :}

Dr Mengele was my dentist at Brampton.

"Do you see this sharp spike?" (Waving one of those 'dentist things' just in front of my face')

"If you bite me - or if I think you're going to bite me - I'm going to stick it in your gum and give it a twist."

Nicknames
 

At Odiham in 1960frozen to death there was a Polish pilot known to all and sundry as Jock, apparently because he wasn't, and a Polish armourer called Fred because no one could pronounce his proper name! :hmm:
B

There were the two Saudi ATC studes at Shawbury in 1984. One known as Hamdani and the other with an unpronounceable name... They became known as Hamdani and Hamsarnie.

Nicknames
 

Once knew an RAF RadTech at RAAF Base Edinburgh (Australia) whom was known as "Crayfish". He was not appreciative when told it was because he was "All meat in the a..e and s..t in the head"

AA

Following on from your story, we have quite a few xxxxxxxpoulosisis etc
from Greek and Italian backgrounds who join. We had two in my recruit
course who promptly became Wheelbarrow 1 and Wheelbarrow 2.

Mate of mine reckoned he never had a problems with pain at the dentists - first thing he did after getting the the chair was to reach up under the dentist's coat and grab a handful of the dentist's marriage tackle, and in a slightly menacing tone ask: "We are not going to be experiencing any pain are we doctor?"

Didn't ask what was the drill if the dentist was a woman...

We used to refer to the Physical Training Instructor's as lobsters for the same reason - body full of meat, head full of shyte. They even obligingly wore red shorts to help complete the picture...

Vicks was popular in the 70's after their advert was translated to RAF Speak as " gets up your nose, and lasts a long time ". We had a young, long lanky chap on a unit I worked at who was known as "The Hissing Link", he was reckoned to be a cross between Hissing Sid and the missing link. He took it quite well.

Smudge

Nicknames
 

Nicknames was broached on another thread, but probably worth one of its own.

I probably came across more people in the forces with nicknames than in civvy street, Some fortunate and some not so.

I joined up with a lad known as Butlins, because he thought Swinderby was going to be a holiday camp.

Knew a Shaggy, because he looked like the guy from Scoobie Doo. He was one where some people didn't know his last name, never mind his first.

I also heard of one with the surname Gilbert and was known as Green (which he hated). That name had followed him around different camps.

There are also some very spurious reasons for the nicknames, but they seem to have blossomed and struck a chord with their contemporaries. We had someone who was called T-shirt, just because he was the first name on a list saying he wanted a section T-shirt.

I'm sure there are better ones...

I was always told that at some time in your career you would get a nickname that would stay with you for the rest of your career, and maybe beyond. I never knew mine.but their was one graduate officer who was known by the troops as "Lighthouse" from Lighthouse in a desert because he was brilliant but completely useless

On UWAS in about 1973 we had "Thumper" Thompson. I can't now remember how he acquired this sobriquet -- presumably he thumped someone at some stage -- but I gather that nickname remained with him throughout his career.

Came across a guy known by everyone as “rigor-mortise” …took me a while to figure out he was an airframe fitter with the surname of Mortice!

Knew a FAA heli pilot called Sleman who was known as "Splunk"!

We had an apprentice called Treasure.... she had a sunken chest

We had a sqn member known as 'Thromboid' because he was a slow moving clot.

Another known as 'Snap-On' because he was more than a single tool.

We had a Boss nicknamed Mansa.....,.