Dick at Zero is unlikely to pull, is it?

A friend who was a Rock at Odiham in the mid 70 s had a milk round to make ends meet. If you read a couple of the books on Vulcan's in the Cold War guys used to work all around the area outside duty hours. In the 80s I knew PMs who used to work for nursing agencies.

By a strange coincidence, the just published BBC obituary for Dame Olivia Newton-John includes a photo of her as a young girl prominently holding a packet of “OMO”. I didn’t know she had done adverts.

Obituary: Olivia Newton-John https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40105353

Yeah, you need to put your Aerial up. No much good if you're Bold though...they'd probably think you need some starch.

They are all demanding tax cuts.

At a certain West Country training school in the 1970s, many students were Iranian and some took advantage of the OMO situation in MQs. Unfortunately, money changed hands and one Iranian student told his mate how much he had paid. The mate had been charged a lot more, so he complained to the station authorities....

Yes, nothing new here, it's just that social media has made such activity easier to monetise.

Again in the early 70s, at a well-known training establishment near Sleaford there was allegedly an RAFP sgt in possession of a spam truncheon of eye-watering proportions (according to the DCM evidence, as reported...). This generous SNCO had agreed to allow wives and girlfriends of colleagues to try it out for themselves for a small fee, and offered his services with an additional paid-for photographic record captured by one of his mates. The activity came to light during a routine inspection of the Stn Photographic Club when an unlocked cabinet was opened, as the muppet photographer had been using the club to develop and print from wet film (70s, pre-mobiles...) and had left numerous detailed images of said truncheon in action with a variety of women, along with a few names so 'owners' could collect their photos later.

Memory fails me, but I think my late relative on the DCM panel said the charges were about misuse of service property (er, not the truncheon) and 'conduct prejudicial' - many will remember that as being Section 69, which was apparently also on film. ISTR the Sgt received more than an absolute discharge...

These days, you could expect the videos to have been circulated on Facebook, followed by howls of outrage from the head shed about the poor Sgt being abused, and then the whole unit being banned from deploying. Or maybe that's just in the Army.

Where is Jack Holt when you need him? Wasn't he posted into a well known Hampshire rotary base to solve this exact problem?

Hat, coat already on and door ajar.............

On an even more serious note: it's the 21st century, and the families of the people we employ to defend us are going on the game to feed themselves and their kids. What's wrong with this picture?

CG

Langly #11

As I’m from Hartlepool can I ask just what you are implying?
As a qualified fixed wing and rotary wing pilot they clearly did have enough fruit in leu of money to train me!

With reference to the actual thread, possibly a first for pprune… In Aldershot during the 1970’s OMO was a well known term for old man out.
However as it was the home of the Para’s then, and I was only Army Air Corps, I wasn’t going to knock on the door to check what the lady of the house favourite washing powder was 🙀

Things are deffo desperate. Cash handouts from the RAF Benevolent Fund and a well used foodbank on camp at the secret fighter base in Lincolnshire.

Careful Langly, or he will kill your pet monkey.. :p

HQ 1 Group took on some civilian hirings for airmen in Bawtry village during the 70s. The RAF made the landlord remove the radiators from the bedrooms because ORs weren't entitled to full central heating!

I was newly married in the 70's at Upavon when the Gas central heating was fitted. It happened when 46Gp became 38Gp. The new AOC said Gas was the future as it would be cheaper than Coal. Nobody pointed out to him that Upavon was in the Middle of Salisbury Plain with the nearest Gas supply at least 10 miles away, hence the Calor Gas tanks were fitted and the rest as they say was history. Motley is so right the cost was out of this world. As an SAC in Sep 77 when my twins were born Gen Office rang me up and said you now qualify for supplementary benefit. They claimed it for me and it was paid straight into the bank. I had the audacity to get promoted to Cpl in Feb 78 and promptly lost it, so was no better off. The 70's were the days of Wilson's Labour Government Irish pay rises where they gave you 1% and then put up our rent etc by 5%. Its bad now but I fear it's going to get a whole lot worse!

I recall many years ago that even some married junior officers were receiving benefits. Disgraceful.

as I recall in the 80s at a Lincolnshire educational Base, some of those benefits came from some 'talented' SNCOs...

[QUOTE=huge72;11276607]As an SAC in Sep 77 when my twins were born Gen Office rang me up and said you now qualify for supplementary benefit. They claimed it for me and it was paid straight into the bank. /QUOTE]

Whilst the pay may be better now, that sort of HR support is a distant memory.

Early 70s, in Naarfuk, and shock/horror as one of our Officers had a wife who went to work … as an Onion Packer. It wasn’t supposed to happen, at all, never mind menial work. But we were all skint back then.

I had hoped that the readership could complete the quotation. In the long term, poor pay attracts poor job applicants or the easily conned.

No offence intended.

I was thus conned ............. could have been "executive" branch rather than more highly qualified but less well paid scientific.

Speaking of Naarfuk, in the early 80's, some RAF plods were watching a 'gentleman's film' at the one base still active in the county, and noticed the furniture in the 'studio' looked much like MQs standard issue. A brief investigation showed the film was produced only a couple of hundred yards away on the AMQs.