Mess Silver Store?
 

Bit of a random question but with the breadth of knowledge here I am hoping someone can help. There used to be a store of mess silver from closed RAF establishments that was available for loan to deserving units. Does anyone have any contact details please? (Assuming it still exists!)

VMT,

Mog

Try MOD Stafford. Lots of stuff was moved to there from Quedgeley where old Mess silver used to be stored. I got some Sqn memorabilia from Stafford a while ago.

A regular search of RAF silver on eBay can sometimes make one wonder how the hell did that get up for sale………🙄

No the silver - or what's left of it - is at Donnington near Telford.

I will say politely that it has probably not been cared for in the way one might have hoped when it was at the Central Depository.

Other comments I could make about the silver etc, would probably land me in the pooh but I wonder where and when the last audit was done and what arrangements are made to keep the silver and the property books aligned.

Old Duffer

Not in the depository, but I can remember seeing a model Halifax that had been "cleaned" with a wire brush

That must have been more than a while ago because the RAF unceremoniously got rid of all and everything, quite a few Tornado spares ended up with a very dodgy, at the time, outfit at Hixon for example when it closed and much of the storage site became civilian industrial units.

I was the Officers' Mess Committee 'Silver Member' at one station at which I served. I inherited the task from someone who had been less than diligent and I had one heck of a time trying to resolve what was actually in store with what the property book said should have been there! Some items weren't recorded, while some of the silver wasn't there. I sent a memo to the PMC, who merely replied "Well, do the best you can!".

I'm pretty sure it was the same elsewhere. On arrival at one station, the first person I saw in the OM, apart from the receptionist, appeared from a dark cupboard with a silver model of an ancient biplane and barked at me "What's this?". Thinking anyone his age must be senior to me, I replied "Heyford, I think sir". He glared at me and disappeared back into the cupboard. I later found he was the station's most ancient Flt Lt and was very bitter about never having been promoted.....

When I was posted to Halton with the imminent arrival of Airman’s Command Squadron they were just taking away a skip containing hundreds of books from the trenchard library. Whoever sanctioned that needed shooting. I just hope the first editions survived in some ownership.

Interestingly I was trying to find the etymology of pilfer/pilfering earlier on, but the actual origins go so far back in time that no one is really certain.

<br /><br />There is hope. By Act of Parliament well back in Victorian days almost all UK publications not caveated have had to to have copies installed at what are colloquially known as the Copyright Libraries........ I personally benefited greatly from the Cambridge source, access to which is open to public view for research [after being introduced by two referees and after a form of vetting]. It is even permitted to make photocopies of most volumes. The library, as may be imagined, is vast. Car parking is not vast .........................<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#202124;">he legal deposit libraries of the UK and Ireland are:</span></strong><br /><br /><ul><li>The British Library.</li><li>The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.</li><li>Cambridge University Library.</li><li>National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.</li><li>The Library of Trinity College, Dublin.</li><li>National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.</li></ul><br />

A bit like Beagle,
After the Valiants were grounded at Wyton c Aug 64 I was lumbered with the task of listing the Mess's Silver.Superficially a simple task but it was a nightmare - the so called list was a shambles and there was a great deal not listed at all. I approached the Flt Cdr and explained the problem and he just said 'Do the best you can '. I really looked forward to my posting from Wyton in early November !

WTF is up with your formatting?

Would that I knew.

I will now stop posting on PPRUNE, just lurk, as I seem to upset people more than I would wish.

At 86 I don't expect to improve my formatting, or indeed anything else.

Good while it lasted.

Langley, there are some c@cks about, dont take your bat and ball home, just rise above it and carry on

Are you posting from a phone? Or a laptop?

I was puzzled myself, but I’ll take LB’s inputs any day! 😎

Don't go Langley :{ Your post are always worth reading regardless of the formatting :ok:

The Army always seem s to 'mollycoddle' its mess silver.
In about 1980, 664 Sqdn AAC at Farnborough was re-numbered as 656 Sqdn AAC. Chris Pickup, the CO told me that this was something of an embarassment for the mess silver because 656 had been a squadron based in Germany and the 'new' pile of silver was far greater than his storage facilities could hold.

Stay Langley, your posts are refreshing and interesting... You upset no one bud :)
86 Wow. you will need a fire Extinguisher to blow all those candles out on your birthday cake. :)

Downsizer wasn't being rude nor confrontational, as I read it he was just enquiring what had gone wrong.

Maybe we’re suffering from artificial intelligence…

Some of my incoming emails of late look a bit like that!