He's a Group Captain!

Blagging a "gash call" home at Christmas from Akrotiri through Turkey, Italy, and numerous Nato and RAFG switchboards to within a few miles of home. Then some old cow at Bawtry PBX binned it. :mad:

LOT22

Those who went there will know what I mean...:ok:

1250s with photographs that fell out

Compo Babies Heads
and
my first apprentice pay packet of 7 shillings and 6 pence.

"1250s with photographs that fell out"

To be replaced on occasion.
Mickey Mouse got the bearer into a COC for several weeks before being finally challenged.
In fact using a pair of scissors , the blue cover of an "...In Confidence" Folder, Letraset, Fablon and a hand copied RAF badge you could make your very own 1250 in a couple of hours.
Not that we ever did so of course :}

Compo babies heads - made my mouth water.

I'll add compo sausages to the pot (no pun intended).

Compo corned dog
Compo powdered spuds
Compo margarine

Individually sodding horrible, but make up the powdered spuds, chop in the corned dog and fry it up as corned beef hash with the compo margarine - not bad at all!

As we did on King Rock '69 by the Edersee, eh RETDPI?

Also when compo chocolate included brands which had been out of circulation since the mid-'50s.

I could NEVER get a taste for those compo dog logs though...:yuk:

Re. the F1250 with falling photos, a chum worked at BAC Brooklands on Super VC10s. He met a chap who had been fired from some nuclear weapon work years earlier for using a photo of Kruschev in his ID card for arround 6 months until the security people noticed!

I remember when
 

A stroppy colleague who kept saying "fcuk you, I'm fireproof" came back from leave to find his furniture on the roof of his hut, and his room containing a large fire hose reel trailer, that had been re-assembled in there.

I remember when
 

Further to Beagle comment, I used a pass signed by Kruschev of many weeks at one employers.

Ah yes, the white-powdery Rollos, in a packet with some sort of foreign scribble on it.

My blood group on the 1250 said OD+, never did figure that one out as I understand there is no D group.:confused:

Going through Checkpoint Charlie to the Soviet Zone in a very shiny black Range Rover, and getting the tour. Drove up onto a rubbish tip to get a really good view of the barracks below. Looking at the faces of the East Germans, in their Trabbies, looking up at the RR as if it had landed from Mars. Watched the changing of the guard - squint slightly as they goose-stepped along and you were back in the 30s...

Had to wear a beret and shoulder tabs from one of the Corps - oh the shame of it :{

Sennelager.............. probably the worst lager in the world.

Tubes of compo condensed milk, yummee.

Queues of Scale E's outside the bedding store, on Saturday mornings, waiting to exchange the sheets from their MQ's (pre '71 military pay scale).

Happy days.

"My blood group on the 1250 said OD+, never did figure that one out as I understand there is no D group."

You and me both OD+ Gainesy. I gathered that the "D" referred to the biggest component of about 20 in the Rhesus factor. Basically you and I were (are) Rhesus positive.

Rumour was that it was also a prerequisite for the Regiment.

So we're erm, as common as muck then Ret?:)

Scaleys, had forgotten that.

Remember a POSB bastard was someone as tight as a duck's bum?

Anybody remember how many bottles of booze and fags there were on the monthly DF allowance?

Did that too, with a train-spotter who wanted to check out a couple of Kriegslok that were being used to generate steam for a power-station for the Osties. The sudden appearance of a RR-full of camera wielding Brits causing havoc around the NVA barracks. Rounded off the trip with a visit to a Soviet museum, in Potsdam I think. Shared a few beers with the Russian SNCO who showed us around.

... me too, I was one of those (still am I suppose :ooh:) I was also told that (apart from being common as muck), the "D" factor - whatever it was - meant you could be used as a donor for any positive blood group person in an emergency.

D for donor - geddit!

You RAN? Good grief man.

We did our run in Keflavik, Machrihanish and Gibraltar IIRC. PEd Staff were quite happy to take my signed record of the events. Perfectly fair, all based on previous 'best' performance.

If I thought Mr Curtis had had an extra couple of pork pies and a few fags his time got longer and reached 25 minutes in the end. For the odd (and I mean odd) racing snake I knocked a few seconds off. :}

The only sanction for not 'doing' the run was a threat to stop leave. Our crew was OK though as we did the run religiously (we prayed the pub was open) every quarter.

When Gp Capt Stradling's 'Customs of the Service' stressed the importance of travelling in a First Class Compartment and owning a brown suit...