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...

Still have my Dad's copy of Stradling. Was tempted to quote from it when B*** S**** (pre-database days...) bollocked the singlies on 28 for not sending W***** a thank-you letter for a cockers-P at their place, but decided it wasn't worth the grief.

If we'd waited for the last Master we'd have died of thirst.

I remember when........
Having an Air Officer for a father used to get you places.

'Oh for the likes of Masters & gentlemen like Ted Rose & Fred Reeves today!'

Ted's still about in Newquay, doing well AFAIK. I remember when he was on 42/4. The Masters all had grannies shopping trolleys to take the S&C on board!

OD's 'n' things
 

RETDPI

It also used to stand for " Other Denominations " when we used to be divided up into C of E's, R.C.'s and O.D.'s.

When we had Drumhead church services the order " Fall out the Roman Catholics and Jews " was given and they/we marched to the edge of the parade ground and stood at ease with backs to the service.

One non-participant in the service was heard to say " Jaysus, Seamus, I never realised that you were Jewish."

I imagine things have changed.

Gotcha on that one!
I went technical "OD " (Baptist) at Sleaford Tech in 1968 , along with all the other members of 99 "A" squadron Hut 139. Six guys all with a different OD cause ("wot a coincidence")
"Left right, left right" down to tea and biscuits with Padre Silvanus on a Sunday morning, instead of massed devotion (?) with the rest of the herd.
Actually he spoke bloody good sense, which I've never forgotten.

On one station I heard the order given as ""fall out the Roman Catholics, Jews, and Non-Christians".

Remember when we had:

PSFs
Allowances
Families Offices
Civilian Admin

All staffed by humans with faces who, IMHO, mostly went out of their way to help and sort out problems.

Now - faceless beings in help(less) call centres :ugh:

Swinderby 1977 I recall being amazed, along with all the other stout english chaps, to discover that the Scots not only had their own banknotes but an entire religion too - the most amazing part was that it seemed to be a bit of a novelty to the RAF, who had (presumably) been dealing with Hibernian gents for the previous 60 years or so.

42 sqn - I held with them for 6 months pre OCU, I learned quite a lot about cooking, so the time was far from wasted. An enduring memory is of a loud groan/cry from the wet sanctuary in the sqn hut, followed by a group of wetmen (mostly of an elderly persuasion) carrying a comrade out of the hut still seated - his back having gone during a JAAC test or similar he was being carried outside. The procession looked rather like a very informal burial party where the recently deceased couldn't be bothered to lie flat.

According to the young* dry contingents' rumour (that instantly sprang to life in the 'drinking coffee' section where I was seated) he was being moved into an outside area so that he and his chums could straighten the chap out, without any of them having to bend too much. I still wonder why the procession took place, rather than (say) simply grabbing each end and pulling sharply.

Although I enjoyed other squadrons later, some of my warmest memories are from that pre-OCU period. I suspect that was largely to do with the large number of older AEOps who had eventually finagled their way down to Cornwall, character by the shedload by any reckoning....you could stand next to one of them in a bar and simply absorb colour by osmosis.

(* Young is a relative term, at 25 or so I was very much the kid that morning).

.. standing to attention when addressing sqn SACs.

Standing up when they walked in a room.

Really wanting to pass my TATs and become one.

A two week course to get there.

My first visit to a WRAF Block. Aaahh, the soft music, the cushions, the soft bedding, the all too brief escapism from the harsh realities of the Rock Block.

Block parties - putting 4 tons of sand, some infra red lamps from the med centre and a paddling pool into the day room and having a beach party in winter.

Burning unopened tins of compo on a bonfire at the block and standing around them to see who'd be last to bottle it.

Assembling home made mortars and DFing the WRAF Block. Danny boy, where are you now?! :ok:

Sqn parades for the NAAFI bop when Second Btn Scots Guards decided to mix it.

Big Scouse throwing the police dog out of the PS bar.

Jankers, jankers.. always jankers.

Never did Jankers, never got caught!
Remember a bunch of Rock Apes rioting at RAF Wahn and turning acc. block fire hoses on the Snoops.
Brightened up a dull week-end.

Not ? as I suspect in a long gone sandy place ?

Imagegear

Pen Club. :E

They would not have been allowed to flog off the Married Quarters as is happening at Leuchars.
Certain houses in Warwick Close were advertised in last weeks 'St Andrews Citizen'. The ones in Tarvit Drive in Cupar have already been sold.
Can some one please tell me where families will be accomodated in the future ??

The singly accomodation in Cyprus; decorating the block at Christmas time and traveling from block to block drinking all day and night. Waking up in a bondu ditch the following morning......

Lot 22
 

Went there....Helped build the thing. In order to discuise it's origins I think it had two coats of paint on it before it landed! Spent many happy hours wiring 105mm shell casings into light fixtures for the bar.

Now then... starter for ten... who can tell me why it's called Lot 22!

I remember when
 

Ground school included when to deposit your visiting cards when visiting other stations, and being instructed when to raise your hat to a LADY.

Visiting Cards
 

Exnomad

Not just depositing visiting cards but ensuring that they were printed in the correct (embossed) format. And then when and where to leave them suitably annotated with the cabalistic " ppc" the meaning of which I've happily forgotten.

Remarkable

MB

When you had screwed up and possibly faced a charge your Sgt Maj gave you the option of "The corps justice or my justice". His justice consisted of a couple of black eyes and a split lip for you and a one way conversation that makes grown men cry. But you didn't recieve a black mark on your record and HM didn't relieve you of some of your valuable sheckles.

"Not just depositing visiting cards but ensuring that they were printed in the correct (embossed) format. And then when and where to leave them suitably annotated with the cabalistic " ppc" the meaning of which I've happily forgotten."

As well as of course remembering to also turn up one corner of the card so that the lady of the house would have no difficulty in picking it up off of the salver.
As was taught at Sleaford Tech. as late as 1968.