Memories

Stolen from a Facebook group

How many of these mean anything to those here?

• When obscure form numbers like – 1369, 6442, 1250 and 252 could mean career-changing moments.
• When bizarre uniform items such as the thunderbird jacket and the flasher mac
• When the glorious anonymity of JTs, SACs and LACs before they introduced rank slides for airmen
• When colleagues were posted to RAF stations that nobody knew existed (i.e. ‘Machrihanish? Never heard of it – are you sure it’s not a wind-up?’)
• When the ’back of the bike sheds’ was considered an appropriate location for career counselling.
• When wearing medals was considered the particular right of the lucky few silver jubilee recipients or the handful from the South Atlantic.
• When OOA tours meant 4 months limited to communication by ambiguous means such as ASMA, the bluey or a cable and wireless phone card.
• When the question ‘Where the hell is Decimomannu?’ at least stood a remote chance of being answered.
• When crewrooms were occupied and people partook of unintelligible games like Uckers and ‘Hunt’
• When an RAF aircraft recognition poster was larger than A4 size
• When you remember curious anomalies such as male only stations (eg Wattisham)
• When anything Soviet was ‘bad’ and anything NATO was ‘good’
• When you drove around with BFG plates
• When you witnessed a survival scramble or spent some time in an HPS.
• When QRA that involved ‘instant sunshine’ and the ‘two-man principle’ in the ‘no-lone zone’
• When your NBC suit came with a detachable hood.
• When being issued with DPM kit seemed quite exciting.
• When Friday lunchtime (afternoon) was spent in the pub (in uniform)
• When doughnuts on day 3 or 4 of an exercise had particular significance
• When ‘AOC’s’ meant an enormous parade (and if you were lucky enough to be at Lossie, repeated 3 times)
• When some lucky people had the pleasure of being recruited as FLMs and TAGs.
• When you had access to a variety of personal weapons that seemed to have come out of Battle Picture Library (303, SLR, SMG etc)
• When you got 3 x Get you home (where-ever home was that day) a year.
• Baby’s heads
• Being scared of rock apes
• Seeing plumbers running and thinking “hope it’s the NAAFI wagon”
• Seeing aircrew running, and KNOWING it was the NAAFI wagon!!
• Itchy blankets
• Cheap beer in a busy NAAFI
• When MT had fleets of British built vehicles
• Wearing Gas Masks for hours at a time
• When an MoD civilian being a very rare breed indeed
• Blue uniforms
• When RAF push bikes had the basket on the front.
• Mod Plods
• Stations without fences
• Doing Fire Bucket
• The tiniest sliding windows in Guardrooms
• Tin Helmets and Putties
• Compo sausages, Compo cheese and oatmeal blocks plus the dead fly biscuits……..
• When your whole world could be put into a couple of scrawny lockers.
• In Germany being given a ration card along with a Soxmis card a BFG licence, petrol chits and buying a Herfy Handbag if you were a bit skint instead of Wobbly or Grolch
• When only TG1 and TG2 were on the high payband
• Pickaxe handles to fight off the Commies
• Singing in the bar
• SACWs who could write backwards on glass walls
• Thinking SAMA was neat ’cause it could tell you your leave balance
• Starting night shift at 4pm, finishing at 8pm.
• Starting night shift at 4pm, finishing at 8am!
• Having the choice between a tech charge and a ‘quiet word’ with the FS
• Station Workshops who could make anything for a crate of beer.
• The knowledge that we really were defending the country

Good Times?

The best times!!

What were your memories???