RAF memories

Anyone got any guard stories? I didnt have anything that odd happen when I was on guard.

But the predecessor of the Flight Sergeant I was telling you about ended up as an instructor at Shawbury. He was guard commander at Shawbury and decided to go on a patrol. He came back to the guardroom and yes youve guessed it he did all his unload drills, but not in the right order.

Now Im not one to laugh at anothers misfortune (who am I kidding!), but I wet myself when I found out!

One of our gate guard teams at Brawdy many years ago was rather in the 5hit when an elderly couple were found on the taxyway in their car ...they were asking how to get to st davids LOL

Talking of people on the taxiway, those of you at Marham in the late seventies/early eighties may remember that the taxiway doubled as a ring road. That meant that anyone who wanted to drive their car to work on the south side had to have an airfield driving permit, and that was a lot of people. We must have issued and renewed dozens in a week. When the contractors started work on the HAS sites it brought them in to conflict with 231 OCU and their Canberras, quite a few of them had their permits withdrawn for not giving way to aircraft!

Yes I remember that road at Marham well (it had a nickname ?),I was on 231 OCU when we moved in from Cottesmore,but luckily had moved on before the HAS building !

I was talking to a squaddie yesterday, and I was asking him about the "pay as you dine" system thats been introduced. I couldnt believe it when he told me how much food costs in the cookhouse, on average troops are paying between 2-300 quid a month! The system was being talked about just before I left (in fact Leuchars was going to be one of the trial sites) and a lot of the troops were keen on it being introduced, I bet they werent when they found out how much more they were going to be paying!

And can anyone enlighten me as to why it was introduced?

Because the singlies were complaining that they were paying food charges and many of them never or rarely ate in the mess. Yes Leuchars did a trial plus they did a trial for contractrorised catering. The contractor was required to have so many service personel on the staff. I can tell you the quality of food dropped and the prices rocketed having a top table or other mess function became a really dear event. It has done much to destroy the already declining traditions. But that is progress for you !
TED

I was one of those singlies, and I wasnt complaining! Less than 4 quid a day for three meals, some people dont know when their well off!

Didnt know about the contracted catering trial though. I know some stations had contracted catering, we had at it at Turnhouse/Pitreavie. At Pitreavie it wasnt that great at first but once the contractor sacked the manager things really did improve.

Not sure if the RAF do it, however, the British Army have a system in place called the "hungry soldier". This allows those who are incapable of managing their financial affairs to be fed for the remaining three weeks of the month. Not for nothing are the Army referred to locally as the one week millionaires.

Fast food outlets are the people who reap the rewards of PAYD. Although kitchens are provided in the new SLAM accommodation there is a ban on cooking in them,apparently due to H&S and hygiene issues.

Yes Id heard about the scheme. A bloke at work was a chef in the RLC and he was telling me about it. When they brought it in a lot of squaddies were stunned at paying six quid for a full english breakfast, especially the infantry who have a lot of big blokes serving. Luckily those in basic training get their food for free.