RAF memories

I think it is safe to tell this tale now. During alerts bars on camp used to be open and to a certain extent became a wee bit more flexible for the benefit of their customers. One particular evening, with many people at supper break, without warning the bar closed. From that point on bars were never open during alerts/exercises. No reason was ever given for this action. Many years later recruiting in Lincoln, this tale is related to a colleague who started to laugh. It transpired his Scampton based brother in law had been having his supper break during aforementioned alert in the Rugby Club at Scampton. Come return to work time he "borrowed" a Sqn Ldrs flying jacket to keep warm. It came to light that said jacket had a copy of the war plan in the inside pocket, hence closure of ALL bars from that point on. Can anyone verify this tale?

ted wrote:

The 10 or 11 day call out was a TACEVAL the first week was mostly damp and foggy we seemed to just do guards for the first 6 or 7 days most of the TACEVAL team were quacks and trickcylists !!! At a guesss it was 74/76 time. The Gadaffi was much earlier that was about 68 I think ?? mind we have been kicked out of so many places twice from Malta !!

TED

Def nearer 76 Ted,it happened after we moved in with the canberras from cottesmore,ISTR they stopped it 1 day earlier than we were expecting,I had left my bike up at married quarters with a friend and used to walk out with the married guys and go to see a girlfriend.
Guess what...when they stopped it early I was 'visiting' and returned to a 'quiet' camp and (yet another) interview with the boss and several weeks on keys ( key orderly ),i was very lucky not to get charged LOL

paf I dont want to knock a good story, but have you ever seen a station war plan?? It normally had three or four volumes and each volume was about three inches thick so you couldnt fit it in your pocket!!!!!!!!!!! I suspect what he had was a copy of the exercise programme.

bvs;67927 wrote:

Def nearer 76 Ted,it happened after we moved in with the canberras from cottesmore,ISTR they stopped it 1 day earlier than we were expecting,I had left my bike up at married quarters with a friend and used to walk out with the married guys and go to see a girlfriend.
Guess what...when they stopped it early I was 'visiting' and returned to a 'quiet' camp and (yet another) interview with the boss and several weeks on keys ( key orderly ),i was very lucky not to get charged LOL

The 10 or 11 day Taceval we had to sleep in the sections for most of the period. aftewr shift one everyone allowed to book out of shelter to get kit and bedding. I had a camp bed set up in the chippies shop;

Some of you may remember exercise LIONHEART in 1984. I was at Gutersloh and we were heavily involved. SROs had an entry a couple of weeks before hand saying that for the fortnight of the exercise the Sergeants mess bar, NAAFI and Maolcolm club woulld only be open 1900-2200. But that the Officers mess bar would be open 1700-2200. And furthermore during the four day minival there would be no delivery of mail to sections. As you can imagine that caused a bit of an uproar! Luckily the CO got involved andthe Officers mess bar hours were changed to the same as the Sergeants mess and NAAFI, and mail was still delivered during the minival.

ted wrote:

The 10 or 11 day Taceval we had to sleep in the sections for most of the period. aftewr shift one everyone allowed to book out of shelter to get kit and bedding. I had a camp bed set up in the chippies shop;

They were more lenient with us canberra OCU guys,after the first couple of days - the shifts settled down and instead of going wherever I was supposed to be (cant remember LOL) I used to walk out with the married guys and leap on my t(rusty) old velocette and go for some R + R.
Part of the time I was out patrolling the bomb dump...blimey was that out in the middle of nowhere or what ??Was that the time we got issued a rum ration ??all a little vague !!

bvs;68017 wrote:

They were more lenient with us canberra OCU guys,after the first couple of days - the shifts settled down and instead of going wherever I was supposed to be (cant remember LOL) I used to walk out with the married guys and leap on my t(rusty) old velocette and go for some R + R.
Part of the time I was out patrolling the bomb dump...blimey was that out in the middle of nowhere or what ??Was that the time we got issued a rum ration ??all a little vague !!

Tell us about the Velocette, (capital V)

From my time at Marham ISTR that the OCUs didnt really take part in exercises, they still had to train the students after all. On my first TACEVAL at Leuchars 43 Sqn only took part for the first morning. 43s war role was to deploy to Stornoway, so part of the way through they did a paper deployment to Stornoway.

guzzi;68022 wrote:

Tell us about the Velocette, (capital V)

LOL it was a velocette with a capital 'N' (for noddy)...it was my run around bike...my main bike at the time was a 650 cc BSA A65T.
The 'Noddy' bike was a mark 2 with hand gear change and hand start lever,there was no return spring on the throttle so you could change down smoothly.
Actually they were great little bikes but absolutely zilch street cred of course
...mine was bog standard grey

Anyone recall the "notice" part of a Taceval (was "notice" part 1 or part 2?) at Waddo early 70s when the hierarchy deemed it a good idea to have everyone in from Sunday lunchtime to await the call out.

Raven Club almost drunk dry due to the entire station spending the afternoon and evening consuming alcohol in the bars. The net result being everyone on camp for call out, but very few "fit for work".