A Warrant Officer arrived from Shawbury. We were told that he would talk to any of us
that were interested and give us career advice.
All Warrant Officers were highly respected, so this was one person that I
knew would tell me the truth and give me his honest answer, and opinion, to any
career question I would ask. I managed
to get to speak with him and explained my predicament. What he said was along the lines of; imagine
that you are at Innsworth. No problem,
as I had already spent some time there.
Imagine that you are the person who has to select a number of people for
promotion.
In the forces we were assessed annually and at that
assessment were given a numerical grading, the lowest was one and the highest
nine. Nine was also known as a spec rec,
a special recommendation. He explained
that the person making the decision may have a number of people, all of whom
would have the same numerical standing, from which he would have to choose
perhaps only one or two. Now he asked me
to imagine all those people lined up and the selector looking at them. You have to get yourself noticed he said. If everyone in the line is stationary, no one
gets your full attention. But if one’s
jumping up and down, that person gets all the attention. If two people are jumping up and down, then
the one who jumps up and down the highest will win.
If someone had explained life, or the world of work to me, in
such terms at Violent Hell I would probably be King of the World by now. But I was a simple Pheasant Plucker at Watton
and all I wanted to do was get back to sergeant aircrew. I knew I had done everything asked of me; I
was serving on various committees and playing sports. I just wasn’t playing rugby I was also a
member of the Watton station tennis team.
Well; to tell the truth I was half of the station tennis team, there was
just one other tennis player, a failed fast jet pilot, but we did occasionally get
some time away from work, and as you may expect my legs were the talk of the
county.
I realised that I would have to start jumping higher than all
the others, so an idea hit me at a committee meeting. I suggested that we organise and complete a nonstop
cycle relay. As we were eastern radar, I
suggested that we tow a six foot long cigarette, behind a bicycle, from the most
easterly point of the UK to the most westerly, in aid of cancer research. Now before you all start writing to the pope
and suggest that I might be an ideal candidate for beatification let me
explain. I had no interest in cancer research;
I didn’t really know anything about it.
Charity events, to me, meant time off work, nothing
else. I have always had a healthy
distain for charities. As a school boy
in Belfast I remember that in each classroom, we would have a sort of plastic
strap that hung from the backboard, which was split into little individual
pockets. Each pocket held one old penny
and when all the pockets were full, the strap was taken away and the money went
to help the poor children in Africa. I
knew about poverty because I would often see boys arrive at school wearing my
old clothes. The situation was explained
to me and I soon started to see the real world around me. I had a sumptuous bedroom with a huge double
bed and a fire to keep me warm at nights.
There was even a cleaning lady to look after me when my mother was busy
reading magazines. I now saw houses
where five children slept in one bed.
The poverty in Belfast was something that caught my attention
and therefore alerted me to connected news items throughout my life. Just yesterday it was announced that the head
of the British Red Cross earns one hundred and eighty thousand pounds a year
and that there are another four executives at the British Red Cross who earn six
figure salaries. Most of these highly
paid executives are cretins, chinless wonders who get their jobs because of who
they know and what school they went to.
It is such a shame that the hard work and efforts of so many thousands
of caring, motivated, people are manipulated in such a cavalier and Machiavellian
way. Just another strand of pure evil
from the British class system.
So my first job when I take back the throne of Ireland will
be to sort out the Irish problem.
Forgive me, but as this problem has been going on for quite some time it
might take me a week or two to sort it out, but after that I promise I shall turn
my attention to the third world situation and sort that out and I will not have
any publicity seeking pop stars lining up for a photo opportunity.
By the end of our little committee meeting it had been
decided that we should attempt a nonstop cycle relay from John O’ Groats, the
most northerly point in the UK, to Land’s End, the most southerly point. The route would be approximately eight
hundred and seventy miles. We would get
someone to donate two bicycles; the air force would provide transport, fuel and
food. We would supply the muscle and we
could all have ten days off work.
I set about organising the event and have to admit that I did
a pretty decent job. We were so lucky to
have the disused airfield at Watton which was perfect for training and practise. I now approached each Air Training Corps
region, the Air Training Corps are a youth training scheme sponsored by the air
force, and had them collect money on our behalf, in their area, and arranged
for them to provide support as we transited their area. It was quite a huge undertaking but my only
interest was to get smartie points in my bid for sergeant aircrew and skive some
time off work.
I can’t remember exactly how long the team took to cover the
route but it was a healthy time and one to be proud of. Back at Watton the local press were called
and I wondered why the Wing Commander was the one who was getting his photograph
taken. Then, when all the money was in
and the bikes had been auctioned, we were to go to the Norwich hospital and hand
over the cheque. One again the Wing Commander,
a failed fast jet pilot, handed over the cheque and I was allowed to take photographs
of him as he did so.
I wasn’t impressed and as a good ol boy I surely wanted to
tell this fellow exactly what I thought of him, however I was smart enough to
know that I had to keep my mouth shut. I
knew that if everyone at Watton was in a line that, at that point, I was the
one jumping up and down the most. Now was
the time to push for my application for aircrew to go through. Nothing could stop me now.
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