I was looking forward to getting back home to our new wee
house and having a bit of a rest before I would have to go to Hereford. I got back to find Irene living in the front
room of the house. She was refusing to
go upstairs and was convinced that there was a ghost living upstairs so before
I could kick back and relax I had to perform an exorcism, which is second
nature to an Irishman. In fact I would
say that exorcisms, brewing poteen and smuggling are deeply embedded in the DNA
of an Irishman. This wasn’t a full on ceremony
from the Rituale Romanum, but more along the lines of prayers of deliverance. Although I have to admit that it has always amazed
me just how many dead people understand Latin.
Having sent the resident spirits off into the either I realised
that I was not going to get any rest at all that day for I had to get to Wattisham,
twenty five miles away, and try to get some new uniform which I would need at Hereford. Normally a bit of bartering was no great
problem but as I had not officially arrived at Wattisham I could see that the ‘Jobsworths’
would be having a field day when I showed up.
Once again I was tremendously lucky as one of the civilian store men, in
clothing stores, had been one of the SWO’s men at Valley so we knew each other
and he helped kit me out ready for my course at Hereford. I had to leave on the Sunday to arrive at Hereford
on the Sunday evening ready for the course to start on the Monday morning.
Despite the fact that I had sorted our little problem out at
the new house Irene decided that she would prefer to stay with her mother for the
fortnight just in case the ghosties came back, oh ye of little faith. I had no problem or objection with this but
now found myself driving back and forth across England when all I really wanted
to do was sit in a quiet dark room and get my head together. All I knew about Hereford is that it was
where they trained the cooks and the SAS were based there. As long as I didn’t have to fight for my breakfast
each morning they would be safe enough from me.
I was surprised to find so many people on the course. We were in huge twenty man rooms and were
welcomed by various NCO’s who seemed to drift between being friendly and
barking orders, indicating a most definite and interesting selection of
personality disorders. Although the course wouldn’t officially start until the
Monday morning we were informed that we would be undergoing inspections, so our
lockers must be neat and tidy as would our bed spaces and bed packs! I’m sure many of you will have seen some form
of military inspection on the television or cinema. Nutters bouncing coins off beds, finding enough
dust under cupboards to grow spuds in and not being able to shave their faces
in your belt buckle. Someone ought to
tell them that mirrors have been invented for that.
It was quite disheartening to think that I was going to have
to suffer a fortnight of this horseshit but the statement that this was not an attendance
course kept running about in my head. We
were all asked to sit down and write a short paragraph about ourselves, who
were we, where had we served and what were our ambitions for our career in the
air force. I felt stupid sitting down to write that I wanted to be aircrew, because
the instructors, if from the discipline branch, would be even more stupid that
air traffic controllers. But that’s when
I began to realise that they were not from the discipline branch, they were
from many different trades and were not really experts in leadership or man management
training. This was going to be an interesting
course or it was going to be a complete balls up.
The NCO’s wished us a good night, reminded us at what times
the lights would be switched off and warned us to be lined up outside the accommodation
block at half past seven in the morning so that we could march to the mess for
breakfast. I don’t know if Argentina was
aware of it but they were really starting to hack me off making me go through
all this bullshit. And so the following
morning I was stood standing outside our accommodation block along with perhaps
another one hundred people waiting to be marched to breakfast. You civilians don’t know what you are
missing. Some NCO, who seemed to be
enjoying himself far too much, began shouting at us and even though we had
lined up, three abreast, he had decided to put us through the whole ‘Tallest
man on the left!’ routine.
This is where the tallest person, on the parade, is singled
out and made to stand on a certain spot.
The command is something like, ‘Tallest man on the left, shortest on the
right.’ Everyone then positions themselves
accordingly, in one long line. The person
in charge now visually inspects the line and rearranges anyone so that they
will have one long smooth descending line.
Then everyone is given a number. The
tallest person is number one and shouts this out and the counting out loud
continues along the line. I can sense
that the civilians among you are now so jealous having never stood in a line of
people at half past seven in the morning shouting numbers out loud. You’ve never lived.
Try to imagine that you have a hangover, those pesky pillows again,
and perhaps a drop of rain, a rumbling tummy and some crazed fecker marching up
and down screaming at you and you will start to come close to how most of us
were feeling. After calling out your
very own number, at the top of your voice mind you, the next command would be, ‘Odd numbers one step forward.’ Now we have two lines, the odd numbers at the
front and the even numbers at the rear. One
line turns one way and that’s right, you’ve guessed it, are you sure you’ve
never been in the military, the remaining line turns the opposite way. The next command has everyone now march
forward into ranks of three, forming up on the tallest person. This whole process has now sorted out the
parade so that the varying heights have now been organized out into a comfortable
curve.
Next time you watch a military parade you will see that there
will be a slight curve, in the height of the people on the parade, and that is
how they do it. The final command is to ‘Right
dress,’ where you make sure you are all lined up perfectly straight and separated
equally from those around you. I was
expecting to be turned one way or the other and marched off for my breakfast
when the fecker in charge made the front row of people step forward and the rear
row step back. He had opened the parade
up for an inspection and unbelievable began to walk around inspecting us. People were getting picked on for their shoes
not being shiny enough or for having some dust on their beret. This is where I thanked my lucky stars for
having a new beret as I normally polished my shoes with my beret, as did most normal
people.
I did get shouted at, for what I cannot remember as I wasn’t
that interested in his inspection, all I wanted was my breakfast. And even when he had finished inspecting us
and complaining about the crease in our uniforms he then began to give us a
lecture on how we would be inspected every morning and that the standard of
turn out wasn’t good enough. I can tell
you that this was all a bit much for me and I wondered if anyone else was thinking
along the same lines as myself.
Eventually we were marched off towards the mess and I could see that his
was going to be a frustrating couple of weeks.
All I had to do was keep my head down and get myself through it. It would soon be over. That’s when I really cheered myself up when I
realised that yes it might soon be over but what had I to look forward to, I
must have done something really bad in a previous life, for after this wonderful
course, if I survived it, wasn’t I being sent back to fecking air traffic
control.
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