One day Tom McCann and myself were in the runway
caravan. We were just chatting and
having a coffee, I mentioned how good my guys were, not just at their jobs but
acting as a team. Wattisham was a
military emergency diversionary airfield, a MEDA, this meant that the airfield
would stay open every hour of the day and every day of the year. We had to be ready to accept any aircraft at
any time of the day or night. So as you
may imagine if I was on duty on a Saturday and had been in the families club bar,
till two or three in the morning, there was a good chance I was not going to
get out of my bed at six in the morning.
One of my guys would automatically take over running the shift. He would
make up some excuse, maybe that I had a flat tyre or was in SHQ on an errand,
but he would cover for me until I got in.
They were all like that, even the one who went to prison, I
couldn’t save them all. And in a similar
fashion I would help them out or stick up for them. One day Leon came to me and the poor fellow
as almost in tears. Leon was a hard
working fellow who didn’t drink or smoke.
He wanted to buy himself a red BMW motorcar, which he did. He was very proud of his car and so he should
have been. Unfortunately every time he
came across the RAF Police they would stop him and search his car, for drugs. This had happened time and time again but
Leon was used to this racist behaviour, probably topped with a good dose of
jealousy. This time however they had
found a pair of aircrew gloves in his car.
Leon wasn’t aircrew, so he was to be charged with theft, which was a
very loose attempt at them validating their racist behaviour.
I promised Leon that I would go and see the police, and I
did. I was furious and stormed right
into the police section. They had a
large house near the main gate on camp that served at their headquarters. I demanded to see whoever was in charge and
was shown in to see a Flight Sergeant. I
don’t know how I was able to do it but the Flight Sergeant agreed that the
whole incident seemed to have racist undertones, there would be no need for me
to get the Station Commander involved and he would make sure that the charges
were dropped. Leon was pleased and of
course I now became his hero, but I certainly promised myself that at every
available opportunity in the future I was going to drop as many policemen in it
as I could. So as Tom and I chatted
about our guys I came up with the idea that I should reward them in some
way. Tom felt that his guys needed a little
boost as well, so we decided to take them on an expedition.
We decided to take an expedition to the Peak District over a
long weekend. We could get all the
equipment we needed from the station gymnasium, food rations from Vic, maps
from flight planning and vehicles from MT Flight. This of course would bring me more smartie
points for promotion. I got permission
from OC Operations to take a dozen or so guys on expedition and began the
serious task of finding a pub with a camp site.
Two minivan loads of us set off on a Friday and headed for the Peak
District. I do remember that we stopped
at RAF Wittering en route to say hello to Peter Browne. It was an old habit from Ireland that if you
were in a different town or area of the country you could never pass friend or
a relative’s house without saying hello.
I had managed to find a camp site with a pub close by and so
I erected the tent for Tom and myself pretty sharpish. I’ll never forget Alistair, one of my guys, stood
standing in the middle of this field, well, camp site. It was dark, it was raining and he looked
like a lost puppy. He asked me if I
would help him to put up his tent. I had
my mountain rescue head, on which made Alistair a trialist. I told him that he should put it up himself;
it was the only way to learn. Although I
have to admit that I did give in and put his tent up for him after he offered
to cook all my meals for me over the weekend. Interestingly enough I was still carrying out
my detailed scientific research into pillows and the following morning found that
even the improper use of a pillow, in a tent, could cause a sore head or, as
they were more commonly and mistakenly known, a hangover.
Alistair was true to his word and cooked me a mighty fine
breakfast the following morning. I had
planned a route for two teams across some pretty wild and vacant
countryside. Usual simple military
exercise one vehicle drives to point A and the other vehicle to point B. One team moves from point A to point B then
drive back to base camp the other team, well; you get the picture. Leon was acting as my navigator and was doing
well till we came to a fork in the path.
I knew that we should go left but Leon insisted that we keep going
straight ahead. I still had my mountain
rescue head on and knew that in a situation like this you should let the fellow
make mistake after mistake and then, when they have dug themselves in nice and deep,
you take over and show them where they have gone wrong, rather than correct
every mistake as they make them. They had
to learn and not be mothered.
I certainly had to keep my eye on things as Leon took us, as
they say, right in to the middle of nowhere.
Only when he realised that he was hopelessly lost did I step in and
point out exactly where he had gone wrong.
I hope my tactics worked and I hope he learned from that incident. It was a very enjoyable day out in the middle
of nowhere. I then showed the guys how
an expert navigator operates and made a bee line for the nearest building,
which just happened to be a pub. We had
radios with us so as my team settled in for a few scoops I contacted Tom and gave
him the coordinates of the pub we were in, asking him to collect us once he had
found the minibus.
What I had forgotten about was the pain we would have the
following day from using muscles that had lain dormant for some time. Some of the guys wanted to go and visit some
Blue John mines, so we broke camp and sent one minibus off to the Blue John
mines while the other minibus, full of cripples, made for a local hotel. I do remember that Tom and I were sitting at
the bar and were faced with a huge selection of beer, some of which I had never
heard of. They even had a thing called
real ale, which I had not encountered before.
We got chatting with the landlord who began to allow us to taste this real
ale stuff. I was quite taken with the real
ale it really was lovely. I explained to
the landlord that I ran a club and he took me down to his cellar and showed me
how to set up and maintain a cellar for real ale.
Tom, myself and the landlord remained in the cellar tasting
and sampling the whole range of real ales.
Needless to say we were poured on to the minibus and slept all the way
from the Peak District to Ipswich, which I have to say is the only way to travel
in a minibus full or farting, belching, rogues.
It was a good break and a good bonding exercise. I managed to bring everyone back alive and no
one had been arrested so it was a definite plus on the smartie point side of
things. I was certain that I needed to
get some real ale for the families club but I would have to create a temperature
controlled cellar. It would give me
something to think about and thinking about things was what I was good at. Some time later Tom and myself were back in
the runway caravan chatting and having coffee, again. We agreed that the expedition had been fun so
we needed something else to do.
Tom then suggested that we attend a football competition. He explained that in Germany there was an annual
football competition between all the air traffic units. If we could wangle an invite we could get the
air force to pay for everything and we could enjoy a long weekend in Germany. I was immediately on the telephone to air
traffic in Bruggen. I was lucky enough
to speak to the fellow who was organising the competition that year, so I explained
that if he would send us an invite we would bring a team over. I was quite surprised when he said that the competition
was only for those stationed in Germany.
We were not in Germany, so couldn’t come, good bye. ‘At least you tried,’ said Tom, as I explained
to him what had been said on the telephone.
But I wasn’t having any of it. “I’ll
tell you this and I’ll tell you no more,” I said. “I’ll have my own football competition and won’t
invite them.” Which you have to admit, is
quite a strange thing to say for someone who had no interest whatsoever in
football.
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