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I was at RAF Changi in Singapore at the time, still a bachelor and television wasn't on our list of interests. There was a bit about it in the following Tuesday's edition of the Straits Times, including a really rubbish artist's impression of the landing. The first time we saw the landing was in a n...

It's also the 185th birthday of Manchester Liverpool Road Station and the opening of that first line to Liverpool. Ah, yes! Happy birthday to the world's second scheduled steam passenger railway. Many of the first steam powered passengers on the Stockton and Darlington Railway were from Yorkshire. ...

I was home on leave and Missus and I took a taxi from the shopping centre back home. The taxi driver was listening to the news on his radio and we heard that an aircraft had just crashed into the World Trade Centre. I assumed it was a light aircraft and when we reached home I turned on the TV to see...

Had to rush last night: with a governors meeting starting at 6:30 we had Tea early and Missus laid on home made beef curry, plain rice and braised cabbage with ikan bilis. I like simple food, but don't try telling Missus that her curry is simple. The biggest cupboard in our kitchen is the spice cupb...

Sony ICF-SW7600GR: AM, FM, and SW I have one of those: a very good little radio. I watched Keith Richards chatting with Andrew Marr at the weekend. 'Keef' said that he won't record on a digital studio set up. It has to be analogue because "you just can't chop sound up into little bits. It can ...

...no buggah would live there if it looked like a desert but was free from fire risk Sounds like Roseworth Estate when we moved to 'The Council' after Dad's demob. Completely devoid of vegetation and no roads, just houses. The roads came later, in the meantime we walked around on planks laid over t...

In Free's "All Right Now" Paul Kossof can be overheard at one point saying "I missed a note" but you have to listen carefully.

... just a quickie to add that "Charlie" was down the other end of the runway from "Echo" - a bloody long walk! That lift was very much appreciated.

I will tell you I truly admire the people that kept those aircraft flying. The complexity of the aircraft combined with the pressure to keep them on the line must have been crushing at times. Crew Chiefs were my heroes. Crew Chiefs were an important link in the chain but you're right, keeping them ...

Have you thought about the welding kits in GEF? It would be very hard getting out with the doors welded shut.

"Tank" because the tea was in "tanks"/urns/really big metal pots with spigots? Nothing like really, really well steeped tea. Sounds plausible but the NAAFI wasn't called "The Tank" anywhere outside Halton as far as I can tell. It was purely a "Brat" term. In ...

But Siseman you wouldn't have been really hungry and really angry about being left outside. Besides which, all the really heavy weapons were on the outside... Imagine emerging blinking into the daylight, Browning Hi-Power strapped to one's thigh and trying to convince a bunch of dirty, bearded, very...

a teetotal ,vegetarian Arsenal supporter

I'm surprised there is such a thing.

Being armed is everything in survivalist mode.

Anyone connected with the previous government emerging from their bunkers would have been fair game for the pot - our dogs would have needed feeding.

Didn't have a satellite dish when I were a lad. Not only no satellite, in my day we had two television rooms, one for BBC and the other for ITV - there only were two channels and the communications wonder of the day was our "Telstar" satellite - about which a popular song reached No.1 in ...

I have no idea why we used the word Tank for our NAAFI Canteens Probably because it wasn't in Royal air force blue, but Army green. Here is a nice photo of an RAF Halton "Tank" - it certainly isn't Army green. I agree about the Salvation Army - their van had a monopoly airside at Waddingt...

There'll be plenty of long pig wandering around... When I wore a blue suit we were regularly lectured on how we would go about our daily duties after a nuclear exchange - classifying survivors (fit for work/unfit for work), burning the dead, organising forced labour groups (at gunpoint) etc. Our le...

Speaking of NAAFI Vans, I cme across this photo recently: the NAAFI Ladies from my days as a Halton Apprentice. I recognise all of them but can only remember one of their names - "Bridie" is second from the right. She worked in the No.3(A) Wing "Tank" . [I have no idea why we use...

"...S'cuse me while I kiss this guy..." as Jimi was once heard to say.

I still have my oath, with the squiggly signature I had at the time appended at the bottom. I suppose that makes it binding, even today. The same as the signed copy of the Official Secrets Act among my faded, yellowing old demob papers. ("...will be a great loss to the Royal Air Force" - I...