Well,today is my first day as a veteran officially. To be fair I don't feel any different to yesterday, I managed a walk to the post box, and enjoyed the peace and quiet and the sounds of the birds, that were then disturbed by some heavy machinery, and despite where I currently live we are not talking of the airborne variety( which strangely haven't been here for a couple of days...hmmm I wonder if something is about to kick off?). It was the largest Combine Harvester I think I have ever seen, it took up all of the road and had to mount the kerb every time he came to a parked car, but anyway I digress.
Basic Training 22 years ago is a world away from what they do now. The first day consists of decivilianising your appearance, so everyone receives a set of green coveralls and the same haircut. You are issued a pair of trainers, two pairs of shorts and two T-shirts, your combat clothing,some socks and a pair of boots.
The first week consisted mainly of physical training, Drill and briefings about Service life, but in reality that was the day routine, the night one consisted of polishing everything, and then spending about 4 hours polishing the floor ( and when I say polishing, I mean 10 guys in a row adding polish to the floor by hand, one guy with a brick on the end of a pole with a duster on it buffing and then two guys on a polishing machine ( one holding the handle and the other sat in on top of the polishing machine, putting washing powder in front of the brushes to make sure it polished correctly) and then setting your bed up for the inspection and then sleeping on an abandoned bed frame. It meant we are only getting between 4 and 6 hours of sleep per night, so we were knackered most of the time but became accustomed to it.
Its quite a surreal experience to be asleep in the darkness and yet you can here the other 14 guys breathing and snoring. The guys I shared my room with, were not team players and we didn't get on. Fortunately I met a fireman called John ( he was our Senior Man) and we came to a mutual arrangement, he did my bed pack ( which is your blankets,sheets and covering all folded together so that you can pick them up with one hand so it doesn't fall apart. The acid test was being picked up by a pace stick in the morning) and I polished his shoes. If I had stayed with my fellow room mates, its fair to say that I would not be here now. I lasted in there two weeks and then moved rooms to the same one as John. The atmosphere was completely different and we all did each others kit. There was a knack to doing each piece of equipment and they all had to be identical, so having the same person do them all seemed a logical step.Now the first weekend is always a lock in, to enable the flight to pass "Drill Check" which is a series of drill manoeuvres ending in an inspection all with commands. Our flight was dismal at drill. The man at the front who everyone was trying to mark from just marched too damn fast so,during drill check at one point everyone else was six paces behind him and the the three rows of people that stayed with him had a sweat on. We were the first flight in 20 years to fail Drill check. In fact we ended up marching and doing drill pretty much for the whole weekend....its a good job the Naafi did good pizza. to give you some idea if what we went through heres someone elese swinderby memories, itl give you the right idea and I too was in Gibson Block Middle floor but I was at the back...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLewo6_K4eg and here http://youtu.be/T9icMo4ZWU0 The second video is two years before me and yet nothing will have changed...I may convert my Graduation video to DVD yet..I was 2 sqn 2 Flight. If you ever went to Swinderby, we had diffferent scarves round our necks. 1 sqn was red 2 sqn was blue and 3 sqn was green. By 1991 3 sqn had disbanded.
Swinderby was a proper 1950s RAF station, one of the hangars had been converted into the gym, all the domestic accommodation was on the other side of the road. It was always neat and tidy because lets face it when you have over 500 people going through basic training there are no shortage of "volunteers" to make sure standards are maintained. When I think back though, it was August 1991, the war in Iraq was still raging, ( not that we knew how it was going because we didn't have access or time to watch any TV), we had radio though, and I can tell you "More than Words" by Extreme was in the charts and there didn't appear to be very much news on the radio channel we were listening to. I can tell you this, I was developing a loathing for our female drill instructor. She was Evil. She made the TV in Willo the Wisp seem nice in comparison...( for the kids that was the original series from 1981...check out kids TV here http://youtu.be/sAwtC0b_gf4) but kids tv from when I was a Lad is a completely different subject....
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