My Sister and Other Phenomena
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
She doesn’t just break ordinary things like you or I might do; dishes, glassware, bones in our body, no. My sister breaks things like, the internet.
Meet A Royal Day
Monday, March 17, 2025
I was lucky enough or, depending on who you speak to, unlucky enough to meet a few royals during my time in the military. My first time was at RAF Mountbattan, in Plymouth, UK, when I had the chance to see and shake hands with the now Princess Royal, Princess Anne.
What Could Have Been
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Some of the scariest things happen without our knowledge, as happened to me one time that, until a few days later, I didn’t know how lucky I had been.
For the Love of a Bacon Butty
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
One of the best things about the military is that whether you worked days or shift work, you could guarantee that at any time of the day or night, you could get a meal. There was no excuse for missing a meal as far as I was concerned, and even though I might be brain dead when coming off a night shift, I made a point of staggering to the mess hall and chowing down on at least an egg and bacon butty before bed.
The Day I Climbed the Runway
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Well, to begin with, as it turned out, we weren’t allowed to actually use the runway in this particular event and ended up on a taxi way in front of one of the squadron who were on stand down that weekend. What the hell am I talking about? I suppose I better start at the beginning … charity work.
Fly Like A Bird
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Well, maybe not like a bird, I don’t have wings but, during my time in the military, despite suffering with air sickness my entire life, I made a point of flying on every available aircraft I could. Even if that meant throwing up for take off and landings.
A Galaxy of a Problem
Friday, February 21, 2025
There were times, some of them quite comical though serious, that happened during my tenure in the military. Point in case, the day we had an emergency diversion—due to bad weather—of a USAF Galaxy cargo plane. Which was 3 hours out and would be landing on fumes by the time it got to us—the only base it could divert to due to it’s size and weight.
Accidental Fatalities
Thursday, February 20, 2025
One of the hardest things about being in the military was dealing with loss. And I don’t mean the sporting kind, I mean, the loss of life. And while it didn’t happen all that often, a single event could bring us all to our knees physically and mentally.
Out on the Range
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
One of the highlights of being stationed in Germany, on a front line base, was that during a major exercise we were issued with fake guns. Yes, fake as in wooden, because, if we were really at war certain female members within the operations block would be able to carry a sidearm. I’m not sure how this came about, but, once the decision was made (and not rescinded by subsequent Group Captains) wooden replicas were issued in our mock invasion exercises.
Card Sharks
Monday, February 17, 2025
Following on from my post about my introduction to shift work, the reason most of us survived and, quite possibly flourished on night shifts, was nothing to do with the copious amounts of thick, treacly black coffee we all consumed, but the fact we all played cards. A game called Bastard Whist, to be precise. It didn’t take me long to find out where the card games were being played throughout each night shift.
Get A Move On
Saturday, February 15, 2025
In the military there is no such thing as weekends off. As I have said, you are, to put it bluntly, on call 24/7. And in my line of work, trained as an assistant air traffic controller, I was expected to work shifts whether that was in the Controller Tower itself, or in Flight Ops, or the Operations building.
Shifts was not something I was ready for, not on any level. So when I got my first posting to Plymouth, in Devon (UK) I was in for a rude awakening at just how demanding a boring job could be. While my childhood had prepped me for so many aspects of military life, these kinds of working conditions were a whole other ball game, and one I wasn’t prepared for.
A day after I arrived on camp with only hours of orientation and briefing on where I was working I was handed a shift schedule for not the next week or month, but the next 3 months. They were short handed due to early out going postings with new recruits, like myself, still to arrive direct from training and, as such, I was about to find myself working what they called a 3-watch.
Gas Attack, Gas Attack
Friday, February 14, 2025
I’m writing this because an online friend asked whether or not, as part of my military training, I had to go through the “gas tent”. The answer is: Yes. This is a process whereby newbies on receipt of fancy new NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) suit had to test it and their skills at putting it all on, in the correct order in under 9 minutes, and walk through a large tent or building filled with CS gas.
A test no one got out of doing.
Funnily enough on the day I had to do my training with a couple of other newbies, we had the newly arrived Group Captain and a couple of high up Senior Officers for training as well. Our little group sat on the same benches with the higher ups listening to the training sergeant drone on, while watching a very graphic video of soldiers and airmen dealing with fake injuries that included, among other things, disembowelment.
It was fun to watch the guys in the tent squirm at the vivid and graphic nature of seeing someone in the NBC gear trying to stuff what were pigs innards back into a writhing screaming airman. All simulated for us to learn what we might have to do in the midst of war. Not that we were there for emergency medical training. Not that that stopped them making us sit through 30 minutes of gore before we even started leaning about what our suits did, and did not do. And more importantly, how to put them on properly, while being timed with a stopwatch, and yelled at to go faster.
Sporting Chance
Thursday, February 13, 2025
I was never thought of as being a sporty type by build alone and, in fact, was probably in that group picked last for any sporting event based on looks alone. Not tall, or willow, thin or fit looking. But, as it turns out, given ample opportunities to prove everyone wrong. I got to join in on just about ever sporting event going, on the military bases I was stationed at by virtue of the fact they always needed the numbers. They needed warm bodies to make up any kind of team, whether it was netball, field hockey, ping pong or fencing.
I got picked also, because I volunteered. As I said in previous posts, I was young, naive, and eager to be involved and volunteered for everything in the military. As a result, I found out I wasn’t half bad at a lot of sports that would never, under any other circumstance, have been available to me to participate in. Take for instance, the fencing or squash which I won a medal playing.
Stationed in Germany on a huge camp with just a small contingent of women, as was usually the case. A senior officer who was a champion fencer wanted to make up a contingent to go to Berlin to take part in the inter-military championships. So, without any experience whatsoever to my name, and after 8 weeks of intensive training with other warm bodies needed to fill the slots, I found myself, epee in hand, a part of a team that ended up in Berlin for a long week of intense bouts.
The 24/7 Life
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Even though I had a vague understanding that I might be asked to work at any and all hours of the day and night, while in the military, it wasn’t really till I was posted to Germany on my first overseas assignment that it hit home exactly what that truly meant. Being in the military is a 24/7 commitment come rain or shine. There are no lie-ins, not taking a sick day, no skiving off. You are on call whatever time of day or night it is.
When the shit hits the fan you better be dressed and stood in front of it, ready for anything.
My first serious wake-up call happened not a month in after arriving on base. I was totally unprepared for the reality. Even though I had already been issued with my NBC (nuclear, biological & chemical warfare) gear 5 minutes after my first work shift, it hadn’t quite sunk in that here, on this frontline base, Exercises (yes, capital E) were done on a micro level (your immediate team), mini level (your whole section, which, in my case, was air traffic control & operations) and the dreaded TacEval (Tactical Evaluation), which was station wide and brutal on Newbies.
Guess who was woken at 2 am on my supposed day off for her first major Tactical Evaluation?
A Leap of Faith
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Within weeks of arriving at my first military posting in the UK after I had completed my Basic Training, I was being encouraged to sign up for, well, everything. Including participating in helicopter rescue training exercises. Which wasn’t a stretch, given where I worked, which was the RCC (rescue and coordination centre) in Plymouth, Devon—an Air Force detachment working along side the Navy. They got all the new arrivals to sign up for this to build character, I was told. Uh-huh. Character. Right.
Signing up to do the helicopter rescue was made to sound wildly exciting and something we would receive a badge for doing. A fancy patch made especially for such training exercises. Not that anyone told me it was a patch we’d never get to wear on our uniform. Nonetheless, wide-eye, I went into this endeavour, like ever other endeavour I got talked into or volunteered for in the next several years, eager as only youth can be.
Now you would think I would have grasped exactly what I was being asked to do. Ha! Not so. I was completely and utterly unprepared for the reality of jumping out of a hovering helicopter into the sea.
The event didn’t happen straight away, there was training for those of us gullible enough to sign up. First came the silly stint in the gym, where they had us jumping off 10 inch heigh benches up into the air, legs straight, arms folded across our chests, to have us at the last minute before hitting the floor, star-fish our arms and legs out, to simulate hitting the water, and not sinking to bottom of the ocean.
Reminder. They had us doing this for a solid 2 hours … jump, star-fish, jump, star-fish … Do you know what it’s like to hit the floor and try to roll after all this? I was oh so innocent.
Taking the Plunge
Monday, February 10, 2025
I didn’t join the military thinking I’d have a life of adventure but, as it turned out, adventure found me anyway. I was too young to sign up for myself and had to have my father sign the papers allowing me to join the Woman’s Royal Air Force — I was 17 years of age. A decision he had a huge part in suggesting given, at the time, I was in a constant battle with my menopausal mother.
My Dad Kicked Bombs For A Living
Saturday, February 8, 2025
As a child growing up I use to tell friends, “… my dad kicks bombs for a living.” when asked the inevitable stupid question, ‘what does your dad do for a living.’ One because I was never sure at first what it was my dad did actually do and had overheard him talking to someone, one time, and say, “I kick bombs…” and giggling to myself though, oh, that’s cool. Never once, at whatever tender age I was at the time, realising what kicking bombs for a living actually meant or, entailed.
My Mother The Runaway
Friday, February 7, 2025
My mother, by all accounts, had quite the life, especially in her younger years. Though some of what I know I only know from stories my sister told me much later, after my mum passed. What I did get to hear from my mother, firsthand, was how, despite being in a loveless marriage and an arranged marriage at that. And despite still only being a teenager (18), she ran away from home.
Life After Death
Sunday, February 2, 2025
Or, surviving the loss of my parents.
Surviving a loved one’s death can only be personal and subjective. We all react differently, we all perceive differently, we all emote differently. Some feel the loss more keenly than others, some not so much. But one thing you can be sure of is, the loss of a loved one changes you no matter what your relationship was till that point.
I lost my father to lung cancer in 1991, he was only 68 years of age. His ‘illness’ was slow, debilitating, terrifying and painful right through till the last few weeks when, being cared for in our local hospice, my father passed quietly, almost peacefully after his (and yes, our) two year ordeal.
Heroic in her efforts and, till those last few weeks, my mother took on the all but lonely burden of looking after my father almost singlehandedly. Albeit with help, where we could, from the rest of us. Supporting and bolstering my mother, where we could, during a time where home care from any nursing services was, at best, minimal. Closer to the end, and before he was lucky enough to get into hospice care—and yes, I say lucky, because, due to space limitations, and the lack of hospice care in general, most people either die at home, or in hospital. And usually, with minimal care and attention. My mother had to feed, bath, dress and care for my father—a man she had already dedicated her life to for most of her adult life, sharing all the highs and lows along the way and giving birth to, and bringing up six children.
You've Got Mail
Saturday, February 1, 2025
I was reading Veronique’s post recently, Just A Small Town Girl, and smiled at her lovely doodles. But there was one that caught my eye and then, brought a lump to my throat. It featured a hand drawn stamp and the words, Post Air Mail. And it hit me. I hadn’t had any real mail from anyone (not including birthday or Christmas cards) not since my mum passed away back in 1999.
It sent a shiver down my spine not just because that was over 20 years ago, but because, the last handwritten letter I ever got was from a dead woman: my mother.
Where ever I was in the world, travelling and or working, my mother almost religiously took time out of her day to write an aerogramme to me. Do you remember those? You buy them at any post office, singularly or in packs. I think my mother had a draw full of them—after all, she had six kids and if she wrote to me, you can be sure as hell, she wrote to us all at some point or other.
The thing is. The last piece of mail she wrote to anyone, was to me. She wrote to me, as she always did, on a Friday, so she could catch the last post. That last letter she wrote, was duly posted on a Friday and, would you believe, the following Monday, here in Quebec, I got two shocks.