I had to smile at all the fuss in the press about reports of RAF personnel being ordered not to wear their uniforms in public in case they are verbally abused because of this country’s military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Although I strongly disapprove of our armed forces taking part in George and Tony’s wars, I cannot understand why a few idiots should abuse young men and women who are happy to wear their uniforms in public.
It’s all a ‘far cry’ from when I was serving in the RAF in the late 1950’s, as no self-respecting national service conscript ‘would be seen dead’ in his bloody uniform when off duty: with the possible exception of when he was ’thumbing’ a lift by the roadside; for in those far off days most drivers would stop for a lad hitchhiking in uniform, because they knew that he was so poorly paid he couldn’t afford train or bus fares.
At the start of our period of basic training, better known as ’square bashing’, we reluctant recruits were ordered to pack up all our civilian
clothes and send them “home to mum”, as for the next eight weeks or so we would only be allowed to wear our new uncomfortable, itchy uniforms. Well ‘new’ wasn’t exactly the word I would have used to describe them, as most of my outfit (right) was 1940’s (probablyWWII) issue with buttons bearing the ‘king’s crown’ of George VI.
At about the half-way point in our training we were allowed to leave camp if we passed inspection and would head for Manchester for a night out ‘on the town’, or as much of a ‘night out’ as one pound and five pence ($2) could buy; and I well remember how our ‘best blues’ attracted the attention (not to mention the odd empty bottle) of the local ’Neanderthals’ as we wandered through Belle Vue or sipped our warm beer, with our backs to the wall, in some smoke filled dump of a pub.
OK, so it’s not very nice having some moron shouting abuse at you in public, but I’m sure that such instances are rare and receive the appropriate ‘response’, or servicemen must …
… have changed a lot since my young days.
