Misfits, Dad's Army Types et al...

[BossHogg]

A wax crayon needed a better score.

[anonymous-user]

98elise said:

Slight thread divergence but as this thread has a lot of ex-forces on it I thought I'd post this gem.

https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/pull-up-...

It's on ARRSE (Army forum) but it's an account of life in the Navy by an ex Matelot (Sailor). It's a long thread but hilarious

Thanks for posting this, I read it a while back and have been trying to remember where it was!

[silverfoxcc]

98elise said:

Slight thread divergence but as this thread has a lot of ex-forces on it I thought I'd post this gem.

https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/pull-up-...

It's on ARRSE (Army forum) but it's an account of life in the Navy by an ex Matelot (Sailor). It's a long thread but hilarious

100% true. i was crying with laughter, just wished Dad had been around to read it, he would have loved it Superb dits

[Psycho Warren]

Its amusing how little matelots change. I did a far east deployment on BOXER and pretty much the sailors got up to the same kind of st, even in the same ports!!

[silverfoxcc]

BossHogg said:

We used to phone the Para guardroom and the Ghurka guardroom on 2 phones and put them together and pee ourselves laughing listening to them arguing.

When working for BT back in the 60s on o/t ( office job in Sales) we had units called key and lamp units that had everyones extn on it so we didn;t have to run around the desk to answer a phone. We soon found out that if you pulled two keys down the lines were connected. 1005 better than to handset to handset ruse.so when a break was called for used to call two pubs of the same name and sit back and listen to the abuse gather pace, when it started to wane just popped in a 'Is that the Golden Lion?' and started it off again Same with mincab firms, although prior to STD calling if the caller didnt hang up it held the line open. This was a good trick used by to opposition using the old A-B boxes and just leaving the handset hanging. The Engrs enjoyed this as it was lots of extras going out just to replace the handset

Another guy on Friday Nights use to ring random numbers and tell the person that Friday Night is Music night; and hum the Blue Danube down the phone. We eventually got 10 guys all doing different instruments and the funny thing was most use to hang on until the end and said 'Thank you that was very nice'

Anyway back to the Walting

[Dibble]

BossHogg said:

yellowjack said:

Loads of changes while I was in. First of all female soldiers used to have a 'W' and 7 digits as their number. That went, and female recruits went to 8 digits same as their male counterparts. Existing female soldiers also had to drop the 'W' and replace it with a digit. Similar with officers. They used to have 6 digit numbers, but when one of the various IT system changes came in the system could only cope with an 8 digit number, so all new Ruperts coming out of Sandhurst were issued with an 8 digit number just like the ORs, and existing officers had two digits added to the front end of their numbers. I was an October '87 intake recruit, and got a 2482xxxx number. First question you got asked in a new posting was "what's your number" and then the chaps who were 247xxxxx or even 246xxxxx knew where to put you in the pecking order, after laughing at the very idea that anyone could have such a high service number. We were known by our training staff as FREDs (Future Royal Engineer Disasters) and when we got posted to our first units that would change to "Oi! Sprog!"

My fellow trainees had 2476 numbers, I started in the TA 2 years earlier and had a 2471 number so it looked like I'd transferred from another unit.

As cops, we all have "collar numbers", which are different to warrant numbers. No, I've no idea why. The warrant numbers are very rarely used and aren't recycled when someone leaves/dies/retires, whereas collar numbers are. When I first joined, collar numbers from 1-5999 were for male officers. 6000-6999 were female officers, 7000-7999 were traffic wardens, 8000-8999 were officers of inspector rank and above and 9000-9999 were for specials.

The 8000-8999 were actually known as "stick numbers" rather than collar numbers as inspectors and above had a stick rather than a truncheon. Now, you keep the same collar number for your whole service, even if you get promoted above sergeant to inspector. The 6000 numbers for female officers were phased out as being solely for female officers and there are now plenty of male officers with a 6xxx collar number. 7xxx numbers are now used by PCSOs, 8xxx numbers are just the same as 1-6999 and used by male or female officers, while 9xxx numbers are still used by special constables.

It's very strange seeing someone else's collar number being recycled onto someone brand new. You can get a rough idea of someone's length of service if they have a collar number that is issued in a batch, but every so often they will recycle the older numbers, which is what happened on my intake. There were not many chronological ones, but a lot of recycled ones, so it was difficult to know when a lot of us started.

Other forces do things differently, there's no national format for numbering. Some forces use a letter for a BCU (basic command unit), or division - basically a geographic area. GMP use an X preface for specialist/HQ roles, hence "X cars". GMP officers keep their collar number, but just change the letter prefix if they move division. When I started in 1996, GMP were issuing four digit collar numbers from 95xx or so, but now they're up to five digit numbers. I think the Met does things completely differently and if you move borough, you get a whole new number (usually two letters, then a number).

Any cop I've ever known in any force with the collar number 747 has always, ALWAYS been known as "Jumbo"!

[BossHogg]

Our 747 was a RPU officer so we met at more incidents than I care to remember. We also have collar numbers and different staff numbers. So if I do a course, I have to enter a staff number and not my collar number, but if I do any forms, incident, DVSA, near miss etc, it's my collar number.

[Dibble]

BossHogg said:

Our 747 was a RPU officer so we met at more incidents than I care to remember. We also have collar numbers and different staff numbers. So if I do a course, I have to enter a staff number and not my collar number, but if I do any forms, incident, DVSA, near miss etc, it's my collar number.

Motorcyclist as well? Initials PR-R?

[blueST]

BossHogg said:

Our 747 was a RPU officer so we met at more incidents than I care to remember. We also have collar numbers and different staff numbers. So if I do a course, I have to enter a staff number and not my collar number, but if I do any forms, incident, DVSA, near miss etc, it's my collar number.

And don’t forget remembering whether or not to use the zero on the front of your staff number.

[BossHogg]

Dibble said:

Motorcyclist as well? Initials PR-R?

Ours was ES

[BossHogg]

blueST said:

And don’t forget remembering whether or not to use the zero on the front of your staff number.

That's a pain in the arse, some of the systems ask for the zero and some don't!

[Stick Legs]

Zoobeef said:

98elise said:

It's an oddity of the forces that you can join as a Commissioned Officer and be managing people with decades of experience and seniority. It's essentially a class system.

Yep, it's a class system pure and simple and needs to go.

Merchant Navy is similar on that front, started as a Deck Cadet, a few years training and some exams and then a Junior officer in charge of the deck crew.
My old Bosun (Petty Officer equivalent) from when I was a Cadet is still on my ship and I am now the Captain.

Having said that, no exam pass no promotion, regardless of who you are are how much your company wants to promote you. So it is a meritocracy.

[Blakewater]

Not in the military, but even now I still remember on my first day as a very raw apprentice being sent to the stores on a construction site for a Long Weight.
A few months later the barstewards told me to take the van to deliver some gear to a new housing development in a different town. The address? Letsby Avenue...

South Yorkshire Police are based on Letsby Avenue.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Letsby+Ave,+Tins...

[BossHogg]

Red Devil said that on the last page.

[Red Devil]

He's due demerit points for not using the quote button.

[BossHogg]

[98elise]

Burrow01 said:

Psycho Warren said:

98elise said:

It's an oddity of the forces that you can join as a Commissioned Officer and be managing people with decades of experience and seniority.

I think, in my opinion, part of being (or at least aspiring to be) a good officer was recognising this and using and trusting the wealth and experience of your Senior NCO's and senior lower ranks too (although the 15 year AB is not so common these days), to help you make better decisions and lead your team better.

Although in many bigger companies you have similar where higher management are in essence lacking the skills and experience that the supervisors or low level managers have - especially in technical trades or hands on experience.

The bit i found comedy was as a divisional officer in my twenties having to try and give marital advise and help advise on other more complex family and personal issues when I have little life experience of my own and only a week long training course -of which one day covered counselling type stuff - to give decent advice. You have to accept you can only advise so much and either seek advice from those more experienced, or signpost the guy to someone who can give proper advice.

Its pretty much how lots of companies are set up - workers on tools / machines who had years of experience on how to make things happen and then graduate management trainees employed to be managers of those workers. In civilian life it has become less common with the trend towards flatter management structures and everyone being a graduate.

The military do still need pretty rigid hierarchy's given what they can be asked to do, but things have moved on from WW1 where other ranks were not allowed to talk to officers

It's not quite the same.

Generally Officers need higher qualifications, but a lot of Officers don't need a degree (Pilot for example) and yet some Ratings do.

There are plent of Ratings roles where there is no chance you'll be getting your hands dirty, and some Officer roles where you will spend most of your time working as opposed to purely management.

As a rating the highest rank you can achieve is Warrant Officer which takes a long time and is very senior, yet any Officer, no matter how young and inexperienced, no matter what their qualification is, will be your superior.

The Officer/Rating split is purely a class system (which is its origin). It would be much better to have a single hierarchy system with direct entry points for specialists who will need to manage people from day 1.

[Psycho Warren]

Stick Legs said:

Zoobeef said:

Yep, it's a class system pure and simple and needs to go.

Merchant Navy is similar on that front, started as a Deck Cadet, a few years training and some exams and then a Junior officer in charge of the deck crew.
My old Bosun (Petty Officer equivalent) from when I was a Cadet is still on my ship and I am now the Captain.

Having said that, no exam pass no promotion, regardless of who you are are how much your company wants to promote you. So it is a meritocracy.

I thought in the merchant navy you had to meet certain STCW requirements for deck officer and master roles etc?

Certainly in the RN and forces in general, officer rank was purely class based. However that is not the case these days. Being rich may get you a place at AIB but wont get you a pass, same with BRNC, being rich wont get you anywhere there.

I don't think the idea of officers often being not from the ranks needs to go. Certainly not in the navy. The job and skills needed are completely different from the ratings. Its not like the army where a junior officer needs the same weapons handling skills to effectively lead (hence young officers in the army are viewed with such disdain). Outwith the raw leadership skills and aspect, for example a warfare officer of the watch on a warship will have a completely different skillset to a warfare rating - even with decades of experience.

[The Mad Monk]

98elise said:

It's not quite the same.

Generally Officers need higher qualifications, but a lot of Officers don't need a degree (Pilot for example) and yet some Ratings do.

There are plent of Ratings roles where there is no chance you'll be getting your hands dirty, and some Officer roles where you will spend most of your time working as opposed to purely management.

As a rating the highest rank you can achieve is Warrant Officer which takes a long time and is very senior, yet any Officer, no matter how young and inexperienced, no matter what their qualification is, will be your superior.

The Officer/Rating split is purely a class system (which is its origin). It would be much better to have a single hierarchy system with direct entry points for specialists who will need to manage people from day 1.

Do away with the officer grade, you mean?

No more officer's mess?

[98elise]

The Mad Monk said:

98elise said:

It's not quite the same.

Generally Officers need higher qualifications, but a lot of Officers don't need a degree (Pilot for example) and yet some Ratings do.

There are plent of Ratings roles where there is no chance you'll be getting your hands dirty, and some Officer roles where you will spend most of your time working as opposed to purely management.

As a rating the highest rank you can achieve is Warrant Officer which takes a long time and is very senior, yet any Officer, no matter how young and inexperienced, no matter what their qualification is, will be your superior.

The Officer/Rating split is purely a class system (which is its origin). It would be much better to have a single hierarchy system with direct entry points for specialists who will need to manage people from day 1.

Do away with the officer grade, you mean?

No more officer's mess?

No, more of a merging of senior rating and junior officer so that there is a single hierarchy.

There are multiple messes by rank/rate already. Normally juniors/seniors/officers but sometimes seniors are split as well. You need a social space away from your boss.