Tuesday 5 January 2010

The Worst Duty I Have Ever Done...

Following on from the last post (and sorry for two in one day!), but I just got a tweet from Gaviscon79 on Twitter asking "What's the worst duty you've had to carry out?"

That's an easy one.

In my last job I ran a two-three day exercise for the trainees who were just about to leave their training and RAF Cosford and go into the wider RAF. It ran every Monday - Wednesday - in the field, living in an "austire" environment (very basic conditions).

And Last January (2008) it was very cold.

We'd need to arrive at the training area a good hour before the trainees to set up, and when we did we arrived to a scene that Shackleton, when he was stuck on the ice in the Antarctic, would have shiverred at.

It was a very thick frost. VERY thick. It had been down to -10 in the night before. Jolly cold. Particularly for the edge of rural Shropshire!

As I said the facilities were very basic - just a standpipe for water, and three chemical toilets for...well you know what chemical toilets are for!

And they were frozen up. Solid.

The standpipe was completely frozen...but worse were the chemical toilets.

They were frozen up too. Just imagine. Frozen chemical toilets...

And that (in the words of Forrest Gump) is ALL I have to say on that.

Have a nice warm day - where ever you are!

No comments:

Post a Comment