Story 1
With the benefit of hindsight this might be why – 30+ years later – my lower back hurts like hell and i walk like John Wayne in the mornings. Nobody tells you about the long term disbenefits when you’re young and mad fer it 💪🪂🙄.
Story 2
Me and my first ‘company car’
When you exceeded 100mph in it (for example if you had a ‘hot date’ at an airport or a cross channel ferry to ‘catch’) the glass upper half of the boot would open of its own accord. Good for aircon. Bad for luggage management.
I think this was a precursor to the SV line of Range Rovers. The thing under the bonnet was utterly ridiculous. I wondered on two occasions – whilst needing to get somewhere tout de suite – what its top speed was and 💩 myself on both occasions whilst it was still comfortably accelerating (* legally permitted to exceed the speed limit if deemed operationally necessary ).
The flameproof onesie was de rigeur at the time. I think they were from Man at C&A. I’ve still got the balaclava and wear it on special occasions around Big Moor.
Me and that behemoth had a right laugh going to odd places at odd times of day to do odd things and all whilst being paid 🤩.
Story 3
Me on ‘adventurous training’ whilst a recruit in the British Army. Didn’t go well.
We lined up at stores and they tried to issue me knee length red woollen socks, breeches, a knee length kagoul, massive boots and a rucksack with an external frame. ‘Am i allowed to use my own kit ?’ i enquired
‘F’ing something, f’ing something, wouldn’t know a hill if i f’ing tripped over one …. ‘ was the reply.
It was begrudgingly agreed that i could but the DS looked forward to me ‘suffering in my shit kit’.
On the top of Pen y Fan i was asked to ‘name that hill over there’. I named everything you could see in every direction. During a brief time at Uni in Wales i’d spent a lot of weekends kipping in the barn at Upper Neuadd Reservoir and thrashing myself for miles around. I was on ground i knew intimately. Then we had a ‘time trial’ to the campsite at the Navy gaff at Tal y Bont. When the second person eventually arrived (one of the DS) i’d already pitched my tent, cooked and eaten my rations and was throwing a frisbee to myself. That didn’t go down well either.
I had a similar experience probably 5 yrs later on a week long solo point-to-point nav ex around the Lake District which was pre selection for another Army outfit. At the penultimate checkpoint (a CP in Buttermere) i was read an 8 fig grid ref – then bollocked for not writing it down – when i replied ‘i don’t need to Sergeant i know where it is’, I was invited to do a lot of press ups and then asked why i hadn’t looked at me map. ‘That’s the lawn outside the Coledale Inn in Braithwaite’ i replied. ‘How the fuck do you know that’ came the reply. My PE teacher at school ran loads of outdoor ed trips nearby and after school i lived in a cave in Borrowdale … the cave was where Millican Dalton lived – do you know who he was, i asked ?
Lots more press ups.
The racing snake DS set off on the last leg ahead of me but he stayed N of Coledale Beck. I saw him as i went down Barrow Door and had finished a cheeky pint by the time he arrived. More swearing.
‘Character building’ they called it. The trick was to tune out the noise and remember you were being well paid to go up and down hills. *Calf lick = models own.