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RAOC Gazette - page 260

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Corps RAOC
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Full title RAOC Gazette
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Publication date 1981
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Early date 1981
Late date 1981
Transcription McNaught and Sergeant Law have been deserted by Sergeant
Williams for a short while; he is Driver Training at the
Apprentices College. The look on his haggard face his now
grey hair and enforced modifications to his Land Rover tell
their own story.
ADVANCED
CLERKS TRAINING.
The Advanced Clerks
Branch is saying farewell to Sergeant Murphy. Spud made a
very welcome addition to the staff in January this year, when he
transferred from the Headquarters RAOC Training Centre,
Well, thanks to an I of E Inspection in May, Spud has found
himself Surplus to Establishment (though not to requirement!)
and is now off to 154 FAD. On moving to Germany Spud,
who never does things by half, is taking not only the usual new
car but also, his new bride with him. We wish both Karen
and Spud every happiness in their new posting.
BASIC CLERKS BRANCH.
OIC Clerical Training Wing is
Captain Frank Buckelt RAOC and his WOIC WOl Clive
Walch. All Arms Clerks Instructors are W02 Mick Duggan
Irish Guards, W02 Davie Howe RHF, Staff Sergeant Dave
Welham Scots DG, Sergeant Ron Phillpotts RCT 7 Sergeant
Judy Leggott WRAC, Sergeant Dave Whitefield, Mr Ted
Redwood, Mrs Carol Myers, Mrs Maureen Whyte, Mrs Pam
Parrott, Mrs Ursula Douglas and last but not least Mr Tom
Turnbull. These instructors teach potential clerks from every
arm of the Army and have an approximate turnover of some
eight hundred students every year.
Supply Clerk Instructors are:—Staff Sergeant Mick Fortune,
Sergeants Stu Thomson and Eric Hearn and Mr Bill Fisher who
has an unbroken link with the Corps going back to WW2 when he
enlisted as a -Private and retired as a Captain (OEO) and has
been with us as an instructor some fourteen years!
PRINTER
TRAINING
BRANCH.
Congratulations are in
order for Mrs Rose Catterall, wife of Sergeant Derek Catterall
who gave birth to twins this month. Well done both of you
and good luck with the ' double trouble.'
Sergeant Salisbury is seen to be busy selling tickets for a
Celebrity Snooker Evening to be held in the Tela Theatre on
1st October in which Steve Davis, the 1981 Embassy Snooker
Champion, is to appear. Full report later.
Three more RAOC students have joined the branch and the
Printers can now field a formidable Volley Ball Team under the
coaching of Sergeant Ray Hutchings.
able retirement. Joe was given a course at the School of Ord-
nance (see note 9). Be warned.
Note 1. Proof that your correspondent is aware that there
are Ladies as well as Gentlemen within the framework of the
Corps,
Note 2. Juan Ramon Jimenez—* Heroic Reason * Selected
Writings (1957) to H. R. Hays.
Note 3, Metaphorically as distinct from literally, of course.
Note 4. A reference to the area to which the major has
removed and recent events in and around that region.
Note 5. Honest; if s true.
Note 6. Reference to the fact that our latest recruits are
Scottish and Irish respectively. Perhaps AG9 should be tasked
to carefully watch the balance in units.
Note 7. Proof of wide cultural interests on the part of the
correspondent (fact culled from 1001 Totally Useless Snippets of
fairly Boring Information).
Note 8. A little local colour subtly inserted by your in-
genious correspondent without materially affecting the substance
of the letter.
Note 9. Amnesty International having made representa-
tions, Joe was released after two weeks. He is physically well
and, as far as can be ascertained, mentally alert.
Headquarters Scotland
" On yonder hill there stands a Coo
if it's no awa' it'll be there noo"
McGonnigall.
THE above couplet was found on my
desk the day after Brigadier Berresford
left. The paper had an unmtstakeable
*A* Branch feel about it The Brigadier
had paid us a flying visit arriving at
Edinburgh Airport, visiting the Head-
quarters and Regional Depot before fly-
ing to Benbecula and then returning south
from Glasgow Airport. Something we
said obviously impressed as now Lieu-
tenant Colonel Freddie Grant is coming up to find out what
we meant,
SIMPLIFY YOUR GIFT PROBLEM
WITH A GIEVES & HAWKES
Northern Ireland
Gift Voucher
HEADQUARTERS
LETTER
FROM
A COUNTRY
GENTLEMAN
(with lucid and fulsome explanatory notes)
Ladies and Gentlemen, (see note 1).
Hello again from Northern Ireland.
We're all as well as can be expected and
working terribly terribly hard.
WOl Dolly Gray seems to think that
he'll impress us with his energetic en-
deavours—he took a weekend off to run in
the Manchester Marathon—We are not im-
pressed young man, as has been said " The greatest assassin of
life is haste, the desire to reach things before the right time
which means over-reaching them " (see note 2).
Ord Branch had a purge recently, metaphorically speaking
of course (see note 3), Major Mike Newman has gone to Germany
(horrible place, all that cheap booze, those cheap cars and that
nasty, nasty LOA) and Major Anthony Aggett has turned all
studentish and hairy at Manchester (Daddy, Daddy, why has that
man got a buliwhip~-see note 4). In their place we have been
lucky enough to receive two thrusting young majors, (see note 5)
Ian Ross and Jack Ewart (stand up that man who asked why we
were only getting colonial officers in the branch now (see note 6).
Corporal Leo Lenord is currently brushing up on his Russian—
not so much a defeatist as a posting to BRIXMIS. They do say
that a vodka and caviar supper acts as an aphrodisiac (see note 7)
—I must try it sometime.
I should, 1 know end on a happy note, instead 1 end on a
cautionary note—it happens to us all. Joe Henshaw, a civvy,
who spends his day in Ord Branch (works would be a little
too strong a verb) was at last caught; pleas to the International
Court of Human Rights were rejected, a petition to the Irish
Commission for Justice and Peace (see note 8) was ignored;
Joe was sentenced. At the age of sixty three, with a long blame-
less career behind him, with two years to go until an honour-
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216
Book number R0250