Dosing down in transit accomodation

21st and 22nd Jan 2008

There are times in all full time officers lives when we remember the maxim of JFK "Dont ask what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country." We paraphrase that comment and insert "the union" for "your country". One of my committees is a case in point.

Showing good housekeeping- probably beyond the call of of duty, the committee reject the comfort of hotels, with on suite facilities, tea making appliances and TVs in well appointed rooms. Instead the committee meets on military establishments and sleeps in the officers' mess. And don't be fooled as to the luxury that awaits you. Sore disappointment would be your only companion.

The rooms are so like halls of residence in universities as to be uncanny. King Leonides would undoubtedly find them rather Spartan even for his taste.

So when I was told that an overseas course had taken over the Officers' sleeping accomodation I was not fussed. After all, how bad could it be? Initially I thought transit accomodation was sleeping in a van (a little joke I told to myself and smirked at my clever play on words...) On obtaning the keys we realised we had 3 rooms that slept 12 in each. So realistically we'd have 4 per room.

The rooms were on the third floor of a block above the drs and dentist...not an auspicious start I think you'll agree. The key slipped into the lock and swung open on one of the worst scenes I've witnessed in many a year.

The room contained two rows of beds facing each other down its length. There were no bedside lockers, nowhere to hang clothes, half of the lamps above the beds had no light bulbs, and each bed had stacked upon it two starched sheets and two scratchy blankets. Tim Stop became very excited at reliving his youth, Rob Stevenson was philosophical and Q just laughed and said "Fuckin' hell". I was gobsmacked! I suspect that my Anglo Saxon was rather blue!

Jesus! You wouldn't think anyone would put up with this sort of thing. It was like something out of John Brown's School days. No wonder the army officer corp was/is so full of ex public school boys! The shower down the hall was obviuosly loaned from the Americans running Abu Gharib. When turned on it alternated between freezing cold and scorching hot. I'm sure it breaks the UN convention on torture.

Still. You gotta laugh. Well you can after propping up the bar with the Colonel all night and staggering home a bit tired and emotional! Q decided to do an apple pie bed on Tim and myself. Tim's voice boomed out in its baritone "Fuckin' 'ell Q, I'll swing for you, you sod!" Still he got his own back by fishing out an alarm clock handed down from Noah that ticked as loud as Big Ben and glowed so bright in the dark that I'm sure its hands were coated in nuclear waste.

And the snoring! I snore- Q snores, Tim snores and Rob snores! I woke in the middle of the night to the cacophony of manly sounds- snores, farts and slow scratching!

Tim kept calling me Private Bemrose- and marched up and down the room. I think he was thoroughly enjoying himself... still at his age you have to take the enjoyment in small things!