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Forces sweethearts

If you have a family member in the Royal Navy, RAF or army, find support from other Mumsnetters here.

Tradition V Modern

46 replies

vintageteacups · 16/05/2011 18:05

What forces traditions do you think are out of date and which are nice to keep?

No reason - I'm bored.

I'll start with:

poor singlies having to wear suits for dinner in the Mess every night.

OP posts:
scaryteacher · 17/05/2011 09:55

Haven't paid mess bills for almost 7 years now MrsM, as dh has been in Brussels since then....no mess, no bills. Bargain.

MrsMatelot · 17/05/2011 14:42

We've managed to avoid them for 3 years on a foreign too...but now we've moved back.
Was worse when we were both serving, especially when we were not allowed in each others mess (another old fashioned rule thankfully on the decline!)

madwomanintheattic · 17/05/2011 16:00

saltire, we put in a raised vegetable bed so that dd2 could help grow stuff. they told us we had to remove it (brand new - 1 year old, proper raised bed etc). iirc we were billed for them to remove it after we had gone.

i am absolutely certain that if we visited the mq today, the bed would still be there, in use. and yet we paid them to remove it (a pointless exercise). funny old thing.

that was hants, too. they had kindly left two years worth of leaves and overgrowth in the garden, including all the previous occupants pots (one might assume they also got billed for de to rectify the garden, in fact) and, indeed, a special treat in the form of a dog toilet which had been mown over to serrate the plastic top so that unassuming toddlers would get snared and slashed as they crossed the middle of the garden. oh, and an old concrete post, ten feet tall, chucked under the rhodedendron bush. (the old clothes line post, presumably). to be fair it was a big rhodedendron... Grin but once the kids and dogs had thinned it out a bit Blush it was amazing what had been chucked under there...

i've got another 'gotta go' though - march-ins with estate wardens who treat you like a criminal instead of a 40 yo with 3 children at staff college. 'wilful damage will not be tolerated' my arse. you know who you are, shrivenham.

i've got my pre-march-out in two days. the joy.

madwomanintheattic · 17/05/2011 16:01

ooo, eats shoots and leaves. clearly i don't have 3 kids at staff college. not yet, anyway.

Saltire · 17/05/2011 16:05

Another thing which annoys me is the disparity in "rules" depending which DE office you getHmm.

A friend was fined £220 because they hadn't removed picture hooks from the wall,a nd that's how much it was going to cost to remove and fill in

Another friend, differnet DE area was fined £180 because they had removed picture hook, but, having been told that the MQ was due to be painted,only filled the holes in didn't paint over them. So they were fined £180 to paint over filled in holes which were getting painted anyway

MrsSnaplegs · 17/05/2011 16:29

We have also been told we would be charged £200 to remove raised beds we had put in - told them we would do it post march out day as it had snowed (we said we'll have them out this week) - we never got chance to go back, they didn't charge us and to this day the raised beds are still there Hmm

madwomanintheattic · 17/05/2011 16:34

my favourite was when we had been living in the mq for a year when a man turned up to fix a noisy cooker hood. he said it had been on the books for a long time (must have been, we didn't report it).

my kitchen was being ripped out and replaced the following day. in entirety.

you couldn't make it up, really.

picture hooks. Grin i think every single mq we've lived in has had a completely different rule about picture hooks. again, shriv was my absolute fave. they even specify the exact colour aqnd paint type for patch painting over your newly filled picture hook holes. except that the contractors obv just use the cheapest available, rather than the specificed dulux, as it's a completely different colour and finish. Grin

swingingcat · 17/05/2011 16:35

We got "billed" £800 for leaving the compost corner in situ. It was early February and hedgehog was hibernating. Wildlife laws mean nothing to DE.

I will never understand why Officers can not live alongside rank and file.

madwomanintheattic · 17/05/2011 16:49

they do here. houses are allocated on family size.

it actually makes life really difficult. one of dh's soldiers was an alcoholic who had a very turbulent home life. he lived next door. every time anyone has a bbq they feel spied on by the folk writing their annual reports. do they invite them? do they not? do they get drunk and raucous until 3am and wake the boss's newborn? etc etc.

you know how on a patch everyone knows everyone else's business? magnify that by about a zillion percent and watch it come up on sjars.

or facebook, to be fair.

TalcAndTurnips · 17/05/2011 17:32

My DH bemoans the removal of stiff collars from standard kit issue - he still wears his for a lot of occasions and considers them much smarter. They look desperately uncomfortable to me - but he's a lover of tradition and his uniform is always immaculate.

He often drips about the fact that some (by no means all, though) of the younger chaps have let their standards of dress slip - both in and out of uniform - and the fact that most wardrooms allow "the devil's cloth" these days. I must admit I do like to see a well turned-out officer; good shirts and proper shoes; I'd be sad to see these traditions get watered down.

scaryteacher · 17/05/2011 17:46

I think dh wore a stiff collar when we got married, but he just buys shirts from slops now...entailing a trip back to UK to buy the buggers.

TalcAndTurnips · 17/05/2011 18:16

I remember when our eldest was born, our midwife still wore starched collars with her uniform! She and DH swapped collar-starching tips (that was an exciting afternoon) whilst I floundered about hopelessly with new baby (no innate mothering skills there)

vintageteacups · 17/05/2011 18:53

T&T - Grin @ "swapped collar-starching tips" !!!

OP posts:
madwomanintheattic · 17/05/2011 18:57

you wouldn't get that sort of service on the nhs...

wheresthepimms · 17/05/2011 19:00

I can remember my mother once washed and ironed my DHs shirt, he was not the most happy person in the world after Angry, when he asked why she hadn't starched the collars she replied "starch, can you still buy that stuff".

I think that when you get dined out of the mess you should have the choice of what you get as a wife, flowers play havoc with my hayfever and last time we were dined out the day before we moved into a hotel before flying to the states, mine didn't even make it home from the mess and we got billed for them. Now a nice box of chocolates, or a bottle of wine that would ease your moving troubles Grin

wheresthepimms · 17/05/2011 19:03

Oh and heres one what is "fair wear and tear" because with 4 DCs 10 and under my definition is no where near the DHE definition Grin, more Wine required as I look at the latest art piece the 4 year old has drawn on the kitchen wall this time (oh well only 2 walls and there is one in every room)

MrsSnaplegs · 17/05/2011 20:13

Scary I can go and get them from naval stores for him and post them if you want - let me know!

MrsSnaplegs · 17/05/2011 20:15

Ah starched uniform that brings back some memories of folding my nurses hat! Now theres a sad loss - real QARNNs uniform!!

TalcAndTurnips · 17/05/2011 21:50

madwomanintheattic our midwife was most definitely employed by the NHS! She was just very old-school - hugely reassuring, sensible and bloody marvellous.

We always have a tub of traditional starch in the house - not only for collars of course; it's great for when you want to make silly shapes with your table napkins.

madwomanintheattic · 17/05/2011 22:11
Grin i've only had one nhs midwife and she broke dd2. i try to stick to the o'seas ones...
scaryteacher · 17/05/2011 23:07

Thanks Mrs S ..... he either goes into Devonport when we go home in the summer, or goes into Portsmouth when we stay with db.

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