cadets – Page 6 – Fooyah

December 18 2014December 18 2014

Lisa

Lisa was a friend of mine. We spent about six years going to air cadets together. And then, when I was at university she died.

Eventually I hope that some of the communications in this site are about people who influenced me. People I am proud to have known. People I remember.

Lisa and I lived in the same village. I think she was a year older than me. We didn’t socialise in the village. We met when we ended up at the same air cadet squadron. In those days the Sqn put on a minibus to collect kids from the “villages” so we could get to parade nights. Eventually, once we were older, we ended up giving each other lifts into town so we could attend cadets. We would chat a lot and discuss the latest episode of “Happy Days”. Lisa was also a campanologist. I have no idea if she was religious or not, but on Sunday’s that was her thing. Once for my birthday she bought me “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols” on tape. Quality.

One day when I was at university I met my dad for lunch and he told me that Lisa had died. She was playing football and collapsed. They didn’t find out what happened. I was slightly shocked at first but I accepted it. I was sad. Of course I was. The pain I felt was at the thought of losing the person I had spent quite a bit of time with. But I knew it would get better.

Lisa’s funeral was in the village. There was quite a large contingent from cadets there and the church was packed. People were sitting in the aisles. After the service her coffin was lowered into the ground outside the church. I didn’t go and look. For some reason I had a “Home And Away” quote in my head: remember them as they were, not as they are. I have no idea where it really came from but I did watch Aussie soaps at that time. That evening our group went out in Sawbridgeworth and celebrated the life of Lisa in the traditional fashion.

I have occasionally been to speak to Lisa. Once I went after the tenth anniversary meal of the cadet squadron. Rich and I left our dates at my parents house and ran down to the graveyard to speak to Lisa. I was quite drunk. I haven’t been to the grave for a long time. Life has been busy and got in the way really. I intend to visit over the Xmas period while I’m in the village. Hence this the other day:

Just had an incredible urge to go and talk to Lisa. Let her know everything that has happened since I last spoke to her.

— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 16, 2014

I can’t encapsulate years of friendship in this communication. But I can at least write a little. I still think of her. All of my readers needn’t worry. I don’t go to speak to her or her “soul”. Once you are dead, that’s it. The end. Nothing more. It’s a nice idea that we live on but one that reduces our real life to a time of fear. Embrace life and accept the truth. I go to speak to Lisa (I do very little actual speaking), to remember and keep her alive in my heart.

Lisa sent me the coolest Christmas card I ever got. She used to work in the printers workshop in the village. On the front was a snowman I think with a red scarf. Inside the card read:

Wishing you a piss poor Christmas and a fucking horrible new year.

November 22 2014November 22 2014

Conversions

Part of the plan of this collection of communications is to be a memory bank. A written form of my consciousness and what makes me work. Some who know me will probably agree that the world isn’t ready for a completely exposed view of Ian Parish yet and so, obviously this is an edited version of me. Unlike many people on the interwebbything I am acutely aware that this is a public forum. Most of my contentious points will be backed up with arguments, whether valid or not, to give some sense of how I reached my conclusions. I try to back up statements of fact with evidence and, my opinion is just that.

I’m quite happy to say that praying to a zombie-god-son-ghost thing is crazy, but at the same time I understand why people do it. I also think that following the Chinese-whispered depraved musings of a seventh century paedophile-war-lord is nuts. But then, I’ve looked at the evidence. My rule in life is the same as the rule in my classroom:

Be nice to people

If you think I’ve not been nice to people in the previous paragraph then please be aware I have just mentioned their beliefs and not the individual. you are welcome to believe in unicorns but I will calmly explain that unicorns don’t exist. If you get angry when I question your beliefs then you should possibly examine those beliefs. Also, if little ol’ me questioning you makes your faith waver then your faith is misplaced.

These pages are clearly like buses. Wait long enough and Parish will rant about religion or stupidity or anti-science or crazy people within a communication about a quiz question [yep, that’s what this is about]. There should be a Godwin’s Law thing for me.

In the early 90s I was closely involved with two main Air Cadet squadrons. There was the good one, 309, and our neighbour, 1096 Sqn based in Bishop’s Stortford. I once attended a quiz evening at 1096 Squadron. I’ve a feeling I was probably 19 or so. I’m not sure if I had started university or was working for Cossor Electronics at that time. I am going to moan about the quiz master getting an answer wrong.

So, we nearly at the point I promise. Also, it’s not worth reading any further, but if you’ve made it this far I am impressed.

What is the speed of sound?

I answered quite quickly with the answer 330 m/s [at standard temperature and pressure]. When the answers for that round were passed around for marking the official answer was 700mph give or take 50 mph. When we got our answers back I noticed that question was marked wrong. I took our answer sheet to the quiz master and explained that 330 m/s was near-enough the same as 700mph, I even demonstrated a conversion using those odd things that are called numbers and that strange thing called mathematics.

Was the quiz master convinced? No. I wasn’t allowed to have 330 m/s the answer. Why is this still in my memory? Possibly because of mathematical ignorance but really I don’t know but it’s there with other “key” events or interactions that surface now and then.

Another question was

How many wheels does Concorde have?

Look it up.

November 15 2014November 15 2014

Remembrance Day 2014

First Remembrance Day Parade for me last Sunday. I received my No.1 uniform the Wednesday previous and had some minor adjustments to make on the belt. After that I needed to find braces (not allowed to wear a belt – no loops). Essentially, I ended up marching through Maidstone town centre at around 10:30 heading to the war memorial.

Amusingly the vicar taking half of the service, it was shared, was called Ian Parrish. It is something that will make me giggle for a few years yet! It turns out he used to be in the Army. I’m not sure I quite understand how those two jobs can lead into each other but he’s not the first ex-military vicar I have met.

I chose not to sing during the national anthem along with not taking part in any of the prayers or hymns. You might not have realised but I’m quite not-religious and also struggle with identifying with a country or even the hereditable head of state. See some musings here.

Here’s the important part, photos, I’m the one in the middle, in blue. Please don’t confuse me with the Navy officers next to me!

And another, but not a full facial!

October 7 2014

Glider Flying Log

It’s been a while, but you could catch up on all these in a single session by searching Fooyah.net for a list of 3822 communications! What follows is a list of the gliding experiences I had as an Air Cadet a long time ago. These were my formative years and this community influenced me a lot, enough to still get involved.

As a Squadron we would go to RAF Wethersfield in Essex and go gliding with 614 VGS a squadron of volunteer pilots.

Here follows my log:

As you can see the 21 July 1990 was a bumper day for gliding. Most flights tended to be a short hop as the glider is winched up to about 1000ft and then does a single circuit as it returns to land. On the 21st it was a sunny day and there were plenty of thermals. I can remember parts of my 35 minute flight, I almost got bored, which is a terrible thing to say about flying!! I could see the other gliders in the air at the time and had a great view of Wethersfield.

I also remember that Lisa was having a flight and coming around to land when her glider traded altitude for velocity and sped up greatly while heading towards the ground, from my view the glider even dropped below the tree line and I was slightly worried but a couple of seconds later the glider popped up from below the tree line and landed successfully.

I always felt that gliding was a poor cousin to powered flying but I think I would appreciate its beauty a little more now. Don’t get me wrong, any chance to go flying and experience these things was great, but given the choice, I’d go powered flying first.

August 7 2014August 7 2014

CCF Camp LOO

I spent a week recently on CCF Annual Camp at RAF Linton-On-Ouse. It was a busy week, travelling early one Saturday and returning late the following Saturday.

Here’s a rundown of the activities:

Invasion planning activity
Flight simulator activity
Ten pin bowling
Visit to RAF Fylingdales
Visit to Whitby
Obstacle Course
High Ropes
Elvington Aircraft Museum
Linton-On-Ouse Memorial Room
Sport
Section visits to:
- Air Traffic Control
- Flight Safety Equipment
- 72R Squadron
- Flight Planning
- Depth Engineering
Drill competition with the SWO
Dishforth Army Air Corps base
- Armoury
- Lynx Squadrons
- Survival Equipment

Some things of note:

One evening we saw two V22 Ospreys fly over the base.

There were two fire alarms in the officers’ mess. One was about 0630 and we all left the building in whatever state of dress we were in. The next was later that day as we were all sitting down to dinner. No one moved for quite a while, we were all quite sure that it was not a “big thing”. Eventually someone told us to get out of the building and we wandered out the front door just as the firemen were walking in [they had driven from the other side of the airfield] I don’t think they were too happy with us!

Here are a selection of photos from that camp:

Taken with my iPhone, hence the finger marks — Whitby

Here’s a couple of amusing things, just because there probably isn’t enough humour on this site [it’s mostly me moaning about things].

This was a question that came up on some crappy Tv show I saw when I had a spare ten minutes just before dinner one evening:

Here’s a picture that I tweeted not long after a visit to Dishforth. This is probably the best toilet I’ve ever seen. It’s not glamorous but it does have a magazine rack!

Also, here’s a running route I did. It was a standard PTI route I found when I was in the station gym.

August 4 2014

Ongoing Works

This is a picture of a path at RAF Linton-on-Ouse. Either they ran out of money, expect people with very longs legs to use it or are just plain lazy.

Perhaps, as this base is where they train future fast jet pilots, it’s a lesson in looking forward and being aware. All I know is that I don’t understand how this could be considered logical.

July 22 2014July 22 2014

Powered Flying Log

I know, I know. This is just another list of stuff!

So very true, but this is the biggie. This is why you join the cadets. If you want to see the other communications in this series then click here.

Just before I enter the list you may or may not be interested to know that aerobatics really messes me up. I positively enjoy the experience of aero but it will make me sick and turns me into a useless lump of cells for a few hours as my body recovers. I will go green and then white, I have headaches and everything spins for ages. After anything up to five hours later I will become very hungry, that signals the start of my recovery. I really enjoy flying and aerobatics but I just have to be aware of the consequences.

My total time is just over 21 hours. That’s not bad even if it includes two flights to Cyprus which I’ve counted because I was flying “on duty”.

I also recently had a flight in a Grob Tutor while on camp at Brize Norton. I got around a 40 minute flight, it was a much better experience than the chipmunk.

July 21 2014July 22 2014

7.62 SL Rifle Shooting

We are about half way through my record of service book! There’s some flying and a few band engagements to go! However, this communication concerns my relationship with the SLR.

The SLR felt like a proper gun. It was quite heavy, loud when fired and had a reasonable kick. Unlike the single shot No. 4 .303 rifle [which was bolt action] this one would load the next round automatically, hence: Self Loading Rifle. The cadet version of the weapon system was fixed to be semi-automatic only. Before I could fire this weapon I had to pass a safety test and learn how to strip the weapon down and clean it. I always enjoyed firing this weapon even if the kick still hurt quite a bit.

25 August 1987 – 20 rounds
27 August 1987 – 70 rounds
10 October 1987 – 50 rounds
12 April 1988 – 25 rounds
28 July 1988 – 10 rounds

After this date the SLR was replaced with the L98A1 rifle.

June 28 2014July 22 2014

Station Visits

This communication is another in the long running series about my cadet experiences in the Air Training Corps. I have a sneaky feeling that I didn’t always fill my 3822 in all the time as I am sure there were more visits than this, but this is the only record I have. To see other communications on this topic just search for 3822 in the box on the right.

30 Jul 1986 RAF Neatishead – RADAR
22 Nov 1986 RAF Uxbridge – Range
26 Aug 1987 RAF Little Rissington
18 Feb 1988 USAFB Mildenhall – RADAR and refuelling
13 Apr 1988 Trodos Radar Station – RADAR
1 May 1988 RAF Alconbury – Propulsion
27 Jul 1988 RAF Waddington – Swimming pool
27 Jul 1988 RAF Cranwell – Leadership
16 Aug 1989 USAFB Lakenheath – Everything
17 Aug 1989 RAF Coltishall – AEF
18 Aug 1989 RAF West Raynham – Supply, RTU, Fire
6 Aug 1991 RAF Swinderby – Airfield
7 Aug 1991 RAF Newton – AEF
9 Aug 1991 RAF Donna Nook – Bombing Range

As a teaser the next set of communications considers my shooting career in the cadets and will, I assure you, be scintillating.