What’s made you happy for a change

Don the Don

Don the Don

Legendary Knight
Sarky B’stard

Sarky B’stard

Legendary Knight
Truthfully, even the old gore-tex waterproofs were different between Army and RAF. The Army's didn't have pockets for your hands.......

Well you couldn't stuff your hands in under the webbing! No point spend an extra quid a jacket for a surplus feature.
 
Don the Don

Don the Don

Legendary Knight
Sarky B’stard said:
Truthfully, even the old gore-tex waterproofs were different between Army and RAF. The Army's didn't have pockets for your hands.......

Well you couldn't stuff your hands in under the webbing! No point spend an extra quid a jacket for a surplus feature.
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Those pockets came in very handy for putting FOD or any other item when working on the line, better to put things in a pocket than have them digested by an Aircraft engine,

As for webbing we left that for Regiment types and WAAF's with fishnet's
 
Big Sandy

Big Sandy

Legendary Knight
I remember them bringing the Ark Royal into Cairnryan for breaking. Folks living roundabout couldn't understand why they kept losing the TV signal at certain times of day... Took them a while to figger out it was AR going up and down on the tide. Must have been 1980/81?

Previous to that was HMS Eagle. The guy I worked for at that time had a lot of timber work from the main cabin in his dining room. I remember they took the steel to Ravenscraig for recycling, we were heading to Ayr one day and there was an anchor lying at the side of the road in the ditch.... We thought we'd lift it and take it home, but noooo... Waaay to heavy, must have been a ton at least. There was a submarine being scrapped at the same time... About 78/79 I think.

Breakers yard is long gone now.... They used to ship out surplus munitions from there after the war, dump them out by Ailsa Craig. Think its a P&O ferry terminal, or stena link....
 
MartytheMartian

MartytheMartian

Legendary Knight
I remember the white phosphorus from Beaufort's dyke being washed ashore along the Ayrshire coast every time there was a storm. Can't remember whether it was eighties or nineties now jeez my memory is getting crap! They reckoned it was disturbed by cable laying to Ireland. ICI (Nobel Explosives) dumped what must have been hundreds of thousand of tonnes of munitions out at Beaufort's dyke after WWII. The stuff had been stored in the underground bunkers that ran for acres around the plant (I've been in them when I was at ICI in the mid eighties as it was running down and they were huge) and they simply filled ship after ship with them from the ICI dock at the mouth of the river Irvine and took 'em out to sea. I believe there are probably still a tonne or two here or there in forgotten or deliberately 'lost' bunkers in the former ICI Nobel's works.
 
Big Sandy

Big Sandy

Legendary Knight
Sarky B’stard said:
ammo dump was in Beaufort's Dyke
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That name rings a bell... Didnt they dump a load of radioactive waste in there as well, in the 50's and 60's? I thought the munitions were off Ailsa... See what I mean about memory?

I do remember them doing the speed trials on a new destroyer in the 80's, off Ailsa Craig... The turbines going full tilt, about 8 miles offshore, sounded pretty awesome. Made the house windows rattle... (not our house, I wasn't living in Girvan, just working.)
 
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Big Sandy

Big Sandy

Legendary Knight
I was supposed to have had an apprenticeship with Barrs, they had the contract to run concrete to the bombing range in Luce Bay.... I went working elsewhere for more money and it was nearer home. On reflection, should have taken the apprentice mechanic job!

I think the cone target things are still out in the bay... We're last time I went past.
 
Old Nick

Old Nick

Legendary Knight
The God of bike tinkering still loves me:)

Fitting some passenger pegs to the Thruxton and the little ball bearing in the fitting assembly shot off its spring as I was easing it into place and went over my head into the void that is known as my patio:oops:

Heart sank thinking I’ll never find that and there it was stuck in the gaps between the paving slabs(y)

Sometimes it pays not to maintain the garden too much:p
 
Sarky B’stard

Sarky B’stard

Legendary Knight
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