if you don't believe me

IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME, ASK YORKIE

CAN PEOPLE REALLY BE THAT STUPID!

This first section will be mainly dedicated to the activities of Alan Greystone, Yorkie Elsey and myself. It proves that you can really do some stupid things and still live to tell the tale.

“We’ve got a leak in one of the tanks”. Just the sort of cry you want to hear half way through a Saturday morning. Not only was it a leak, it was a leak in an Avgas tank. That meant action was necessary before we could shoot off to the NAAFI for our wee dram of beverage.

****************************************

The tanks were of the old bolted variety, and about 3 feet up the side of the bottom plate the fuel was seeping out at a quite alarming rate. There was no way that the fuel could be transferred to another tank. No space anywhere. The only obvious solution was out with the pumps and pump in seawater until the fuel was above the level of the leak + enough to allow water to leak until Monday when we could come up with a solution. Pump, pump, pump. Job done. Off to the NAAFI.

Monday morning, nothing out of the ordinary until a scrawny RE from the main offices comes to the Tank Farm Office. More of a shed really, in fact the name was grander than the structure.

“Could someone give the airfield a ring?” No problem, nothing too technical required there. I can’t recall who made the call, Yorkie or myself. I know it wasn’t Sgt Greystone, he never surfaced much before 9am.

The call went something like this:

Airfield: “Have you got any fresh Water Finding Paste?”

Alan/me: “What do you want that for?”

Airfield: “ We think there’s something wrong with ours, it may be out of date.”

Alan/me; “What makes you think that?”

Airfield: “We’re getting a Pink Reading for the entire length of the dipstick”

Alan/me: “You can’t be, it’ll only register on water. You must be doing something wrong”

Airfield: “I’m telling you, it’s reading as though the entire tanker is filled with water!”

It’s amazing how a suntan can turn white so quickly, especially when you realise that the “Blue Jobby” at the airfield has not made a mistake.

Yes you’ve guessed. A weekend of heavy beveraging had numbed the senses and done a bit of brain pickling.

Monday morning, first job, send 2500 gallons of Avgas to the airfield to refuel the Hastings. No problem. Swing over the old filling arm, quick twitch on the starting handle, and off we go.

“Thanks lads, see you later.” He didn’t realise he’d be seeing us sooner than anticipated.

It was all coming together, Leaky tank, seawater, Avgas. Need I say more. Thank the good Lord they’d not got as far as getting the stuff into the plane. We’d still be in Changi Gaol now.

Needless to say we were a little more careful in the future. We’d do a water dip before anything left our domain.

**************************************************

A few shorts about our glorious leader. Sgt Alan Greystone, the original Nutty Professor. Thankfully he was only with us for a short while. I honestly believe that if we’d spent the entire year in his company, one or even both of us would come to an extremely sticky end.

As the photo caption says in my gallery, ( See photo )he was a Health & Safety man’s worst nightmare. He was a really nice bloke, brilliant at maths and anything theoretical, but when it came to even the most simple of practical tasks he’d lose the plot completely. I think it was a miracle that he left the Army without having to account for one fatality. More by luck than good judgement.