Thanks both, for the good wishes. I consider myself to be one of the really lucky ones. My illness was found by chance and after an ultrasound scan for a minor problem, followed by a CT scan, I was diagnosed by an NHS consultant as suffering from what was possibly the worst kind of renal problem on Tuesday 31st March. They rushed me into hospital to carry out kidney removal surgery only four days later, on Friday 3rd April. I was discharged just over 48 hours later on Sunday 5th, rather than the normally expected four days to a week, depending on who you speak to!
It was all a bit of a shock, TBH. Everything was done expertly and in a remarkably short time, to get me in and out before the dreaded Covid-19 arrived at the hospital.We have been clapping very loudly on Thursdays!
Anyway, after a bit of pain I’m now a lot better. I decided not to take the strong pain relief they gave me. I didn’t want to risk anything getting strained too early because I do have a high pain threshold and tend to get bored easily… Seems to have worked, the medics are surprised and pleased how quickly I’ve bounced back.
I noticed since getting home that my “dormant” NB needs all four discs renewing (the car lives outside) so I’ve bought a full set of brakes and pads. As soon as it looks like I’ll be allowed to drive the car, I intend to fit them then get it un-SORN’d. No problems doing the work - since getting home I’ve already fixed a badly broken dining chair, a broken petrol lawn mower and mowed two lawns with it (my wife did tell me off about doing that) and yesterday I was up a ladder to unblock a down-pipe on the garage guttering. I’ve also been doing quite a lot of work on my old Royal Enfield motorbike, doing jobs that just “needed doing” to tidy it up.
I’m looking forward to getting back to work for a rest…
Actually, I’m English…technically. Oh God…I’ve said!
Born in Shifnal nr Ironbridge. Of part Welsh ( Dad) & Scots blood ( Mother funnily enough)
Go figure that!
After around a month I thought…“Nah…rather be a Porridgewog in Jockhanistan”
Biggest hill for miles around is that miserable Wrekin pimple
Which on reflection, was not bad for a one months old.
Funnily enough, I tend to support Wales at heart, guess it’s in the blood. Scottish rugby being cack, why bother! All my living relos are born & bred Englishpersons spread from Poole to Shropshire to this day as my elder sister married a young wealthy blade from Shifnal, and they had 3 kids, now retired to Sandbanks.
I’m as much at ease strolling along Chesil Beach as I am Dornoch tbh.
We considered migrating to Lyme. Property prices killed that, and I knew I’d pine for the mountains, lochs, and incredible driving scenery on my doorstep.
I have no living blood relations up here bar 2 cousins I last saw in the early 60’s, but SWMBO has a few up the NE coast from her Highland bloodline. Bar our son of course. Just as well I’m blessed with a few real-deal soul mates from the 60’s and we are tight to this day…surrogate “family” really. It works very well.
Ditto.
Our lad, former RMP, Army instructor, and triple tour Afghanistan Veteran landed a prime role as a Staff Trainer last year with Police Scotland as a result of passing their “attitude tests” and a CV which was about 4" thick with transferrable & relevant skill sets.
Would not have happened had it not been for the Armed Forces.
Did not go down too well with one or two internal candidates but he’s erm…“managing” that situation.
Any contact with the Vulcans during your service? Just the most beautiful machine ever. Grew up about a mile away from Waddington and would hear them running up the engines as I went to sleep at night. Father in law was a chief tech on them too. Currently living a couple of miles from Scampton and can hear one of the Arrows up and around as I type. Just doing single aircraft sorties to keep the pilots current at the moment. Missing seeing them practicing overhead from the garden.
I was at an air show quite a number of years ago, may even have been Scampton, it was somewhere down the A15 (was living in Brigg at the time). I remember the Vulcan cruising in and then climbing away on full power, everything shook!!
Around the same time there were still Lightning’s on the go and I recall one beating up Humberside Airport (where I was working) and then vertically climbing away on full reheat!
The skies were much more interesting in those days
I had that Vulcan climbing away on full power experience at a display at the Shuttleworth Collection, Old Warden many years ago. It set off a few car alarms !
I still vividly remember the Vulcan dropping twenty-one 1000lb chute-retarded low level bombs at Larkhill at a big air exercise in the mid 1970s (74?).
Having got used to seeing the (little?) Phantoms, Harriers and Buccaneers whizzing past and doing their stuff on the target convoys and installations, suddenly the sky was filled by the Vulcan!
And then hearing those bombs going off!
As a civilian I was extremely lucky to be tucked away in a quiet corner of the control tower waiting for my cue, and my job was to remotely switch-on our film cameras scattered amidst the targets, in the hope of getting some decent footage. Two out of our five cameras survived. I’ve been trying to find something about the programme, but no traces. Raymond Baxter was the presenter when it was broadcast.
EDIT. ‘Exercise Skywatch’ was the resulting programme but not the exact name of the exercise, which might have been Skywatch 74.
Not much contact with the Vulcan for me. I joined the RAF to fly Lightnings but my sinuses couldn’t cope with very high rates of climb and descent. I flew helicopters (trained on Whirlwinds and Wessex but did three tours on Pumas, two of them as an instructor and another instructing on Gazelle) with a single ‘rest’ tour as a Bulldog instructor at East Midlands University Air Squadron. I was one of a very small number of RAF pilots qualified to instruct on rotary and fixed wing. I left after just under twenty years service. Then emigrated (with wife and three boys under the age of ten) to the Far East and flew multi role Sikorsky S-76s and Blackhawk helicopters for the Hong Kong Government for four years until after the handover back to China. Then I came back to UK and flew for the Notts/Derbyshire police for three years. Moved to corporate work in 2001 and still doing that now.
I was freezing cold, even in the tower.
After that I scrapped my old quilted m/c leathers, and work bought me a proper goretex down anorak and woolly longjohns for the next location job.
Million to one chance, but did you ever meet John Earp ( call sign “Peleton” in past days in the OC Forum)?
This was his helicopter. Quite a CV she had.
As a young shaver standing by the University Air Squadron Bulldog in the static display at Leuchars air Show (around 1986/7) I vividly remember the Vulcan rotating to (what seemed like to my naive eye anyway) nigh on vertical very close to me. The noise and scale of the machine was tremendous. Along with the mini tornado that swept through the static display shortly afterwards with the huge wing induced vortices.
Concorde also used to set off a lot of car alarms at 1050am back in the day.
That video is a great find too
That adds together action from events spread over a couple of weeks.
The event I was involved with goes from 34 minutes to 41 minutes, filmed separately on Salisbury Plain before the “live” bit.
The Harrier cannon missed their target completely and took out two of my cameras fifteen metres to the left side with direct hits, and nearly hit the Buccaneer targets.
The Phantoms were amazing; the first plane took out the two lead vehicles, the second plane the two rear ones, then the others mopped up the middle. No misses. One Gatling gun round went straight down the lens of our best camera in the middle of the convoy, it found the lens hole in the sheet of 1" armour plate.
The Buccaneers were also amazing; that tower had been a target for forty years, they destroyed it.
The only bit of film used from my cameras is at about 37.38 for a few seconds showing the tower car park being hit.
Three or four (I forget precisely), of the retards did not open from the Vulcan stick, and the bombs skipped on towards the village at the end of the range, and those in the tower were extremely worried. Fortunately they also did not go off.
You’re not some pseudo Scottish-American are you??? 
Oh God…I’ve said!
