Ashes to Ashes - Dust to Dust

We Fish-heads at RNAS Lossiemouth were kept well away from the Zoomies of the  Fleet Air Arm. They had nice new accommodation blocks, four to a room, while we were bundled into a brick hut on the outskirts of the Airport, where our bad influence could be kept to a minimum.  You never know what you might catch from a Fish-head!! And they drink too much!!.

In our billet we had an antiquated old coal-burning stove, which just about heated  the place, if you sat on it!  During the winter we just stayed in bed, or on watch!

This particular day, Chefs had just finished, and the night shift were getting ready to go to bed, we were all sitting around the stove, reading the papers, chewing the fat etc., as one does!  When the ‘ash bucket’ exploded!

We thought we had been bombed, or a Buccaneer had come through the window, panic stations were the order of the day but  it soon became obvious what had  happened. Some plonker had put hot ashes on top of an empty shaving foam can!

With my vivid imagination, I had visions of archeologists unearthing us in a thousand years and wondering where the Volcano was? Vesuvius and Pompeii sprang to mind. We even had the dirty pictures on the wall!

It took us weeks to clean the place, and no one would admit to doing it!

So come on then, you can own up now………