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"Mystique of the Officers"...FFS...more like the pomposity of the aristocracy. I can't even stand to watch or listen to that kind of rubbish, too many of those in the past that I can remember. They had nothing to show the men. They didn't even do their own kit, batmen were still in vogue. Once we got rid of ours, the officers' dress went straight into the toilet. Sitting on their beds though...unheard of...
If you watch the second vid Gil, you'll find they're the "Envy of the parachute brigade"...or some tripe such according to the gentleman narrating, from Abingdon... Ox and Bucks officer no doubt.
Jim,
Thought I would give you a weekend chuckle "old boy what". Nuff to make you want to thow up, especially listening to the briefing by the Guards PARA Independent chappies in Part 2!!
Waiting for Peter to come on, it will remind him of his training days!!:lol:
There are several parts to this, part two had an officer blathering on about wearing his headress whenever he wanted to. Indoors, at mess, if he wanted to or even if he didn't... Definitely a gentleman with verbal diarrhea...running off at the gums like... An officer needed to fit and be accepted...FFS... Yes, Peter may admit to knowing some of these people too.
Old school tie and all that, lacky bulling his kit for him and polishing his shoes everynight, thats what they had. Grenadiers/Colstream Gds Officers are the worst....Eton crowd all part of the club!!:bow:
We had an exchange offr in Camp Gagetown that was OC C Coy for a bit. He was a Guards offr and I'd be lying to say which... He was the height of pomposity, Sir Hervy ***** if you please. A hereditary knight, (didn't know it carried on), claimed to be descended from Robert the Bruce, the original. Had a party at his married quarters for his lackies(us) and the ones that went came back with stories of seeing his knighthood displayed in the loo... His reasoning was that was EVERYONE would see it and read it as they would go to the can at least once while there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gil Boyd
He was replaced by a Major from the Scottish Borderers. Now that man was a completely different offr. He wore battle dress daily where Sir Hervy wore dress uniform, just like he was back in Perbrite.
I know, you have a dozen stories to dwarf that one...
"...A hereditary knight..." No such thing.
No batmen since at least W.W. II in the CF. Gone in the British Army after W.W. I. Except in the Household Div. Being a batman was highly desired as it got you out of BS 'busy work', you got fed better and promoted faster.
Interesting bits and pieces cut and spliced haphazardly. Could make an interesting afternoon working out which bits were cut from training films and what they were originally intended for. Also which bits are from newsreels and which were made tongue in cheek. Some nice bits of historical British army stuff too.
Would be interesting to research the reason for and use of batmen, and why they faded away.
.........................Daan, their fingers just got plain worn out :lol:
Never seen anything like in all me liiiiiiiiiife..........;)
I will admit that I briefly; very, very briefly, entertained the ambition to be a Grenadier Guardsman before sanity prevailed, and I returned to my senses.
I was 8 years old at the time.
I've met and know a few ex Guardsmen not all Grenadiers though, one story of a Scotts Guards CSM does tickle me a bit..... A mate of mine (Ex Mob) who was with me in Tilbury looking after some laid up ferries was on about a drill session for some parade when they up in Scotland, for some reason there was no drill instructor so a CSM from the Scots Guards was drilling them........ bear in mind he has probably had a gut full of being called "Chief"
Obviously the guards peak cap was worn so you couldn't see the blokes eyes so when he was in your face it was a case of looking down at the peak and moustache and breathing in the Whiskey fumes...... so on the order of Present arms ...... the bloke next to my mate did so accordingly only to find his bayonet jump of his (L1A1) and hit the deck......
Once the sound of cold steel rattling around on the floor stopped the sound of the CSM grew closer and closer and to my mates astonishment was in the front of him..... my mate was waiting until he heard the blast complete with Whiskey fumes....
CSM: "Have you got a hard on"
Mate: "No Chief"
CSM: "You F*****g Should have standing next to that C**t "
Yes there are, the title is Baronet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunray
---------- Post added at 06:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:26 PM ----------
Circa 1970 a friend of mine enlisted in the British Sister Regiment to his Canadian Regiment after completing joint manouvers in Canada...Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
He absolutely distains British Officers today....
After watching that...i think i have a glimpse of why...
Just as per GeeRam...... never seen anything like it in my life. I mean...., whatever were they thinking about even allowing anyone to film such self serving knob heads...... The black cat on the arm flash was 17 Brigade on the East coast of Malaya but they were based over in Borneo for a lot of the time. I would imagine that this was filmed in the mid 60's or so and they were the next to last poms out there, replaced by the KSLI for a couple of years. And then they were gone too. As for wearing those dopey peaked hats in a search and cordon operation. Whatever were they thinking about.
Words fail me. Incidentally, back o the first programme, those rooms that the crunchies were in were called SPIDERS. Made of double skinned wood and quite warm, even in the cold Carlisle winter of 1962/63.
.....................................with the one coal fire in the centre of the room, surrounded by kit drying after a day on the Brecons, sight seeing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:madsmile:
Apologies up front but whilst watching both Part 1 and Part 2, all I could think of was this must have been the film that inspired Monty Python.
I spent 40 years working in the City from 1975 to 2016, a fair number of ex Guards officers ended up working in the City, old boys network etc.
They needed the old boys network, because in the real world a surprising number of them are as thick as two short planks ;)
You have to get an education. The QOR here in Victoria had batmen back in the end of the '60s. I know men personally that did the job. I know officers that had them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunray
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunray
There you go... Split hairs if you will.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee Enfield
Given my quip as a nod to RSM Britten's oft quoted phrase in the the film They Were Not Divided, a brief cameo in that film was made by the legendary Mick's CSM/RSM Des Lynch MBE, DCM, who was later commissioned in 1961 and then served 3 years in the Commonwealth Brigade at Taiping and Malacca in Malaya between 61-64.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
20 years ago, I used to play snooker down the Legion with my father and a friend of his, who was an ex-Irish Guardsman who served at the end of the war with 30 Corps and for some years post WW2, and he didn't think much of the 'legendary' RSM Britten, but reckoned Des Lynch was one of the two best RSM's he ever knew, the other being the legendary RSM John Lord.
Have to agree about Lordy, he served the Brigade of Guards well before seeing the light and joining The Parachute Regiment. He did however, make an unruly bunch of non square bashers into a unified formation on the drill square anyway.
He was feared by men and officers alike, and as an ex WO1 RSM I can say it is the only post where you can contradict the officer class and pull them up on the side if they too get it wrong, and show them the true skills of soldiering!!
My mentor and a man I had so much time for, who was a crazy as a box of frogs but ALWAYS got the job done was WO1 RSM Nobby Arnold...............a true Parachute Regiment Legend with Lord too beside him IMHO.
He's been in a few scrums from the look of his nose and brow.
One of the finest men I ever met was CWO Donald Reekie. RSM of the 2nd Battalion, Black Watch of Canada, RCR and the Airborne regiment.
Paul,
Boxing put a bend in his nose and he was good at it!!
Talking about Officer the class, listen at 36:01 and what happened to this Lance Corporal when he objected to officers having servants on the Front Line very interesting:
The end of the First World War (Part 1 of 2) - YouTube
'...and he was good at it!'
I'm guessing he was a light heavyweight as was my dad. My dad's record was 21 - 1. He lost the 1 on a TKO for a broken nose. He told his coach he'd quit when he lost and he did.
If I was really honest, I always thought that the best Warrant Officers that I knew and the ones that I always thought that I'd like to be like were the NZers. I never made it to that rank. As for Officers, then Australians as none of them had any airs and graces. REME ones were generally just reasonable get-on-with-it-blokes. But back to that Guards video........ It makes me wonder what the platoon Sergeants and Company senior NCO's were doing when those pompous Ruperts were getting above themselves in front of the men and the TV cameras. The senior NCO's should have been taking them aside and telling them in no uncertain terms that they are acting like buffoons. As for some of those sloppy salutes that were nothing more than a casual wave........ They should have been pulled up for that PDQ.
I know a platoon Cpl who saluted one of the platoon commanders (a Lt) as he marched the platoon off the square one morning after the short muster parade. Not getting a salute in reply....... In fact nobody ever got a salute in return, Dave Findlay waited until there was a slightly more senior officer, the Company 2i/c, a Captain on parade too. Then he stopped the squad, marched up to Lt Cxxxx and told him that he'd saluted and expected a salute in return. And not just today, but EVERY day. After a bit of a guff/feeble excuse about not seeing etc etc and an apology, Cxxxx was called over to the Coy 2i/c and presumably given a 'talking to.....' Also known as 'Coffee - without sugar'!
I saw that too, we used to have a bit of a problem with that in the '70s after unification but the Snr NCOs took hold of it soon after. The English and Aus offrs I knew had flawless salutes though...Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
The Guardsman film is one of those that they ought to revisit and get together all of those who recorded it. Just to see what they are like now. I wonder of they are still as bumptious.....
Some never do get over it. They find themselves retiring to the Cadet Instructor List so they can stay in uniform, afraid to quit because it's the only place anyone will notice them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
The pathetic thing is that those officers, most likely all Old Etonians, had that mentality so thoroughly engrained in them growing up and from their school days. That behaviour and attitude was the only one they'd ever known, and likely to know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
FYI: The London Magazine
'School Ties' - the schools, some facts, and a few of their old boy notables.
From the comments it seems that there is a lack of officers commenting, and an even greater lack of British officers commenting about British officers. Might add value to this officer bashing thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daan Kemp
Well, Peter Laidler is a British offr, he's here hip deep...that's just one. I'll let the other identify himself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daan Kemp
There is no 'officer bashing' going on here. There are comments being made by former service members of various nations, branches and ranks about a particularly noticeable display of class snobbery, some arrogance and a degree of unprofessional behaviour by the officers interviewed in the above video. I dare say, that all of us who have commented have met and served with, or under, officers who demonstrated, and set, a much higher degree of professionalism and character.
As "most" ex Officers will attest to. There is a code amongst officers, that they will always protect each other from the rank and file.
I am sure every one of us ex servicemen and women have seen it in action, following an incident that was clearly an officer "error" and the coverup or blame being shifted to an NCO.
Seen it countless times, and there is nothing you can do about it..........unless you are an RSM.
Then God can unleash hidden gems which often did occur;);):)
Oh yes, and if an intelligent, resourceful NCO is in a position that greatly leapfrogs the normal chain of command, it is also possible that when he and a senior officer go toe to toe and nose to nose over an issue that the senior officer might find himself sacked and posted away. Seen it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Gil Boyd
We have a saying........... Dog doesn't eat dog.
Hear Hear old chap!!