Traditions
There are some very strange traditions in the British Armed Forces. The degree of strangeness appears to increase with the age of the Service. The Royal Navy proudly claims, with some justification to be the Senior Service, founded as it was during the reign of Henry VIII. There are therefore some instances of extremely irrational behaviour by members of that Service. On one occasion the weather had deteriorated to such an extent that our flight of two fighter aircraft were unable to return to our home base and we were obliged to land at Lossiemouth which was, at that time, a Royal Naval air base in the North of Scotland. The four of us were allocated a room and as soon as we had removed the clutter of protective gear deemed vital to fly in a fighter jet we decided to forgo the delights of the base food and set off to walk to the Coulard Inn only a short distance away. As we approached the gate, we were ordered to halt by the guard. “Where are you going Sirs?” he asked.