Julian Rowland "Making plans for Nigel"

The phantom author from shift 4 LGW

Terance Hughes

During the early 1980's I was a radio engineer based at Gatwick. It was
my second time with Dan's having previously been based at Bristol. It was
at Gatwick that I was reunited with Nigel. He and I came from the same
town of Weston Super Mare and had attended the same college in Bristol. We
travelled together for nearly two years and then went our separate ways.

Ah! Nigel some of you may say. Famous for part's of his anatomy that
some people say broke Darwin's theory of evolution, Nige certainly attracted
his fair share of practical jokes. It was well known that he hated heights
and especially the sort of height that one gets to at the top of a 707 fin
changing a HF coupler. On several occasions especially when it was
cold, a beleaguered call would be made to the section along the lines of:

Nigel: "Orange 1 to base"

Pete Larson: "Ah..go ahead Nige"Nigel: "I'm stuck up the fin of Victor November in a cherry picker. Someone's turned the engine off!"

Known for his sleeping habits during night shift, Nige could certainly
knock out some serious ZZZZZ's due to problems with his nose. Correct
me if I am wrong but I think that on one occasion whilst catching a nifty 40
on the lower level of a two level work bench in the Avionics section,
someone came in and boarded him in, forming a sort of temporary "coffin". When
he awoke it was dark and all was not as it should be. Small as he was, he
made short work of destroying everything around him in his effort to gain
his freedom.

The lists of stories are endless but all pale in comparison to his
adventures during detachments to Berlin. Legend has it that he managed
to obtain a live acting part in a small local production. The type of
production that takes in the Stuttie Platz. Upon seeing that Nige was
more than well "equipped" for the part, the lead "actor" by all accounts
walked off in disgust!

I left for Saudi Arabia in 1982 and did not see him again until I
rejoined the company in 1987. Sadly so many things had by then changed. The old
engineering section had gone and we were based in the fire section near
the terminal. A lot of the great characters had moved on. Nigel was still
therehaving briefly left to take up a position as a lecturer at our old
college. I then left to go to Oman and lost touch with him completely. I have
often asked after him but no one seems to know where he is. After all, he
actually was my friend and he did give me so much material when the
time came for stories of a past and very enjoyable part of my career!

Julian Rowland

Two stories by an old shift 4 mate at LGW who wants to stay anonymous despite naming me. Both stories were published in the DASA news letter.

A comet had blown two main wheels in Naples. Johnny Johnson and myself were dispatched from LGW with two new wheels. On arrival in Naples it was getting dark and by the time we set up the wheel change Gantry it was pitch black. We asked for some lights from the handling company and were presented with a pre war vehicle that resembled a cross between a tank and a ditch digger, they reversed it up to the offending wheels and switched on a little spot light and then left us. The head lights from this contraption lit up the whole taxi way, so I said to Johnny that I would turn it around so we could have the headlights to work with. I climbed into the drivers seat and tried to drive off, only to find that the hand brake was holding it fast. After releasing two of the look alike hand brakes the truck would still not move, Johnny then came over and looked up at me and asked what the matter was, when I explained I could not find the hand brake he pointed to a big lever and said to try that which I did. A noise like a wave crashing on to a beach followed, with an expletive from Johnny " You dirty B*#@?&ed", I had unwittingly emptied the entire days toilet collection on to the tarmac, what followed must have put us into the record books for the quickest two comet main wheel changes in history.

When we returned in the morning the juices from the spillage had drained away and left what can only be described as a mole hill epidemic across the tarmac and taxi way. The fire service were washing away all those little horrors whilst Johnny and I were putting the old wheels into the forward hold. The chief fireman on seeing us walked over and said to Johnny and I "Aqua, Aqua" to which we just shrugged our shoulders, he then returned to his fire truck and ordered his crew to turn the fire hoses on us, we still laugh about it to this very day.

SMILEY MILEY

We turned up at work one day to the greeting of big new yellow painted roundabouts around the tarmac area. One just happened to be outside of our maintenance section. After work one night we had some red dye penitrant left over and as we were trying to cheer up the shift we decided to spray two eyes and a big Smiley mouth on the yellow roundabout and what a great job we did.

However Derek Lynn thought otherwise and was on the war path the next day. For once though the engineers stuck together and to this day the secret remained with us all. The fire service spent a few hours trying to remove the offending smiley face on the yellow roundabout and peace was once more returned to the maintenance section. My partner in crime Terry Funnel has sadly passed away this year he was very inspirational to all my memories and has always been there when a bit of monkey business was to be had.

There was a very cold night on the west park,with about a
foot of snow all around,the comets were all parked up,and the daily's
had been done.It was time for intake blank skiing
much fun was had being towed behind primover's sliding all over the
vast area's open to us,plus an assortment of moggie
vans doing wheelies,until a Mr P Ryan turned up in the early
hours to see all of this going on,and demanded to see the
station engineer, the reply was ' I think he is driving the one
with the numberplate hanging off ' (remember the S.A.S.)