AFVOA Newsletter 03 of 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 03 / 2020 Page 77 of 167 The programme was scheduled to be held at the usual Palm Grove Sports Complex. However, there was a requirement of a stage, as there is no stage installed in the hall where programmes were normally conducted. Additionally, it was also felt that the music system should be of a ‘professional’ standard and thus it was proposed to hire a system for the same. (Luckily, the present generation did not realise that the Titanic had been designed and built by professionals!) It was hoped that everything would be in place and a final practice could be had before the show commenced at 7.00 p.m. As already brought out, the participants were to assemble by 1600 hrs. The hot mid-April sun mercilessly heated up the Sports Complex ground, by the time the participants gathered around. The stage was being erected; the civilian contractor was still trying out the music system. I did notice one glaring difference what we were taught and practiced in the Forces to what was practiced in the civvy street. Firstly, everything would not only have been in place, but would have been tested out. But in the civvy street, the men of the contractor were just setting up the equipment and were connecting up the various pieces in place. My mind went back to almost fifty years before, when I was laying lines from the Headquarters to a Brigade location. Colonel Brockmyatt – a big burly man, who was my commanding officer (CO), came over and insisted that communications implied firm connectivity. Hence, the various wires were properly joined and soldered or in case they had to fit inside a socket, then the wires had to be neatly and firmly tightened into a plug! I realised that the CO would have had a fit if he had just saw how carelessly and clumsily the music systems man just inserted naked wires into sockets or quickly spliced wires together and did not bother to cover the ends with insulation tape. It showed that age was no bar to unlearn and re-learn!!