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Why I resigned from the Royal Air Force
Being an RAF pilot was my boyhood dream. But the dream turned to nightmare from the moment I enlisted.
My first disappointment was the uniform – colourful and distinctive, but not nearly as smart as I’d expected. I had thought it would be more, you know, military.
Spending all day working with big, oily, noisy machines was depressing. Then there was all the peculiar jargon you had to learn.
It was hard to have confidence in senior officers – they all seemed far too young. As for my fellow recruits, I’d never known foreigners were allowed to join the British armed forces in such numbers.
And yes, I know it’s the twenty-first century and we all have to muck in and be egalitarian, but I’d never expected to spend so much of my life washing up, wiping tables, mopping floors and shovelling French fries into small paper bags. If I was to become a properly trained pilot, this simply wasn’t the best use of my time.
One day a very senior officer came to inspect us. I was up all night polishing my trainers, and to give myself an authentic military appearance I shaved off my eyebrows and gummed them to my upper lip.
Our visitor had taken no such pains. Hair sticking out in all directions, face covered in muck, clothes all the colours of the rainbow, lolloping around and singing and playing with children – in my opinion he might just as well have been a clown.
It was the last straw. I told my commanding officer I was leaving. I tried to explain my reasons, but he just looked confused and said nothing.
Still, things have worked out, and I now hold an important post in military intelligence. Standing around in a shopping precinct all day, trying to make people answer hundreds of questions off a clipboard, was something I hadn’t bargained for, but apparently it’s how we work. Excuse me, madam…
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