This is Parochial News…move along if you don’t fancy a peek into the overseas life.

As per an earlier post, the Pipes and Drums of RAF Leuchars performed for the Queen’s Birthday at The Tower (the Semaphore Tower in the heart of the dockyard in Gibraltar) It is a magnificent venue – a three storey limestone building with a square in the middle with the tower above and still fully in military use. St Crispin will have graced those stones on many occasions.

St C will have chuckled at the fact that all of the RAF blokes turned up in skirts knowing his dislike of the junior service but for 10GBP entry if you didn’t have any contacts and a nod on the gate if you did then *completely free* food and booze all night was a good compromise.

It helped cushion the sound of dead cats being squeased through pipes although there was one very nice girl who caught the attention of TheEye playing the drums. Fortunately good eyesight when I tried to track her down after the concert meant that I avoided her boyfriend who was the size and shape of Canada. TheEye remains not dead.

There is a point to this post. Government cuts to the MoD say that this band is toast next year. It’s not official so not on their site but they always raised as much cash for military charities as they could and only ever asked for help grabbing a lift on a RAF transport which was heading somewhere anywhere. They even bought their own kilts (but in official RAF tartan!) Now they can’t even get an empty spare seat on a Hercules to help Forces charities.

Brown. Go. Go Now.