For once my sleep day (Friday) and day off (Saturday) coincide with a weekend. Sort of. More importantly - my evenings off work coincide with for Friday and Saturday night, and there are functions on. Yayyyy! The military have a long standing tradition of celebrating Burn's Night. I wasn't exaclty why at first, but just knew that they did. Strange... Because all available staff in both messes were required to cover both functions, they would have to have them on separate nights. So the Sergean't was scheduled for Friday, and the officer's a day later on Saturday.
James was working Friday night and Saturday night... The world's most sociable shift run...
I was always booked in all along to go to the officer's mess function on Saturday night, which was to be a formal black tie / mess dress dinner with speaches. My friend's in the sergeant's mess had invited me to their burn's night back in December, but I assumed the two events would clash and by the time I found out they were on separate nights it was all booked up.
I thought I would try my luck though, and on Friday morning I called my friend Jamie to see if there was a spare ticket, and was I will allowed to go (officers aren't normally allowed to functions in the sergeant's mess, but as I'm not actually someone's boss it was ok!!) A few hours later he called back to say my seat was confirmed and he would pick me up at 6.30pm.
We arrived at The Sergeant's Mess, and having been told by Jamie that it was a formal function, I turned up in a floor length dress with shoulders covered and my hair in a fancy up do. I needn't have bothered! Most of the men were barely even in lounge suits, and most had checked shirts and some didn't even have a regular tie on. Lots were in comedy tartan, and a few had made kilts out of camo gear (which actually looked pretty good!!) That may be formal to some of them, but I was the most overdressed there :(
Jamie took his duty of hosting me very seriously and insisted on buying all of my drinks and making sure I was ok! He's lovely. The dinner was absolutely lush - salmon starter, rare filet steak with haggis for main, and brownie and ice cream for desert. The speaches were amazing! The guy who had arranged the night (who played rugby for Newbury, and we worked out he probably played against James last year!) was also hosting, and did a speach after the main course. It was all about Robet Burns, and why we celebrate Burn's night, and why it is important to the military. It was all about Burns giving people an identity, and a sense of pride... I can't really remember it word for word, but it was really very good, and was very rousing, and he was a great public speaker. It was dotted with little jokes and personal bits about MPA and the military, and had a lot of banter about the RAF (he was army!). A couple more speaches came - one from a guy giving the "toast for the lassies" and one from a girl as a reply "toast to the laddies" And again they were great hand written speaches that rhymed.
Like most mess dining in nights there were rules, and if you broke them you had a fine. A friend of mine made the fatal error of leaving the table to go to the toilet. It was a two and a half hour session, with only a comfort break for ladies! Others I have been to have been longer, with no break, but it is the decision of the highest ranking person present. Anyway, when my friend returned, he found his seat and all his dinner and glasses had been moved to a table of his own, right in the middle of the room! (The room had been arranged in a horse show shape, so he was really on show!!) During the night, random people would recite some of Burn's poems, chosen only by nomination if you had something under you place mate, on under your seat or if the piper stopped behind you. (Oh yeah, there was a piper!!) My friend Jamie had been given "Love's red red rose" and he tried to do a Scottish accent, but sounded very Jamaican!!!! Oh well!!!!
There was more port and whiskey than I could drink, and gallons of wine. It was a really really good night!!
I only have one formal dress with me, so I had to wear the same on the next night..... Oh well! Only one person had seen me both nights! There were only three of us from the met office at the officers mess function, and the seating plan was deliberate in splitting everyone up. There were about 3 times as many people, and I fitted in just fine with the dress code! Because it is triservices and obviously lots of different squadrons, everyone's mess dress (posh military outfit!) was slightly different - not like at Wallop or ODiham where everyone was dressed the same. So that was great!
The evening was a lot tamer than I was expecting. The food was not as nice as the night before, but there was loads more people, and apparently that is usually the way - sergeant food better on functions. The speaches were again hand written, but it was a bit less jovial and the same person read readings of Robert Burn;s finest poems in between all the courses.
I was on shift the next morning so left at midnight, having had only one gin, feeling smug :)
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| My friend Archie, who hosted the evening |
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| Burn's night in The Sergeant's Mess... |
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| ...Burn's night in The Officer's Mess! |
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