Reply With QuoteI'll try that link. I've been meaning to get one.
To much negativity around, if you are not interersted just leave the comments out.
I was told a way to apply to apply if you see what I mean.
By sending the email as detailed below,I was lucky and got a reply within 24hous.
I just did it,the system is over subscribed, but you may be lucky to get a beta application (what ever that is,I am rubbish on computers).
It took me 3 attempts and it did it in a different way each time.
It doesent help if you have a poor memory like mine.
Why they cant just use my war disability pension details I dont know.
anyway the email is.
DBS-Veteran-Cards@mod.gov.uk
Subject write "Apply"
Message write -name-DOB-year left service-
I also wrote-May I apply please
Just use that simple format.
I'll try that link. I've been meaning to get one.
I managed to get mine through on the Beta application yesterday after the second attempt.
Andy
It took me 3 attempts, each time the method changed I am guessing its to find out which is the best method?Originally Posted by BEZELBOY
Who where you with?
Applied yesterday, took about 30 minutes including GOV.UK registration.
I applied using the email address above got confirmation and later was sent the new URL below.
https://www.gov.uk/veteran-card
I used my phone to authenticate myself for the GOV.UK registration and did the test on the PC.
Got mine Saturday, now I’m just waiting for the bus full of nurses from Rinteln to turn up at the NAAFI disco.
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They actually turned up at one of our functions,the one and only time.Got mine Saturday, now I’m just waiting for the bus full of nurses from Rinteln to turn up at the NAAFI disco
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It was a carrot to get us to behave and turn up,they where like goddesses.
When I went into Rinteln for an op I was both scared and excited to be surrounded by the nurses,you where guaranteed to have lots of visitors..
They took no nonsense and soon put you in place if you tried chatting them up.
I have it on good authority there is still one bus load of them still driving around the Autobahn trying to find the camp they where invited to 40 years ago.
The driver got confused by the Ausfarht signs, thinking it was a very big town what with all the signs for it.
Haha. The only one I managed to get into was BHM Berlin for a couple of days, 8 floors of fully staffed hospital and only saw 3 patients and lots of nurses, like everything up there it was always fully staffed and budgeted, even had a whole floor set out for Rudolf Hess when he needed anything doing.
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I lost the will to live phoning the Veterans agency yesterday I just could not get through.
I found out today that the card was officially launched then and they where inundated with calls.
Hopefully we are at the front having applied in advance,there are so many of us its going to take time.
Did it online. Very easy and just wait for card now.
Should make my job easier too
RIAC
What job will it make easier?
Mine establishing if someone is a veteran
RIAC
Are you working for a Veterans charity or something?
Yes something like that.
RIAC
This is the conversational equivalent of never folding or marking your map.
I can but admire your security.
Loose lips,sink ships.
Im veteran healthcare lead for a large NHS trust and coordinate pathways for a plethora of reasons. Many say they are veterans and confirmation is important as some Say it thinking they will jump a list.
RIAC
An important job.
I met so many bluffers last year,most you can tell are bluffers by their demeanour.
The amount who told me they couldnt rememeber their number was staggering,I call out the bluff nowadays.
The modern soldiers I cant tell, but those from back in the 70/80/90s I have a chance with.
Just a few questions about the lifestyle or slang and you can usually tell.
Give them a 10lb metal pipe and ask them to show you some pokey drill.
17th/21st Lancers (Boneheads), Mostly BAOR.
Andy
I went to your camp around 1980 in Germany (I was asked to accompany the FRG).
I was impressed by the knowledge your crews had on CVRTs (Scimitars if I remember correctly).
That might have been where I was told about a new CO having all the bob weights removed from the distributors.
So the Jaguar petrol Engine would propel them to 70mph.
The only problem being the tracks and running gear couldnt take the strain and if you lost a track you lost steering and brakes.
We got up to some tricks back in the day.
Yes, Buller -sorry Swinton Barracks -Munster, HQ Sqdn had mainly Scorpions, A-D Sqdn were the heavies in Chiiefys, L/col Swinburn departed around 1980, a great boss and leader, can’t say I recall modding the units, though you’re right, they were rapid and manouverable and a good operator could almost make them ‘jump’ from start-off!
I hated the smg’s being a natural left-hooker, finished in 83.
Andy
Last edited by BEZELBOY; 2nd February 2024 at 01:44. Reason: Entered wrong address
The bob weights are centrifrugal and flew out at speed in the distributer to restrict the speed.
He would have had the REME remove them, it might have been a different unit.
I was given a cabby in one of the CVRTs but I didnt know the turning circle was greater the higher the gear you where in and nearly had a accident.
As you say they where nippy and fun to drive and I was pushing it.
As I passed my test in a 432 I hasd no idea, ive long ago had to let my HGV lapse (sadly) but still have H on my licence.
Maybe Ive still time to drive a chieftain for the first time.
No matter how many times I wrote SWINTON barracks, it insisted on inserting SWINDON!…(Apologies).
However Major Purbrick (who eventually became CO a few years after I left was definitely the kind of eccentric character to do what you said.
Andy
I'm not an expert on military vehicles but the bob weights in the distributor are to advance the ignition timing alongside engine speed increase.
Removing them would have hopelessly compromised the ignition timing and made the vehicle slower.
Cheers,
Neil.
One of the instructors at Bovi when I was there 77/78 was on the trials unit for the CVRT series, the reason they were governed down was that in Australia during the trials one threw a track and killed the crew so they brought the speed down to a safer limit that was survivable.
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As a mechanic this is correct- the vehicles probably had old school centrifugal rotor arms that cut the spark path at a preset rpm-this is an easy override and probably what was done.
Thats it,I just described it wrong the point is it was easy done,later engines where diesel much safer for a AFV.
One unit I was at the new CO read that 432s could go in deep water/swim safely.
They could when new or overhauled, but he insisted that ours should as well despite all the plates and joints being warped and the like.
The first one sank then he realised it was a foolish idea.
That makes sense its what we where aware of as well.
Great museum you have at Bovington by the way.
The museum is world class, and we spent most weekends over there playing in and around the tanks for something to do. At that time there was a Tiger that you could get into through the floor panel and we spent many hours confusing visitors thinking it was haunted.
I was AAC all my career, as we were a small corps we trained with the RAC and I spent 15 months Junior Leaders in the camp across from the museum, it’s the Marines in there now.
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Yes, I also did my initial training at Bovvy, then moved straight into the Lancers who were stationed at the top camp.
i was pencilled in for the Blues & Royals, but at the end of training did not meet the required minimum height!
i couldn’t swim when I joined, had a brilliant civvy instructor called Mr Stopher, who got me swimming in a couple of days!
Haopy memories.
Andy
Try this
https://milvetpodcast.com/episodes/kerry-gospel
Mine has arrived,hopefully the info enclosed in the letter will help people get a pension etc.
Though if like me you did 2 years before 18 years of age it doesn’t count for the pension or was it 17 and a half?
How long did you serve?
RIAC
I know "Two for the Queen" was part of the deal for boy entrants at the time. Yet I'm surprised that there's not been some sort of challenge to this moving forward to the present day?
My father served in the Army 1940/1946 and he could still roll off his ser number in his 80s.
under 10 years in total, my concern is for those who arent aware (as I wasnt at the time).
Even if they did mention at the recruitment office I doubt many of us understood or took it in at that age.
Quite a few didnt make it due to injuries.
Lets not forget a few went to NI at 17 supposedly to stay on camp and ended up patrolling which was against regs anyway.
We would all volunteer as thats what we did with the buddy/buddy system.
Indeed, a lad I use to go diving with was in the Royal Welch Fusiliers and he did NI. I've just sent his wife the info you posted above as his memory isn't great now.
I met some of the Welch fusiliers when they came back from NI in a Night Club in Germany must have been 1981 I think.
We got talking they told me they where up for a big scrap but as I was OK to them they would leave me out of it.
They all seemed to be called Jones, I ordered a beer and watched the mayhem from the bar.
What I now know is those in charge factored in this sort of thing as a way of reliving the stress of those hard 4 month tours and of dealing with the death of mates.
I bet he had a few storys to tell,though a lot didnt talk after the war about what they had seen.
That is my point, one thing we never forget is our Army number its a real good indication of a bluffer.
We where handed it on a piece of paper told we had 24 hours to remember it,we knew it wouldnt be good for us if we didnt.
The Royal Welsh were in Lemgo in 81 and they came back to somewhere around Salisbury plain and year or so later.
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Thanks, I had thought it was 81 we had come back from NI just before them.
The stress and tension had to be relieved somehow.
I can still feel the atmosphere (it felt quite literally like you could cut it with a knife) when one of our soldiers was shot and killed close up.
Everyone in the camp was willing to go out and do what was necessary and I mean everyone cooks,clerks even the old and lazy.
Those in charge had to keep a cap on it, it got very,very tense.
This old fellas (or so I thought) videos have been showing up lately.
Then I saw his number and his age on his card.
Hes younger than me with a sprog number.
He looks like he has had a hard life, but hes still tabbing (I cant).
I would like to think I dont look quite as old (ive only 2 teeth missing one that was kicked out by a squaddie hate gang near Aldershot,his look far worse).
Hes the sort I know I would have had a beer or two in the NAAFI with.
Received my Veterans card today, only took a few weeks.
Andy
Nice one,who where you with?
As above..
Best cap badge ever.
Well yes, it was regularly admired, but whilst in Munster, the locals used to often exclaim it as Totenkopf!Best cap badge ever.
But the reality was that because it was actually granted as a battle honour, it was always described as a Motto, if we got caught calling it a cap badge, you usually ended up in the cookhouse or a few hrs in the Guardroom.
Andy
Last edited by BEZELBOY; 22nd February 2024 at 21:46. Reason: Spelling correction
I never knew that,its all these little things that held our Army together.
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