service records

I can only remember my Brown Pay Book with my PULHEEMS inscribed and my Confid Rec. I never heard of Red Book. Had I seen allllll my Regimental entries I might well have turned over a new leaf. I left with very good conduct and barely avoided a court martial. I had no problems in Civvy street and other guys similarly. In fact it was surprising to read in the 90's of exceptional SNCO'S falling into disaster within a year or two of demob. Homeless, Prison, Drugs, Alcoholic...Very sad.

For those interested ..

Len (Ciphers)

Same as mine....Cover that is...

My biggest transgression in the Army: Fined £5 for going to NI to visit my then girlfriend for a weekend without permission.And caught going through a red light in Berlin when I was driving a truck as part of the alert platoon trying to keep up with the landrover in front.Fined £5.Not bad eh.

Creep!

Just kept my nose clean Shelldrake.

i had one of those red books . so did chairman mao and millions of chinks , ginger

We have a wee red book up here ,,but it`s all about football...

I was a clerk REME so had to deal with red books and the part that determines your character assessment is governed under the above act. Entries on your regimental conduct sheet were deemed as spent after a given period of time, provided you did not commit an offense within that given time frame, therefore did not count to the assessment.

Quote :

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (c.53) of the UK Parliament enables some criminal convictions to be ignored after a rehabilitation period. Its purpose is that people do not have a lifelong blot on their records because of a relatively minor offence in their past. The rehabilitation period is automatically determined by the sentence, and starts from the date of the conviction. After this period, if there has been no further conviction the conviction is "spent" and, with certain exceptions, need not be disclosed by the ex-offender in any context such as when applying for a job, obtaining insurance, or in civil proceedings.

For adults, the rehabilitation period is 5 years for most non-custodial sentences, 7 years for prison sentences of up to 6 months, and 10 years for prison sentences of between 6 months and 2½ years. For a young offender (under 18) the rehabilitation period is generally half that for adults. Prison sentences of more than 2½ years can never be spent. Other sentences have variable rehabilitation periods. Compensation orders are only spent once paid in full, but being bound over to keep the peace would be spent either at the end of the order or a year (depending which is longer).

A conviction that is spent and need not be divulged under British law may not be so considered elsewhere. For example, criminal convictions must be disclosed when applying to enter the United States; spent convictions are not excluded.

You will find the whole thing in widipedia, I cannot post a link yet as I am new and cannot link in the first seven days.

gingerjim wrote:

i had one of those red books . so did chairman mao and millions of chinks , ginger

Chairman Mao only had a little red book, you got a big red book so be pleased with the outcome eh

Each trade had it's perks and I kept all the stamps in my desk so all my entries were spent, time out or not One officer said, SGT E write your confidential report for my perusal will you When I asked why, he said, I know you will change the dammed thing before sending it to the Manning office anyway

Blimey I loved the power of the pen, even CREME consulted with me LOL.

Actually CREME was easy but that guy in charge of the REME Training Center was a wise guy. He should of made General at least, not a trick passed him, and I knew every trick in the book.

Hey Admin why am I now royal artillery? Power play again eh?

It gets worse..You will become RE in another promotion.You will not be a Scaley as we are very select about who joins our ranks.....sniff

Gordon. wrote:

It gets worse..You will become RE in another promotion.You will not be a Scaley as we are very select about who joins our ranks.....sniff

RE are da gud guys I tell ya, actually I was REME attached to the RE in the TA prior to joining the regs and again after I left attached to Airfield damage repair unit RE in Norfolk. We E guys stick together, and the royal sigs hate everyone, i know. The barstuard RSM with 3 Div sig Regt tried to get me busted for next to nothing, but I had the Div commander in my pocket by then, so go figure who won

As soon as I received my "Little Red Book" I burnt it as I found it was a useless piece of sh1te as the CO had signed it and he did not even know me.There was all but nine lines in the book and it related to my passing a class one driving test and that I was a good soldier etc etc.When I joined the bobbies they were not really interested in the book anyway as they carried out their usual checks into my character.I was successful in getting in.

I have my Little Red Book safely stashed away with a copy of my old Long Form Birth Cert. I came out of the Scalies way back in the summer of 1977, after languishing in Catterick during that long hot summer of 1976. I came out of the colors under a voluntary redundancy scheme. Being Me, and a tad paranoid that I was being followed around by KGB agents...y'see back in those days I was partial to a wee bit too much amber nectar and John Barleycorn.....

For a number of years I was afrighted that the MP would be trawling around where I lived, and accuse moi.... of being AWOL and take be back to serve the rest of my signed up for 22 years. I did 13 years and 9 months back in the summer of 1977.

At the age of 68 now, every time I go over to Colchester I get cold sweats when when I drive past the entrance to MTCT, the current place, not the old place that I once escorted some AWOL types from sunny Catterick Garrison way back in 1976. So y'see, I still have nightmares that they, the RMPs from the Garrison will want be back in the mob to finish off me 22 years......

After all, was not there a reported case at the start of the Iraq escapade, tht some poor old WW2 RAF Veteran has been sent his call up papers by some jackass in MoD to rejoin the colors again. Now, this was reported in the DM (Daily Wail), now was this a true story, or just a wind up to frighten some of us old foggies that Tony Blair and Doc Gordon wanted us to do our duty to assist the Septics in their campaign against Sadman Hussien and pals....??

Talking about Military records. I had an old uncle who is long gone to pound the Heavenly Drill Parade, he was in the British Army in Ireland around the time of the Black n Tans (1920s), and was stationed in a place called Buncrana. Now part of the Republic of Ireland and not far from Derry across the border, and a favourite bolt hole for the IRA if the heat was on around Derry. It was bit curious when I spoke to my uncle back in 1972, after I came back from a tour in Norn Irn back then. Curious that he was there in 1922 in Buncrana, and I was in Derry and Newry back in 1972 - about 50 years apart. Very spooky!!

ciphers wrote:

As for the mention that 'siggies' didn't have a Red Book, well if you were a Regular you did, not sure what kind of discharge book NS men got.

Len (Ciphers)

Ploughing back through this topic whilst inactive with a frozen shoulder, and just for the record which might be of little interest, NS lads were issued with Army Book 111 on discharge, I've still got mine. It's not red, but buff, about 4 1/2" X 6 1/2", and has just 4 pages inclusive of back & front covers of stout paper and bits, presumably duplicate info, which were torn out and held by the TA unit we had to join. Not a lot in it.........usual name, rank, No, etc., education, courses and a troop officer's guess of capabilities and deficiencies. Didn't know that I'd been a whiz at football until I read it, but most of the other stuff is reasonably accurate.

Just realised I've missed the usual chance to celebrate 19th April, demob day......
We wanted to get out !

As I said previously,I got rid of mine but I have my fathers and my mothers discharge books.Mother was discharged in 1945 and father 1947.

Still got my 111- just contains details of a few courses attended, promotions and some waffle by my OC who seemed to think ' I would be an asset to any future employer' - mayde that's why they recalled me for Suez!! didn't get another book when they discharged me after that fiasco - arrived at Borden depot on my own,late at night from Cyprus, collected some pay and a rail warrant next morning and walked out of the gate.

But would you do it again Cliffo?

Probably - tho I might be a bit slow around the parade ground now !. My fondest memories were of a short spell with the Gordons in Cyprus in 1956 - they treated me like a mascot and kept me in virtual alcoholic oblivion for most of the time. !! Of course, I couldn't understand much of what they said - Rucjock,- most of them came from Aberdeen! but whilst the drinks kept coming, it didn't really matter. It was they who told me that there was no such thing as a mean Scotsman --- but there were a hell of a lot of mean Scotswomen - I subsequently married a Scotswoman!!

Cliffo wrote:

Probably - tho I might be a bit slow around the parade ground now !. My fondest memories were of a short spell with the Gordons in Cyprus in 1956 - they treated me like a mascot and kept me in virtual alcoholic oblivion for most of the time. !! Of course, I couldn't understand much of what they said - Rucjock,- most of them came from Aberdeen! but whilst the drinks kept coming, it didn't really matter. It was they who told me that there was no such thing as a mean Scotsman --- but there were a hell of a lot of mean Scotswomen - I subsequently married a Scotswoman!!

And.................are they mean??

Sorry,that's restricted information, Eric - solely on a need-to-know basis --couldn't let anything as delicate as that get into the hands of the Chinese - or even worse, into the hands of the wife!

rucjock21 wrote:

The red book as someone has already said, is a joke.It is signed by someone who hardly knows you for a start.They look at the overall picture of your service and previous reports by officers whom you have served under for the short time that they have been your pln,troop,commander etc.How on earth can they judge you as a soldier when they don't actually know you.

Although I love my red book because it's a permanent reminder of my army life I know it's bullshyt. It misses out some tours, and some dates are wrong but it does say I'm a sterling chap who would make an exemplary employee for any future employer. Superb, I thought I could march into civvy street and get a job no problem with a reference like this.

Oh how the people who are reading this must be laughing.

I was sacked from my first job for punching some dickhead, that job lasted a few days, no seriously less than a week. Tbh I was stunned when I was fired! I thought what the fek is going on here? sacked for punching some dickhead! But of course as the years go by the army wears off and you slowly get your civvy head on. Sadly for some like me it didn't work. I've been out since 1992 and still think civvies are shite. They don't look after one another, civvies do their best to drop people in the shyt in an attempt to ingratiate themselves to a boss who is often little more than an incompetent bully. Civvy strasse is a sycophantic hell hole compared to army life, in my humble...

LOL what a cracking post.

Well I do take on board the comments of the Red Book, like lots of others I thought it would bode well with an employer, when I finished service I went Driving as HGV was one of the best paid jobs I was qualified for, I eventually went to College and took my C & G in Electronics, this made me a qualified TV / Radio Engineer, this would have been fine except for the fact that an employer was only interested in making money fast, this meant you had to have experience with the repair side, well time is the only way you can get experience, time was something they would not allow, I came across an ad for Engineer, went for an interview and was given the same old story by the manager, as I was leaving he saw my Red Book, "ex military" he said, then explained he was ex Navy and would take a chance, said the Area Manager may kick off but we would try, as it turned out I became Top Engineer for people like Rediffusion and others and all because of the book

Les