'SCALEY BRAT'

I am a 'Scaley Brat'  and very proud of it.


I was born into an RAF family in 1959.  First child for Bill and Kathleen, joined by a sister three and half years later.  My memories are good memories, but maybe as we get older all our childhood memories are good memories?  Somehow, I don't think that's the case. 


I was a 'Scaley Brat' (Scale-E brat).   Scale-E was the pay scale reached when a serving member had children.  Although the term Scaley Brat seems very derogatory, it actually served as a form of identity.  You knew that the majority of children you met were all Scaley Brats and therefore, instantly there was a unique bond.  The term has now mainly disappeared from the language of service children as the SCALE-E band was phased out.  History lesson over.


My first real memory is my sister being born.  After three years of being the only child, I was to be joined by another.  Was I jealous?  I suppose I may have been, I really don't remember.  At the time we lived in Eindhoven, my first time abroad.  


Life for service children is as hard today as it was when I was growing up.  Dad posted away and leaving the family at home.  The first time my dad went away we had to move to Warton in the North West of England, now home to BAE.  I was five years old.  A very important time in every child's life and my dad had been sent on an unaccompanied posting to Aden.  It was the time I was to enter the school system for the first time and I remember feeling a part of me was missing, i.e. my dad.  I have no memories of time at that school, I remember my address and also the lollipop man!  He used to teach all the children crossing with him the nursery rhyme 'I'm a little tea pot'.  Living at Warton we were near my maternal grandparents who lived in Preston, a bus ride away.  We were also near Lytham and Blackpool.  I remember going to Lytham and paddling in the outdoor pool with a huge blow up blue seal called Sammy, (bought from that famous company Tupperware).  Seeing the Blackpool illuminations in the back of my grandad's car.  Years later, when I moved to Lancashire, I took my children to Lytham on a personal trip down memory lane, and there was the outdoor children's pool!  Seeing it again, stirred all those happy memories of Sammy and I paddling around, an innocent time, a fun time, but also a lonely time.  To this day I have all the letters my dad sent me whilst he was away and reading them evokes tearful memories.


My greatest memory is our posting to Cyprus.  I had never heard of it.  Didn't even know where it was.  I was nine years old when we started our three year tour of this beautiful Mediterranean island.  Arriving in Cyprus we stayed in a hotel until we were allocated a married quarter or hiring.  We lived off base in a hiring in Limassol, mixing with the local community, making friends picking up their customs.  My first school in Cyprus was Berengaria Junior.  Even today I remember my teachers names.  After sitting the eleven plus exam, I went up to St. Johns secondary school.  Both schools were a bus ride away.  School started early and finished early.  After a siesta, the rest of the day was ours to with what we wanted.  


My sister and I had a paddling pool in the garden and played for hours in the shade of the afternoon sun.  Dad would hire a car from Georges in Limassol and we would take to the road to explore the island.  All those places that you see in the glossy tour brochures today, we visited before they became tourist attractions.  Going into the Troudos mountains and building a snowman beside the road and then driving home and having a bar-b-que.  In an hour, two temperature zones amazed us as children.  Swimming in a sea that was crystal clear.  Being shocked by one of our neighbours, a Greek, who stood on his veranda shooting sparrows.  So many memories.  


We left Cyprus and returned to the UK, and we were posted to Stafford.  There I finished my education and at 18 joined the working population.  It was while we were at Stafford that my dad was posted overseas again, this time to Salalah in the Persian Gulf.  Even though I was older, it still hurt when dad went away.  I am definitely a 'daddies girl' and missed having him around.  


I find that children of service personnel grow up really fast.  We moved on average every three years.  Friends were people you were at school with and then you or they moved on.  No real home roots as such, and having to grow up fast.  Learning how to adapt to new situations, people, schools can make for a very lonely life.  Looking back on my childhood, I have no friends from my time growing up as a Scaley Brat, but I do have fantastic memories.