Day 11

I woke early as today is the day we travel back to the UK. My bus departed at 0720hrs so I had to report to the Drill Hall by 0700hrs which I did. Chucked the bags in the baggage truck and then drove over to MPA where, due to a delay in the plane arriving from Rio we were shown to the Sergeants Mess.

I took the time to go looking for the lost mural that I had been unable to find and ended up talking to the Chief Warrant Officer of the base and he was able to fill me in with the fate of our mural. It seemed that when the murals were taken down they needed some expensive restoration work. Each mural cost £4000 so they had to pick and choose the best ones. Therefore Ode To Tumbledown was saved, but sadly the Roll Of Honour with Cap Badges was stored away and when it was examined sometime later it was found to have completely decayed.

We had lunch before finally boarding the aircraft, which was then further delayed when one of the passengers had to be removed from the flight as he was unwell. They had to offload his luggage which took some time, so by the time we got away we were three hours late.

The flight back via Rio was long, but at least I got a larger seat this time. The most thrilling aspect of the journey was the Tornado GR3 escort we received on leaving the base and the helicopter salute.