What’s in a Name?
By Simon Baldwin
 
John Laycock asked me if I would say a few words about him at his funeral which I did on the 20th September 2024. The funeral was at the Lincoln Crematorium, and with the limited time available to cover a varied career spanning 33 years, I had to leave out many anecdotes that I would like to have used. This is one of them.
 
 John was brought up in the 1940s and 50s when many of the essentials of life were rationed, and in common with many of his generation he was therefore thrifty and had developed an eye for a bargain. Back in 1981, John was the Station Commander at RAF Waddington and I was the boss of No 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron. The ’phone in my office rang, and John informed me that he had found a restaurant called “Get Stuffed” where you could eat as much as you could swallow, and for a very reasonable price. Would Sheila and I like to join him and Pam to check it out? Not being averse to a bargain, I was pleased to accept, and we agreed on a sortie next Saturday night.
 
From memory, “Get Stuffed” was somewhere in the Coningsby area, and as was only fair, we shared the driving. I drove there and Sheila drove back. We enjoyed a good evening with a plentiful supply of food and drink. On the way home, we were stopped by a policeman. Sheila wound her window down, and the policeman gave us a clearly memorised dissertation, “Good evening, madam. It is close to Christmas, and we are stopping motorists to remind them not to drink and drive, because nobody wants their festive season, and possibly the rest of their life ruined by a nasty accident. May I ask where you have been madam?”
This was obviously a polite demand and not merely a polite question. From the back seat of the car came John’s loud voice, “Don’t tell him Sheila!”
 
I will leave the rest to your imagination – for once Sheila had not been drinking.