"Have any of your relatives lived in Northern Ireland..."

Or Overseas, or, uh, the other one I can't remember right now.

But without wanting to sound like a ****, does this include relatives who served in NI (and a few Asian beauty spots, and the US/Canada, and Germany, and...?)

Basically, if my Dad was in the Army, and he was posted to the above, should I stick that down? I'm obviously going to mention it in the section about relatives in the Armed Forces but is this section about relatives living abroad more of a civilian-oriented question?

Thanks in advance!

 

Yes its civilian orientated. Your dad being in the army doesn't count.

 

Great, thanks!

 

I don't understand why they ask this in
the app form. N.I is just another part of
the uk and the troubles are over..

 

Who can say about the NI part, but that section in the form does ask about overseas as well. I guess they wanted to know if you lived in any nations currently at a "strained" relation with the UK.

I'm just (optimistically) looking forward to the Security and Counter-Terrorist Questionaires

 

I think its something of a throwback to days of yonder possibly. Maybe the form hasn't been updated in ages. Or possibly its to weed out people who had any connections to the troubles. Or maybe even it has nothing to do with troubles and is down to some administrative reason.

 

To answer your question, yes, and they still do.

I am still serving, and it doesn't affect my DV clearence.

If anything, being in NI as a posting enhanced my DV

 

Delayed the inlistment procedure by three months having relatives in NI. It may have changed as it was a rather long time ago.

 

I had a couple of suit-wearing type people actually come up from Whitehall to interview me, because i'd put down on my SC that my dad was born in Malta. The interview got as far as me saying "I couldn't find the box that says 'Grandfathers Occupation' (he was a WO in the RAF)" and they muttered something about making phone calls before traveling all day for a pointless interview.

 

Yup its funny how the majority of official forms are designed for Joe Public (Normal). You would think that after the Armed Forces serving in soooo many places that they might add a box for...If you were born overseas was this due to your parents serving in the Uk Armed Forces'. It would cut out a load of carp. My brother has this trouble, he was born in Cyprus just after the EOKA troubles and he still gets special interviews.

 

Is his ARRSE hole quite large?

 

Seeing as you lovely folk have answered my question; can anyone remember the name of that BBC Documentary/Reality show set in Basic Training? I honestly can't remember the name of it, but I'm sure it was voiced by PC Stamp from The Bill. It had Billy Bragg doing the theme tune too.

Just thought it'd be an interesting watch if I can find it anywhere.

 

Bad lads army? That one set in the 50's I think it was?

 

Yep thats the one, fimed at Browndown Camp near Gosport.

 

Ah, should have posted it's not Bad Lad's Army. I think BLA was more of a staged set-up (almost a gameshow) and on ITV, whereas this was a BBC job and was actually filming 'cruits going through Basic.

I can't find any ******* trace of it online, making me think I just dreamt the whole thing up.

BLA was awesome though - "Mind over matter lads! I don't mind, and you don't matter!"