Coincidence

Coincidence.

We were allocated a married quarter at RAF Brize Norton when I was a Junior Technician in the Royal Air Force. It was 1973 when we moved in with our daughter Lindsey. It was a fairly new house in good condition, as all married quarters were in then, fully furnished with all the requirements.

Lindsey was just three weeks old when we moved in and she settled in quite well. My salary at the time was very low and we did not have any money to spare, we managed to scrape through the month. Fortunately, the rent was not too high. By the end of the month, we were having Cabbage Casserole and fish fingers.

After a few months. Val decided she did not like the RAF issue sofa and chairs and said she would like a new civilian one. This was allowed and we did have a Barclaycard at the time. We went to Swindon and chose a suite. The suite was an "L" shape one that clipped together. It was delivered and we offered to put it together, but the delivery man insisted that he would do it., which he did. The men left and we looked at our new suite. We unclipped it only to find that part of the suite was burnt on the part you could not see when you put it together. Val went to the phone box and called the shop in Swindon and told them of the situation. The shop collected the suite some days later and we went and chose another one which was slightly more expensive and was a standard 3 piece 2 armchairs and a Settee. Delivery day came and the men carried it in. The arms of the chair were wooden, and we had a gravel exterior on the house. The men scraped the arm on the armchair as they were putting it in our house. We told them to take it back which they did. Another phone call to the shop was made. We upset now and asked for our money back. The shop refused.

Val, I with Lindsey in her pushchair went to Swindon to the shop. I left the negotiations to Val as she was good at that kind of thing. The Manager of the shop still refused to give us our money back. Val told him we would sit outside his shop with our daughter and tell every customer that came in what a terrible service you had provided, and we would sit there all day if necessary. He gave in and gave us our money back.

After this debacle we returned home and decided we would stick with the RAF issue suite.

It was not until we were leaving in 1976 that our neighbour told us that the previous occupants of our house also had problems with their furniture just like us.

Coincidence or what?