Back in the day, one’s Fleet Time (6 months ‘additional’ on board a ship) ended with a 3-day oral exam, during which your knowledge of your ship was very thoroughly tested. It was a big deal and so we were allowed revision time. I remember one awful morning, after a lively run-ashore, when I had a monster hang-over. My cabin on HMS Bristol was ‘L’ shaped and I sat on the floor around the ‘L’, under the basin. Someone looked into the cabin and said “Well, he’s not here”. Lucky me. Less lucky was the fact that the basin in my cabin was a folding one. You used it to wash and then when you folded it, the contents simply sluiced behind the basin. I’d used it to be sick into and had folded it without realising that (of course) it still had a strainer. So, the space behind the basin was clogged. I only escaped the cabin after cleaning out the stinking mess. Aargh. Well, we live and learn. I did (somehow) pass the Fleet Board without any real problems and I left HMS Bristol to attend the post-graduate Air Engineering Application Course (AEAC), which involved two long terms, one each each at the Engineering College at Manadon in Plymouth, and then at HMS Daedalus, in the (then) Air Engineering School in Gosport.