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was the lesson for the day, he liked to hear his music at suitable volume. He had
good equipment, but mono, stereo not being in general use at that time, and a
single very high-quality speaker. His idea of ‘suitable’ was ‘high’, a volume that
my parents did not much favour, and I only then realised that records could, and
should, create a concert hall in the home; I never thereafter looked with pleasure
upon the sotto voce. (A cognac would have made it an unsurpassed afternoon,
but it was not offered.)

The next week was occupied in learning something about fire-fighting, one of
the least pleasant parts of the whole course. To put on heavy protective clothing
and a gas mask and then to drag a hose into a smoke-filled building was a very
nasty task – and we knew the shape of the building, that it would not collapse,
and that the smoke and flames could be turned off almost instantaneously; all
did little to reassure. All we could know was that a real fire in any confined
quarters would be very dangerous. Cargo holds were not so bad; at least they
had remote CO2 protection.

The final act of the course was, I am pleased to note, the awarding to me
of the prize (a book) for the best thesis. This, I am also pleased to say, followed
the Upper School History Prize that I had won at Cranbrook in 1959, and ‘The
Defeat of the Spanish Armada’ which was awarded to me as a cadet at Warsash
in 1961 for my essay on the subject of Juan Sebastian de Elcano, the man who
took over from Ferdinand Magellan after he was killed in the Philippines at the
Battle of Mactan (we live in a circular world; he very nearly lost his life when his
fleet discovered the pleasures of Cebu, where unmarried girls wore no clothing,
manifestly a recipe for disaster with a Portuguese crew of men who had for
months been cooped up in smelly and rotting ships).

So, the MAR was finished. What now was in store for me?

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