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                                    25to who had to go, and it was not much of a surprise that a cadet could answer very few questions as he might not have been there for several periods. We all had to do a specialised subject and 2 or 3 of us opted for missile control systems. This turned out to be a course on calculus but was so well taught that we enjoyed it. Years later I looked at my notebooks and could not make any sense of it all. On about the last week of this course that went on for a year, we finally saw a missile but never saw one fired. One of the things I got involved with was ocean sailing. I never suffered from airsickness and at one point my instructor, Pete Jones said he knew how to make me sick and that would be to go out sailing. He oversaw ocean sailing at Cranwell and suggested that 3 of us could go and crew for a Wing Commander, Les Phipps, that he knew and so we did. We sailed the yacht Jetou to the Channel Islands and Cherbourg which was brilliant. Les was a good cook and always did the evening meal. He introduced us to cheese fondue which we thought was very exotic. Later he bought his own sailing boat, and I did another week crewing for him. The next year the Sail Training Association had been formed and bought the ship Sir Winston Churchill. This was a 3masted schooner and was designed to take 36 boys from deprived backgrounds and give them some meaning to their lives and build up teamwork I suppose. It had a permanent crew of Captain, Boson, cook and engineer. There were 3 volunteer watch officers for each 2-week voyage and they also needed 3 watch leaders who knew a little about sailing but were there to organise their watch. Each shift, 3 boys were put on cooking type duties and the rest sailed the ship. As it was the first year the Sail Training Association asked the 3 military colleges to provide watch leaders. Pete asked me if I wanted to go and I jumped at the chance. All the volunteers had a week%u2019s sailing I think at Easter to familiarise ourselves with everything. Then in the summer I went and joined the crew. We sailed from somewhere on the south coast to Bristol. My watch officer was a keen ocean racing man and so every time 
                                
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