We had given lavish hospitality to sergeants and men of a visiting Army team. They were loth to leave, some were physically unable, and all were loud in song as we carried their carcases very late at night to the lorry standing in the sunken road below the C.O.’s tent. The noise and shouting was immense, when suddenly in the middle of it all we saw, standing on the high bank overlooking the road and silhouetted against the light of the moon, the familiar figure of the C.O. silently surveying the send-off of our
football guests. Fortunately, our C.O. was a jolly good sportsman and the incident had no painful sequel.
Life on the lower deck was as a man cared to make it - and the majority made it a very tolerable life.
Our complement of men consisted of just over 100, divided into Headquarters, Flights and Transport Sections.
In writing home to my devoted Arabella, my news on matters of warfare and movement was always reassuring if never very true. This was necessitated by the rigours of censorship. On the matter of the calibre and quality, the manners and morals of my comrades of the lower deck, I was, however, able with perfect truth to set her fears at rest, for there was the distance of the universe between the old pre-war type of lower deck men and those who made up Eight Naval.
In 
all departments of the lower deck were men of education and refinement in the roles of mechanics, drivers or blacksmiths. Others were doing the most menial jobs as A.C.2s (Aircraftsmen of the Second Grade). Professional men, school teachers, master builders, legal men, business men, employers of labour of various kinds, men from the Civil Service, the Stock Exchange, from shipping offices and Lloyds, craftsmen of many kinds, and of the best kind - all engineers, motor mechanics, carpenters, and riggers.
Our Captain of the Heads and Chief of the Incinerator was a master tailor from the city of London, to whom we were indebted for the making of our concert party pierrot costumes; our blacksmith was an auctioneer and estate agent; an antique dealer served as an officers’ steward; and an old actor as a driver. Talents were plentiful. There were men who could respectively paint, sketch, act, sing and do ventriloquial turns. Men with musical talents and men who were athletes. I venture to think our lower deck could not be rivalled for its all-round excellence.
