Those involved in its few flights insist it was an amazingly capable aeroplane, but it looks to me to have a tiny wing; great for straight line speed but not so good for manouvering and STOL despite blown surfaces.
Unfortunately, an eminent TP of the era insists on talking opinionated nonsense about the lack of wing area on the bomber. It was intended to be a high speed, low level nuclear strike bomber first and foremost, with no real need for energetic manoevring. Whether or not STOL would ever have been used operationally, I doubt - neither was the STOL / rough field performance of the Jaguar (yes, that's what BWoS claimed!) ever used.
A pig to fly at low speed, I gather - but so was the Bucc below 300KIAS!
As for 1968; well, I think I should have chosen an easier degree at a nicer university. Aeronautical Engineering on the Mile End Road wasn't much fun - although the South Woodford halls were OK. The UAS was great fun though.
We were stuck with the 50:50 Phantom due to the incompetence of 'pound in your pocket' Wislon and his fellow travellers; however coming into service was the Jaguar, Hawker's little airshow jet, and the F-4. Plus the AFVG had been canned a year earlier, as had F-111K and it was to be another 6 years before UKVG became the Tornado bomber, so the RAF had no option but to acquire the Buccaneer - a decision which was to prove very sound in later years. So at least prospective fast jet pilots had a lot of interesting aircraft from which to choose!