In a previous life I was a newspaper executive in Fleet Street. We had uniformed messengers, almost all of them long past retirement age and filling in time with humdrum tasks - going to the library for cuttings, fetching the tea and so forth. One old chap, rather small and wizened, was especially obliging. He expressed interest when he found out I was a helicopter pilot, but you know how it is, busy busy busy, never get time to chat. I found out at his leaving do that he'd been Willie Tait's bomb aimer and had hit the Tirpitz.