BEagle,
"So at least prospective fast jet pilots had a lot of interesting aircraft from which to choose!"
I don't know when you were training, but in 1968-9 there was sod-all choice. People were leaving the RAF in droves from the JP training bases.
Of around 40 guys on the JP course I was on, only two or three would go to Valley, due to very serious cutbacks. Everyone else was 'doomed' to Oakington.
I didn't know at the time what he was doing, but after leaving the RAF one of the first people I met in Queen's Building (LHR) was my old boss at Leeming.
It was a grim time to have chosen the Royal Air Force as a career.