First of many trips in the Varsity must have been around 1966, when I was a cadet in the school CCF. Annual camp to RAF Gaydon, then the home of basic navigator training.
I was told to report to Flying Clothing to get kitted out and then sat patiently waiting to be picked up by transport to the aeroplane. I was detailed to carry a large tin container, which I duly lugged aboard the Varsity.
I sat on one of the seats, can't remember where, but after about 45 minutes into a four hour slog to Ullapool and back, I was instructed to delve into the tin container and produce five cups of coffee. "Please sir, where are the cups?"
"No cups, laddie, there is a bunch of polystyrene beakers with the rations", said a hairy Signaller.
GULP
"Nnnnnnn - Noooo there isn't sir, I think they are still in Flying Clothing, I was only told to carry the tin, sir!"
Signaller looks at me as if I am the most stupid cadet ever to don uniform (10/10 for observation) and produces a knife!!!! By now I am quaking in my shoes. He looks at me, crooks his finger, and beckons me forward towards the cockpit. My legs just about carry me the few paces to behind the pilots seats, whereupon he reaches up, and using the knife as a screw-driver, proceeds to remove the glass light fitting, which is shaped in the form of a half globe with just enough capacity to hold a slurp of coffee.
I spent the next 20 minutes ferrying coffee around the crew, careful not to spill any on the maps, charts, APs , nav-bags etc.
The debrief was interesting . . . . . .