The weird and wonderful ways of stackers were still holding sway some 2 decades later....
I was once told that I had to check my 'clothing card' with 'stores'. I'd no idea what a 'clothing card' was, but it was duly produced from the depths of Handbrake House and still included items lovingly entered in longhand by some old boy who'd done my initial kit issue at RAFC some 15 years earlier. I spotted an error and brought it to the attention of some civvie in a brown coat...
"Look, it says I've still got a Gnat oxygen mask and g-suit. I haven't flown a Gnat for at least 6 years and the RAF doesn't even have any Gnats nowadays - they've been scrapped. Obviously there was an error when I handed my Gnat kit back at Valley"
"Still on your charge, sir..."
So I found a friendly Flt Sgt who was a fellow member of the station gliding club. "Leave it with me, sir. I'll ring you tomorrow".
Which he did. The solution was to be handed 2 equipment labels, correctly completed, for items which didn't actually exist. But they bore the magic word 'Scrapped'.
So the next day, back I went to 'stores'.
"Here you are - I've 'found' the labels"
"No problem, sir". And a few majestic strokes of The Pen saw me liberated from the mill stone of non-existent Gnat flying clothing on my clothing card. The System had been satisified!