"The past is another country"
Danny
The Barracuda was not the FAA pilots' dream machine, and they composed a rather ribald song about it, as a parody and to the tune of "As time goes by" (from "Casablanca", a very popular wartime film). Union Jack will almost certainly remember this from riotous nights in the Wardroom, but I trust it didn't come to the ears of your mother !
Mother told me that the CPOs were very protective of her ears, (once they got over the initial shock of being sent "A GIRL" to maintain their Merlins). Perhaps because they had daughters themselves serving elsewhere, they devised a simple, but effective 'early warning system'. Which was, that the first person to see my mother approaching the hangar or flight line was to whistle "The Vicar of Bray" as the signal for all the "Effing & Blinding" to cease forthwith. She had wondered why this tune was so popular until "the penny dropped"!
Some years ago I was watching one of those 'Fly on the Wall' TV documentaries with my mother, about life aboard a modern warship, and she was quite shocked at the language used in front of the girls (now allowed to serve at sea, unlike in WW2). "That would never have been condoned in my day".
O Tempora ! O Mores !
IanBB