Having read all this stuff, I thank my lucky stars that I chose to leave the RAF at the age of 38. It had been fun for most of the time but was beginning to wear thin. My colleagues who left after eight years with a lump sum of, I seem to remember, £4000, were able to start with the airlines and have a down payment for a house. They were all senior captains before I joined as a second officer and it took a long time to get into the left hand seat. But I enjoyed the work and play.
My good mate and I were sitting the ATPL ground exams when he was asked to take a phone call from Air Ministry who offered him a scraper if he agreed to stay on. Poor sod was posted from sunny North Devon to Valley only to die in a Hunter 7 accident near Shawbury a couple of months later.