in the good old days they had a microfiche with everything on it
They've given me my microfiche. Not a lot of good without a reader.
When I went to Gatwick for my initial issue Class 1 aged 56, I asked to have the eyesight test first as that's my Achilles Heel (sorry about the dodgy metaphor!) Anyhow, failed the Ishihara test (as usual). The bloke got out my Microfiche, shoved it in his reader and said 'ah, yes, I see you passed the lantern test at Heathrow in 1982. Colour safe'. I was just outside the myopia limit then of -3 dioptre, so had to settle for a Class 3 (later upgraded to Class 2 for the BCPL). Of course I'm comfortably inside the Class 1 limit now, but that was then and this is now.
TOO