The Sea Harriers were flying for most of the day, working in the main on splash targets towed by us and the Battleaxe and Amazon, so there was little point in either Paul or myself being in the Operations Room. Accordingly, I passed over all the routine Air Office work to him to do, and I retired to the Wardroom to attempt to crack on with the audit, still hanging over my head like a sword of Damocles.
Just after 1330, we met up with HMS Endurance, the arctic survey vessel which was intimately involved with the Falklands crisis from the start, and the three of us steamed past her in line astern in salute, with ‘Hands to cheering stations.’
Quite a moment, really. She is a remarkably small vessel, and looked rather battered about the bows after her extended stay in the cold waters of the south Atlantic. I bet they are glad to be heading home. As we passed her, after one of the hardest turns I have ever known this ship do, there was a prolonged sounding of sirens, and despite the noise of the engines and that of a helicopter and Sea Harrier flying around, the cheering was really quite deafening. I took the camera up with me and ran off a few frames, so there will be, hopefully, a permanent record on celluloid, or whatever it is they make films of these days.
She wasn’t the only ship we met before we reached Ascension Island. Over the next few days we would also encounter both Leeds Castle and Dumbarton Castle returning from the South Atlantic to Britain.
I spent a good part of the evening down in the ITV studio, seeing how the system works, and very impressive it is too. They have a proper studio with all the lights and gear you would normally expect to find, plus two colour cameras on rolling stands. As far as the rest of the equipment is concerned, they have a static camera for the static titles, plus two video machines for running films in, as well as the moving titles they use; a vast video library, and extensive radio equipment, including two cassette decks and a reel-to-reel tape recorder and two radios, all of which serve the ship’s 24 hour a day radio service. A really neat set-up.
The reason for my interest? I am presenting the ITV LIVE programme tomorrow night, so I thought it would be a fairly neat idea if I knew how it all worked. Anyway, more of that tomorrow.