The twelve months just completed have been happy ones for the medical dept. We have done nothing of note in the period except cure some 100 people of the flu and about the same number with tinea . . . oh, and pulled out an appendix.

Our main problem on the boat (read ship) is the language barrier. The other people speak a strange language which appears to be a combination of Minerals and abbreviations with some odd local words thrown in. Who would know what was implied by a request for my 156 and AS1091. Indeed a strange language,. It wasn't till recently that I found out the the FX was the sharp end and the AX the end where the propellors are attached. There is also a tendency to let one word be used for many things the difference being just addition of a few letters eg the deck, the floor, the ceiling, the deck head. I was very gratified to notice during the year that after all these years of commission that they got around to laying tiles on the steel floor (read deck) in the main hallways (read companion ways). It has increased the comfort of everyone and looks better.

These were designed by someone with a 'thing' against sailors. He has purposely gone out of his way to make the stairs so steep that you can hardly get form one floor to the next, near impossible if you are carrying anything. The windows (read scuttles) on the top floor (read deck) where the Captain lives (read Captain's Cabin) are a good size and let in plenty of light and air but the ones on the lower floors (read decks) are very small and I can't work out why he made them round. The senior people on the boat (read ship) have a quaint custom of whistling at each other when they pass, a custom that would probably get you into all sorts of trouble in Quiberon life.

One sailor has seen the error of his ways and has applied to transfer to a branch where a spade is still a spade and a head is a head not a toilet????