Seeing those old ads was interesting. I remember seeing some of those old US magazines when I was in the sick-bay at my boarding school (with bruised ankles from a game we called hoocker which was a sort of rugby played with hockey sticks and as football I seem to remember. I don't seem to recall it being an olympic sport played outside the school somehow......) in the early 60's and seeing the Lanchesters. As my school had a COMBINED Cadet force (that is the Navy, RAF and Army cadets were combined), we had 6 Lanchesters in the school Cadet Armoury. The Navy cadets were always away on boat trips, sailing and nautical jollies while the Army were shooting blanks everywhere, doing drill competitions and slogging around the ferocious assault course that would be banned now. The RAF section did their usual cookery and needlework classes, but I digress! We did shoot the Stens and Lanchesters on our 25 yard range but used Sten magazines in the Lanchesters. After reading these magazines in the sick bay I learned that the Lanchesters SHOULD have 50 round magazines and not the shorty Sten magazines.
I told the OC - whose name I forget but he was head of Chemistry - that the Lanchesters should have 50 round magazines and he told me to '....go away and not to be so silly' But being the early 60's when there wasn't such a thing as political correctness, his language was probably a little more colourful. When we came across Navy Lanchesters from the Sembawang dockyard at the big Base Workshop in Singapore I was the only one of the Military Armourers who a) knew what they were and b) how to strip them
