I have a funny feeling that there was always a dire shortage of backsights for Mk5's but their days were numbered, even during the actual period. I remember Captain Viney, the range/shooting instructor at Carlisle in 1964 or so had one that was missing the back sight and he'd cobbled together a P-H type sight as a rearsight. That was the first time that I'd seen a PH vernier sight and he gave me one for my No7 rifle. Quite what prompted this show of generosity I'll never know as he was a bit of an ogre. Mind you, not as much as an ogre as Harry Weeks who was a REAL xxxxxxg ogre!

Once I was Commissioned, I always had a dream that one day, I'd walk into a room on some camp somewhere and he'd be sitting down at his desk, giving some young apprentices a bit of stick or clever arsed comments and I could say to him
'....stand up when I come in smart-arse........ You don't remember me do you......... Apprentice Laidlericon......, remember........, you told me my sketch of the 3.5 rocket launcher trigger mechanism looked like something I'd nicked off an old cooker! Not so smart now are you.....

But you can only dream on. But maybe you'd just spend an hour exchanging pleasantries. But he knew his stuff about Brens