When was this picture taken ? It was certainly before the major conversion of 1967-1970.
I believe it was taken during a NATO exercise, north of Scotland in Spring 1965. The weather was pretty awful for the whole of the exercise and many members of the National Press were embarked to observe the exercise.
Due to the weather conditions, it was not possible to launch and recover aircraft and members of the press spent quite a bit of time below decks, interviewing the crew and observing the living conditions, which they reported as appalling. Consequently, they ran stories which described her as a \"Slum Ship\" as many of the crew were sleeping in hammocks, or on camp beds in passageways (they probably didn\'t realise that most of the old ships in the fleet did likewise). Following this adverse publicity we were awarded \"Hard Lying money\" which compensated somewhat, most of which was invested in local breweries. Living conditions may have been basic but the ships company were second to none.
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