The principal results of the classic analysis of the shearing sheet and swing amplification by Julian & Toomre (1966) are re-derived in a more accessible way and then used to gain a better quantitative understanding of the dynamics of stellar discs. The axisymmetric limit of the shearing sheet is derived and used to re-derive Kalnajs 1965 dispersion relation and Toomres 1964 stability criterion for axisymmetric disturbances. Using the shearing sheet to revisit Toomres important 1969 paper on the group velocity implied by Lin-Shu-Kalnajs dispersion relation, we discover that two rather than one wavepackets emerges inside corotation: one each side of the inner Lindblad resonance. Although LSK dispersion relation provides useful interpretations of both wavepackets, the shearing sheet highlights the limitations of the LSK approach to disc dynamics. Disturbances by no means avoid an annulus around corotation, as the LSK dispersion relation implies. While disturbances of the shearing sheet have a limited life in real space, they live on much longer in velocity space, which Gaia allows us to probe extensively. C++ code is provided to facilitate applications of winding spiral waves.
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