The Old Gaffer

In time we, in the Westminster Homeguard were chosen to man blockhouses in Whitehall. Crude, concrete structures, set across a road leading to Whitehall and with a gate making free access impossible. Our job was sentry duty outside the blockhouse on ‘X’ nights a week and at weekends. In the blockhouse it was like a squat, comfortless, and outside, bitterly cold. There were three troopers, a sergeant and me. They all had ammunition I had none, presumably for their safety rather than my own. It was here that I first came across the unthinking use of expletives, the more disgusting the better. The ‘F’ word was used indiscriminately, certainly rarely in context and often between syllables. In retrospect I find it strange how soon I became acclimatised to the whole atmosphere. Our blockhouse was beside the Liberal Club, one of the clubs in London and the Members, on duty nights, welcomed us and allowed us to use the club between bouts of duty and to have a half of Bitter in those august rooms, if we liked when we were doing duty at weekends. It was another world. The quiet smooth running of the club was like a well oiled engine which had been in service since the dawn of time; the unruffled, discreet way the staff appeared to serve, almost without being there, the over-stuffed, oxblood-coloured leather, the rich carpets and curtains and above all the almost cloistered atmosphere of the billiard room, with its raised leather benches, its green baize and cowled lights over the tables, a world away from any previous experience, and awe-inspiring. It seems it took a war to break down the barriers.

Tedium epitomises the lot of the lower ranks in all the services and I include the police in this. The aspect I have found strangest is that at the time we are not aware we are wasting our lives. The system really works, all that marching up and down, forming fours or whatever, standing to attention with ne’er a muscle moving, does seem to concentrate the mind in the physical sense rather than the metaphysical, to a point where it is incapable of critical thought. The greatest of all boring duties is ‘Guard Duty’ in whatever service one is in. In the police, especially in Ireland during an ‘Emergency’, it can be lethal, in the Navy it is a joke, unless one is caught, and in the Army it is taken very seriously, even when all that is being guarded is so insignificant that no one would want to steal it or copy it anyway. The main function of the guard is to keep on the alert in case he is caught, having a crafty pull on a cigarette, is improperly dressed, or is slouching, all deemed to be heinous crimes with unspeakable punishment if caught. In wartime there are innumerable sergeants and officers creeping about trying to catch these guards committing these diabolical offences.

At the time we also had the Blitz to contend with. I was on guard duty outside the blockhouse in Whitehall on a very black night, when a shadowy figure approached. I said the obligatory ‘Halt! who goes there? Approach and be recognised.’, feeling like a total idiot, knowing full well it was one of the Regiment, nobody else would be fool enough to be out in the small hours on a wet and cold night. It was the Guards Officer doing his rounds, and I suspect my lack of sincerity must have come through. “Who the f…. are you?” he said with all the venom of an embittered mother-in-law. There was absolutely no way he could have thought I was other than what I represented. . I was sure the officer, even if he were dim, could not have been unaware of what and who I was. Anyway, it would have been on the order-paper or some typically bureaucratic sheet. “Home Guard, on duty. Sir.” I replied reasonably, with my bayonet still pointed at his supper.” ‘X-ing Home Guard!” he said and pushed past me with hardly a glance at anything but the bayonet which I was now waving about as I grounded the rifle. The poor Guards sergeant, who was a decent fellow, if also scathing about the Home Guard, got an earful, which carried out to me even through the layers of sacking, which acted as blackout curtaining. If one had the opinion one was aiding the war effort by being in the Home Guard, a few weeks with the Guards soon made it clear one was as useful and as desirable as another head.

The Changes WW2 Wrought On The Royal Navy 2 Once it had dawned on the Government that the war would not be over in a month, and Dunkirk reinforced this thinking, people were inventing new, and improving existing weapons and systems. fast, resulting in a constant state of change within the services. New categories of ranks were created, space had to be found for the new equipment and what was generally more difficult, for the men to operate and maintain it. I was one of those men and, to complicate it, I held a seaman’s rank, was educated to the level of a Petty Officer and dressed like one, without the gold-braid. I was a Leading, Wireless Mechanic later to be called Radio Mechanic, responsible for the maintenance of the Radio and Radar transmitters and receivers on the ship. The Chief Bosun, the Lower Deck mover and shaker, was at a loss where to put me, especially as the ship was crowded already. Unfortunately I finished in the Chief and Petty Officer’s mess, resented for my age, inexperience, being a Hostilities Only rating, and not having had to earn such an august place. Day and daily I paid dearly for that decision because I was resented by most of the members of the Mess.

We collected convoys at the mouth of the Thames and took them out into the North Atlantic to join other ships, and shepherded other ships home from the Atlantic to the Thames. From somewhere off Lowestoft, right up and beyond the Tyne minesweepers cleared a path for us and our charges, and buoys marked the cleared path. Over this stretch we were generally at action stations, especially at night. Then Jerry thought up a new strategy. He had fast torpedo boats we called E Boats. They were made of plywood and effective. They would tie up to the buoys in the dark and when the radar had an echo, initially it was ignored, thinking it to be the buoy. Then after a few ships had passed, Jerry would flash into the middle of the rest and sink a few, causing chaos. That stretch of water was called E Boat Alley. The Admiralty then inducted German speakers, who sat up at night listening for the plain language between the skippers of the E boats. What goes around comes around. Having to find accommodation for them, a new Engine-room artificer, a Gunnery-artificer, the two German speakers and someone else, they took a small compartment 3.5m square and made a Mess for specialists, a place where we ate, slept, and lived when off watch, I was included and swapped my durance vile for overcrowded camaraderie.

For the sake of those who have only recently joined, here is a golden Oldie, to the rest, I ask your indulgence.

I have said in the intro I was a latchkey child of a one parent family, I was also the baby sitter for a brother whose main aim was to gum red bars of Lifeboy Carbolic Soap with relish. I had just been introduced to ball-bearing roller skates and, when not at school, lived on wheels from breakfast until bedtime. It was a way of life which had been denied me in Africa because there were few paved areas on which to skate, but now I had discovered them, I was learning fast, if at the cost of sheets of my skin.

One Saturday Mother instructed me to take charge of Baby, who was sitting in one of those old fashioned, deep bodied, prams nannies would wheel in Hyde Park. I was rarely intentionally mischievous, rather I was inventive and given to ill-considered impulses. This time, becoming bored with pushing Baby round the roads at a snail’s pace, with no opportunity for adventure or self expression, I thought of the idea of skating with the pram, so two birds could be dealt with at one go, duty and speed. This too became boring until I realised that I had been doing the circuit the wrong way. If I tackled it anticlockwise I would have to descend a steep hill, instead of climbing it. This opened up a much better prospect and I proceeded to perfect the Toboggan Run system of perambulation, whereby the perambulator became the toboggan with Baby acting as ballast.

At nine years old I found this system so simple and so splendid I wondered no one had thought of it before. One skated to the top of the hill by any route. When on the flat, one turned the pram round, ducked under the handle and grasped the sides of the pram with the hands, put the chest on the back rim of the pram, and then skated as never before. When the whole unit was reaching Mach 2, one lifted one’s feet, skates and all, and then tobogganed down the hill accelerating the while, much to the enjoyment of Baby.

The game went on for the rest of the session until the moment when Mother rounded a corner to be met with the sight of her last-born hurtling towards her and no sign of anyone controlling the pram. I was hidden by the hood and the body of the pram and was almost alongside Baby as a passenger. In spite of the fact that Baby clearly thought the whole idea marvellous and also in spite of my assurances that it was absolutely safe, Mother put an end to a sport which might have had international recognition.The success of the venture outweighed the punishment to such an extent I can’t remember the form retribution took, but then I always did take punishment as a rod to be borne in the search for excellence.

Being unemployed at any time is not funny and in ‘46 I had been unemployed for three months, and any resources I might have had had gone. I worked to reach a standard for the university entrance exam, and then I became a student on an ex-service grant of ?200 a year. I think if it hadn’t been for the generosity of my in-laws, we would have starved, our finances were so tight. It is said the purpose of university life is that it broadens the mind as well as the backside, the latter from hours of sitting in the Stack, mugging. In the first year Laura, my daughter, was too young to know she even had a father so I was able to take part in a lot of what went on in the college, before the needs of family were greater and something had to give. Rowing was the first to go.

Loving boats I naturally joined the Rowing Club, a lowly Fresher Oarsman. We had racing shells and practice shells, those with the sliding seats and out-rigged rollocks; and rowing boats variously termed the tubs or the punts in which we, the raw recruits, were trained. Unfortunately, the people who were to teach us were also part of the first and second eights, so we waited until it suited them to teach us - anything up to four hours later - during which one did nothing but chat in a desultory fashion. I enjoyed those days on the river, I was tall which was good, I could handle an oar, which was essential and I was keen. When the tide was in we would row right down to Belfast Harbour, or up as far as the weir, but the real pleasure was all in the rhythm. When everything was going well there was a poetry about the way the boat responded and we responded to it, which has to be experienced to be appreciated. Alas, while the youngsters could relax in the boathouse, I had plumbing and paving and presents for the parties on my mind and worse, on my conscience. With the deepest regret I gave up after a year.

When my daughter was old enough to be invited to children’s parties we were presented with yet another financial problem, how to keep up with the Joneses. The children Laura played with came from homes across the social spectrum, but as the trend was set by the more affluent, all toed the line, with the result Laura would come home laden with bits and pieces. Not only that, but she had to take presents which were on a par. Often still skint, when it came to funding Laura’s, and later Lizzie’s, presents, both to take and to give, I had to find a solution.
At that time James came home from work at the Belfast Shipyard with pieces of rough sawn timber, which had originally been part of long lengths used as templates to pattern the plates for the ships. He cut these, when their useful life was over, into manageable lengths and brought them home for firewood. In the first instance, using this wood, I made Laura a small Irish cottage with a hinged back, opening front door with a little porch round it, all on a small board and decorated with roses growing up the sides and round the porch. The next venture was to make small simple jigsaw puzzles out of the ply obtained from tea chests, with the pictures from colouring books. Very soon Laura could do them, picture-side down. These prototypes in the end solved our problem. Then it was not possible to buy wooden jigsaw puzzles with big or small pieces, and dolls houses were scarce too.

The next requirement was an assembly line and armed with a treadle sewing machine base, a grinder head-stock, some steel channel, I made a circular saw cum-lathe. The people who run the dodgems at funfairs use hinges on all sides of the floorboards connecting them to each other. The pins in the hinges can be withdrawn, making it easy and especially quick to assemble and take down on each move. I used this system to mount and take down the saw table when swapping from sawing to lathe work. I produced the houses and other items by batch methods. True I have a nick in the bone of one finger where I inadvertently put my finger into the saw, but Sophie was never party to that bit of carelessness. Later the machine became electrified instead of the laborious treadling, and later still I made dolls from broom handles - long lengths of dolls on the lathe, head to foot, with their arms from doweling and wool for hair. Not only had we solved the problem of the presents we now had a minuscule income. . What had started as an idea, in the end turned into a mass production industry with the houses and puzzles also being sold in our shop

My in-laws were generous and kind, and any member of their extended family in trouble was welcome. So it was when Ned came to stay, permanently. Ned was both a character and a knowing old devil. In his late eighties when I first met him, tall, stooped, severely rheumatic, lame and rheumy of eye, he was very amenable. His gratitude to his daughter and son-in-law, were expressed almost daily. The most frequent story of his life I heard referred to the days just before he set out on his travels round the world on a sailing ship. He was a joiner and ship’s carpenter in the shipyard in his home-town shipyard at Carrickfergus where he had also learned to drive a ‘Donkey Engine’. This type of Donkey Engine would be called a steam driven winch or capstan today. A ship, with square rigged sails, had been launched and the skipper was looking for a carpenter cum donkey man, and Ned rushed home to tell his mother that he was applying. Back at the yard his boss recommended Ned and, in short, off he went to sea to sail in a sailing ship round the Horn, with all that implied in hardship in those days.

He was an old rascal,. He would sit in his corner and think up statements designed to shock and there were none he liked to shock more than maiden lady visitors. On one occasion it was the spinster daughter of a Presbyterian minister who was visiting, and you can’t get much more unworldly than that, and as a gesture of kindness she went out to the breakfast room to have a word with the ‘old gentleman’ - what a mistake! The family always had someone on duty in these circumstances - they knew him of old. In this instance he was heard to say, ‘I’m not as young as I used to be daughter,’ which he pronounced more as do’gh’ter, ‘Come, steady me on the Po.’ after which he chuckled at the expression on the lady’s face with a sort of Billy Bunter glee-noise, an aspirated’ he-he’ which seemed to come from deep within his chest, and would go on for what seemed ages. There was another instance when a lady of similar background went to talk to him about his travels round the world and he admitted having visited quite a few places in the Southern Hemisphere, ‘Like that sharp place,’ he said. ‘You know, wallop you’re arse with a razor.’ He was referring to Valporaiso, and we were sure he knew the name as well as his own, he was just out to stir the pot, it was all the fun he had left.

Old Ned and Laura. Laura is my elder daughter and at that time she was not yet two years old. He and Laura often had running battles, and sometimes he behaved like a child himself. Laura would sit on the floor and play with her wooden bricks, building them higher and higher, as carefully and meticulously as she does all things, with the result they reached considerable heights when one considers her age and dexterity. Ned was lame and walked with a stick. He dozed a lot, but when he was awake he would reverse his stick and hook the handle round Laura’s tower and topple it, at which time he would cackle with laughter and she would get cross. She, however, was resourceful, and on one occasion waited until he was asleep with his head supported on a hand, itself supported on an elbow, on the arm of the chair; then she attacked. She drew back the door behind which he sat and then hit his hand with it as hard as she could. The shock to the poor old boy must have been devastating, he complained to everyone as they entered the house and as the bruising on his hand developed as it does with old people, he complained even more. I have a feeling the toppling stopped after that encounter.

NED AND THE HAIRCUT Because he was so lame the time came when he could walk very little; so we employed a hairdresser to cut his hair at the house. It seems the visits were too far apart to suit Ned and one Sunday, when the rest of the family were out for a walk, Ned insisted that I cut his hair in spite of my protestations that I was unqualified and the result would be a disaster. Nothing would deter him and still complaining, I put a towel round his neck and proceeded to operate in the best way I could with the cutting-out scissors. When I had finished, or rather, when I dared to cut no further, we went through the ritual with the two mirrors, as in a reputable hairdressers. Ned was delighted, I was relieved. He kept eulogising my many talents, as a barber supremo - his eyesight was not of the best. Then the rest of the family returned and he immediately showed off his tonsorial transformation, explaining who had done it. I tried to intervene and explain that I had been press-ganged against my will, but the hoots and roars of laughter at the remnants of the poor old man’s white locks drowned me out. I have never seen such a transformation, it was lightning, it was quick-silver, it was instantaneous and it was virulent. Now I was cast in the roll of the villain who had taken advantage of a poor old pensioner and made a mess of his hair. Fortunately his memory span was as poor as his eyesight and next day all was sweetness and light once more.

I often wonder if young people, with shiny new degrees lecturing us on TV, in dictatorial terms, with such conviction, have really had any experience of the problems they are allegedly solving. I have met a number of those problems head on, at a time when they were not thought to be so. From the age of eight, I, and many of my mates regularly carried blood blisters on our buttocks or hands from caning. We were high spirited, and when we thought we were right. rebellious, but not vandals, nor did we feel oppressed.

In a music lesson in secondary school, the teacher was playing a record of the Overture to the Mid-Summer Night’s Dream and explaining how a few bars of the music imitated the braying of an ass. Gilly Potter, my mate, and I sat together; we were undoubtedly asses. The teacher replayed the record, Gilly and I, instinctively brayed on queue. I had to fetch the punishment book and cane, Gilly and I received 6 blood blisters on our buttocks to take home.

In elementary school, a poem set for homework was twice tested the following day. After further learning in a classroom, where the rest were being taught something more interesting, those still below par, had to learn again, then bend over and had strokes of the cane punctuating each omission to help the appreciation of poetry. In my own home, a cane hung from a hook on the kitchen door and could be applied for all sorts of reasons. There were other abuses, bullying, clips round the head for incompetence, etc,

At secondary school we were caned by the prefects for minor infringements, like not doing the lines they had given us for running in a corridor. Most of us took it as part of life, it hurt momentarily; it was an obvious risk one took for disobeying the rules, but psychologically, life was so full, we hadn’t time for it to become a real concern.

As to sex, in single sex schooling, and unless we had sisters, we had no truck with girls until we were about 15, and even then we were totally naive; and while there were dirty stories going the rounds, I distinctly remember when I was about eleven, having no idea what the guy telling the story was talking about. Swearing, sex and salacious talk was rare in front of children, to the extent that when an aunt was being divorced, it was only discussed when I was absent, I was ten at the time. Sexual child abuse and other deviances, to my certain knowledge were never aired in general company, mainly because they were ‘not nice’ the final arbiter in so much pre WW2.

Would I be wrong in thinking that religion-supplied recreation and stimulation in the old days served the community well, particularly in those dull, dark winter nights, through clubs, Scouts and Guides and other activities for the young, even if they abandoned it later in life; but that the root causes of delinquency today are through the lack of parental control, exercise, stimulation and also debilitating boredom, not abuse and some of the other factors usually offered? Am I right in thinking, in effect, the parents should be held actively responsible, and there should be more recreational areas and facilities?

STUDY AND THE BENZEDRINE PILL For years I have known I can’t be taught, I prefer to read books and find out for myself. Whether, as I suspect, the droning of another voice hypnotises me, or whether I just nod off, all I know is I tend to get on better on my own. My wife, a teacher of Modern Languages was a little miffed as French was one of the subjects I was to sit for the entrance exam, Demobbed, hoping to get into Queens University to read Engineering on an ex-service grant, I started the cram course. The guy I went to for a cram, had a classroom over the Fifty Bob Tailors at the Junction in Belfast. He was also none too pleased when another student and I started to teach him mathematics instead of the reverse. Learning French was pure memory, so a tutor merely had to mark exercises. In the case of the Crammer, he was so far behind current day thinking in mathematics, he was practically using the abacus to calculate what we owed him in fees.

This other student was a real character, he was doing the same exam as I because he had been in the Naval Commandos and been demobbed at roughly the same time. We would meet at the Crammers’ and then go for a drink afterwards. We discussed our relative careers and when that palled we worked at examples we were sure the Crammer was making a mess of. Slowly the time drew near, we were both working hard and comparing notes when we met, and on one occasion he showed me some Benzedrine tablets he had which were left over from beach-landings he had taken part in. He was using them from time to time so he could study through the night without sleep. I warned against it without success, in my case I was merely resorting to coffee and tobacco.

The day of the Exam dawned and I entered the world of the university for the first time. We sat in the Great Hall, with darkened oak or mahogany woodwork, stained-glass windows and a gnarled, stained, wooden floor. The little desks in rows in isolation. The atmosphere was austere and not a little intimidating. I was esmerised just by being there, in a place I knew all my family in England would revere. My wife had trod those boards two years earlier. We had been given examination numbers and when I looked across to where I expected to see my friend his desk was empty and stayed so. I found later he had succumbed to the Benzedrine and when he should have been at Queens he was in hospital. I have said he was a character, that is true, he was larger than life and when his name hit the headlines in Northern Ireland it only went to prove the point. Failing to get into Queen’s he had left and gone to the rigorous climes of Northern Canada to work in the oil fields, and it was there he walked for days in the harshest conditions of blizzards and ice, without food, to fetch help, when he and some of his work mates had been involved in an accident. The feat was so extraordinary it was even carried in the press here.

THE BOXING MATCH In second year, I offered an opinion, it always heralds trouble. The men were wondering what sort of show to put on, on Rag Day. Instead of just a procession, I suggested a static show, slap stick, to gather the crowds and collect more money, - provide ourselves with a captive audience. I was inveigled to join another ex-serviceman in An Olde Time Boxing Match. We were to wear combinations, I was to black my face and wear a Fez. I was six foot two of Great Mustapha. He was the British challenger - five foot nothing of cheeky chappy. We set off in the procession with our seconds and marched from the University to the centre of High Street. There was an open space left by the demolition of bombed buildings In the meantime some of the gang went ahead and set up a ring. The performance predictably followed the usual circus ring craft, although we were probably not as crafty. A lot of water was thrown about, punches were thrown and of course, Mustapha must-ave-a beating - which he duly received. To finish it all off, absolutely cold sober, but with adrenaline running high, I obtained a crate and, standing on it in the middle of the main thoroughfare, brought Belfast to a halt with community singing. I arrived home, soberly dressed, sat down for the evening meal when my Mother-in-law, told of how this idiot, standing on a box in his underwear and black face, holding up the traffic was conducting the crowd in a singsong. It was some time before I enlightened her who the idiot was. In the cold light of day and without the stimulus of adrenaline, I agreed with her, he was an idiot.

Presumably, as a morale booster, a genius at Whitehall thought it would be a ‘terrific idea’ for the HG to mount guard at Buck H, unaware what the poor devils would suffer at the delicate hands of the Guards’ Drill Sergeants. An edict was read out at parades. I assumed it was an honour for the HG while paying homage to His Majesty, KG6. They wanted the platoon to provide men six foot in height -’volunteers’. Skipper made us fall in, put us through arms drill, finally picking those he thought would disgrace us least - I was one.

We reported to Wellington Barracks on Birdcage Walk each evening for two hours, training in the art of guarding, that involved stamping the feet at every opportunity until the Achilles tendons ached, carrying a rifle at the ’slope’ and marching back and forth - doing everything old Skip had taught us but with ’snap’. ‘Put a snap in it, lad’, was the cry. There was a S’nt Mayhah, not a sergeant major, dress cap placed parallel to the ground, black peak flat on his face so he had to hold his head back to see where he was going, and a device under his left arm, called a ‘pace stick’. To assess the level of detail these guys entered into, the S’nt Mayhah invariably held this pace stick parallel to the ground, with the point held between the first finger and thumb of the left hand, with the remainder of his fingers extended, his right hand loosely closed with thumb extended on top and the arm raised to shoulder level on alternate strides. Someone in our platoon
wondered who had time to wind them all up before we arrived.

The S’nt Mayhah had a voice like thunder and I assume, abused his own sergeants to impress upon us civilians the yawning gap there was between a soldier and a Home Guard. That we were held in complete contempt was patent on arrival, and as the S’nt Mayhah probably had additional duties in consequence didn’t help our cause. One other odd, peculiar particular was the Officer-In-Charge. Dressed like the S’nt Mayhah but with a Sam Brown across his chest, his hat with the flattened brim, he marched back and forth, parallel to the Birdcage Walk railings, swagger stick like the pace stick, under his arm, precisely held, but he looked neither to left or right, he ignored what was going on beside him, of which he was in charge, and just stamped his feet as he turned round at each precise end of a the exact course of pacing. Periodically a sergeant or the S’nt Mayhah would stand in his path, sufficiently far along the track so he could put on the breaks and stamp to a halt. They would salute one another for the umpteenth time, both shout something unintelligible as if a field apart, salute yet again, stamp a few times, part company and the officer would start his pacing again like an automaton.

It was June and the weather was wildly hot, I had only a singlet under my battledress tunic, a great mistake. For hours on end, night after night, we sloped arms and ordered arms and we tried to ‘put a snap in it’, but achieving that was almost impossible towards the end of the evening because our collar bones were sore with the repeated battering they received from the rifles as we obeyed instructions, shouted in our ear, strength five, ‘don’t put it down, slap it down’. We had done a full day’s work already, we were being abused as if we were raw recruits and this our chosen profession. Resentment reigned large. My friend Farrer was becoming as miserable and bolshie as I was . The crunch came on a Saturday Now, not only my collarbone, broken years before, but the skin was so sore I could barely take the rubbing of the uniform on it. At ‘Shoulder arms’, I tried to find a spot on which to lay the rifle, it took time. A sergeant, taller than I, and a great deal stronger, standing immediately behind me, watching me as I started to lay the rifle down tentatively, hit the rifle on the barrel when it was about six inches from my shoulder, so that it literally crashed down on all the pain - “I told you to smack it down not lay it down”, he bellowed in my ear. For a moment I was staggered both by the pain and the brutality. One minute they were implying we were no-hopers, the next we were treated as if fully trained but malingering. I took the rifle off my shoulder and turned to the sergeant and explained rather tersely that I was a civilian trying my best but as my best was not good enough I was resigning from his care. After all these years I have no idea what I really said. I walked sedately off the parade ground. Whether the automaton saw me is unlikely, whether he cared is a definite negative. none of our platoon were at the Gates of Buckingham Palace in June when the Press pictures were taken.. Probably we were all dismissed and Guardsmen were dressed in our awful uniforms and out there, pretending - serve ‘em right!

The New Industry 2 On the 31st of October I posted this subject (still included) and I have already said I wouldn’t Rant - I say sorry to those looking for something different - look tomorrow, I’ll put an extra piece in. The panic is that they are at it again, using Global Warming as a lever to make more money by the back door. Of course we have parking problems; we haven’t got a sensible and convenient public transport programme. Surely, instead of giving unscrupulous Clamping Companies a licence to extort, - also making a total hems of the Olympics - which is another Blair ego trip - which few outside the Southern Counties want - which will further drain our resources - still without a firm budget probably 50% wrong; - we should be using all those billions to improve the Transport system and really help the Environment. I mentioned this to someone, who said we are a World Leader and must lead - where has he been for the last 10 years?

General Foremen (GF) are the backbone of any engineering/building project. In my day they started on a long apprenticeship, followed by a journeyman period, became Foremen and finally reached the top. All this time they had been moving from job to job for advancement, gaining experience in many fields, manufacture, building, engineering and heavy engineering, and management. These men were university material but circumstances or finance had forced them to take the hard road. Decades ago the system was changed, the apprenticeship was shortened, and the quality of skill fell in many instances - output and cost were the key, not perfection. At the same time, affluence meant that those with the attributes were going to university, not into apprenticeship, a different route with a different outcome - hence the long experience gained to enable a man to become a proper GF was lost. recently there has been a training programme for people with the ability to be trained in the Trades, but as it is a government scheme, I doubt if the products will ever match up to the men I worked with. I now hear that Polish workers are arriving here with those very skills and presumably there will be more to follow from elsewhere.

Fiscal Iniquity I am worried that we have all been marched into an organisational morass, by the constant and pointless tweaking of every system, without reference to the actual professionals carrying out the work.

The Fiscal Iniquity which ties the hands of all those dispensing Government funds has operated since God knows when. It is a boon to small contractors but a bane to those trying to manage budgets. On the 4th of April, each year, allocated funds not spent revert to the Treasury; and money for the following 12 months has already been allocated, but not necessarily in the same proportions. Teachers, libraries, book sellers, small road contractors, and the rest, all are aware of the system. From October on. there is a rush to buy materials, books, to draw up and let contracts to have footpaths relaid, roads tarred and a host of ad hoc ideas, to use the surplus derived from under spend in other spheres. The under spend results from circumstances outside the control of the local authority, it could be strikes, weather, a glitch in supply, but the money doesn’t roll over, if it is not spent it is lost. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realise the resultant waste of money - in being put under pressure to spend, forethought is at a minimum. Multiply this throughout Government contracts and general expenditure and the waste must be mind boggling. I fail to understand how, overall, politicians haven’t woken up to this waste, unless there is some valid reason why Government spending is so different from Industry, where a rolling programme is essential.

When I complain, I am thinking of the generations born since ‘75 and in the future and worrying where they as a community will finish, when all the skill has been down graded through expediency. - Sorry to be so miserable!

We were entering harbour with our new Skipper in charge and most of the crew were getting into what was referred to as their Number Ones, their shore-going gear, their Sunday suits, when suddenly we were thrown to the deck. We’d hit the harbour wall. It was at the time when our place at the head of the convoy as Flotilla Leader had been usurped and we were demoted because of the rank of our new Skipper. No one was pleased with the situation and, if by chance he had won the Irish lottery, the crew would have griped that he had managed to do it when the kitty was low, that was how they felt about the state of things. He, the Skipper, had inadvertently called for ‘full ahead’ when he had meant ‘full astern’, or that was the gossip, the scuttle-butt. That was not what annoyed the men, they would have applauded the act if it had come off properly, but the idiot had managed to hit a rubbing strake, a fixed fender made of hardwood which was attached to the harbour wall just for that event, instead of hitting the wall itself. The blow had been fended off to some extent and all that was damaged was the Skipper’s pride and a few of the bow plates; instead of shifting the engines on their mountings and putting us into dry dock for a month with oodles of home leave. He was not popular. What was worse still was that as we were shortly due for a boiler clean they proposed putting a collision mat on the bow and sending us off on convoy next day, with the pumps trying to keep the water down.. A collision mat is a heavy tarpaulin which is tied over the hole and mainly held in place by the pressure of the water as the ship ploughs through the waves. It is a bit more scientific than that, but that’s the main idea. The whole business had been totally mishandled as far as the lower deck was concerned.

During the previous trip I had developed severe tooth ache and as the Sickbay Tiffy was not licensed to do dentistry I had to be content with pain killers until we reached Sheerness. There I went ashore to the Naval hospital and was attended to by a Surgeon Captain Dentist - a four-ringer, no less. “Does this hurt?” he asked tapping a tooth and trying to anaesthetise me at the same time with a waft of stale gin. ‘No!’ I said. ‘Nor this?’, tapping again. ‘Ouch’ I said. I’m no stoic. ‘Right!’ he said, but I could not answer as I had a mouthful of his right fist. There was a push and a pull, a quick tweak, and there was one of my sacred molars at the end of his pliers. He admired it from every angle. ‘Nothing wrong with that one,’ he said, ‘Must have pulled the wrong one’, he added. ‘Had to come out sometime. Open wide!’

I was sore and annoyed and fed up into the bargain. It was raining cats and dogs. I had missed the rest of the crew who were off somewhere and so I mooched the streets until I espied a cinema with a film called ‘Hells-a-poppin”. It is that daft film where a man comes on at the beginning of the film with a pine tree sapling in a pot, and all through the film he reappears with it having grown more and more each time until in the last reel the tree is on its side, on a low loader, with a bear up in the top branches. The film cheered me so much I nearly forgot the incident, the idiot dentist, his halo of gin, but not ‘Hells-a-poppin”. Think what I could have claimed from the Government today for incompetence.