The Old Gaffer

One thing is certain, he is absorbed with his image. That is totally clear every time he opens his mouth on television. One thing I’ve failed to understand, but then I’m stupid, is why he is going to town on the poisoning of a foreign spy, by another spy. There is no shadow of doubt that the act has wider implications from the point of view of the health of some of our citizens, but it doesn’t have to be a hammer one takes to a nut. In my simplicity I believe this is purely an ego trip with tricky side issues.

The Primer Minister’s action uncovers a dichotomy. Currently in jail, or widely being searched, a number of people from the Subcontinent have allegedly, or been proven to have carried out actions of terrorism, in this country, not so much on their own people but on the indigenous population. To someone with an ounce of intelligence it might come as a surprise that the representatives of those countries on the Subcontinent which have been harbouring training establishments for terrorism, have not been sent home. To my simple mind this is more than a parallel case. It would appear tricky if every time a national of another country is assassinated in this country by one of his own nationals, that a number of embassy officials would be given their marching orders. Is this particular case, therefore, selective because it has been so much in the press, because the murdered man gave secret information, and was therefore the responsibility of the government, or is there something, as usual, that they’re not telling us?

Now let us look at something far more important. Housing! I never cease to be amazed at the misinformation provided to our leaders by their advisers. Brown has made great stress on his proposals to build millions of houses at a time when we need housing, but we need updating the infrastructure far more. Houses need surface water drainage and sewerage disposal, mains water and electricity, telephones and waste disposal. As a one-time sewerage engineer, in June this year I posted a Serious Warning concerning Flooding, and in it I gave a rough idea how sewerage systems grow, and explained it was impossible to keep up with progress, For example how difficult it is to take an old system, or even the non existing system, and sewer the sort of areas Brown is talking about. In our district, and we are on the edge of a green area, development has been such that sometimes we are told by BT that their lines will be out of service for a period as they are overloaded. I strongly suspect that applies to a lot of the other services. Recently our government instituted a new landfill site approached through a housing site.. The houses in the vicinity have been inundated with blue bottles to the extent that they are coating the windows; this is the sort of unanticipated problem that will be faced by massive building without massive attention to the infrastructure and design details, cause and effect.. I suspect that this is just another ego trip, and quite like a lot of Labour’s proposals, subject to yet another U-turn, when it dawns on somebody in Whitehall of the monumental problems, disruption and expense this proposal will naturally generate..

‘Givers and takers’. I was talking to a young woman the other day about the behaviour of some people, and she came up with the phrase, ‘givers and takers’, and I started to think about it. She said there are some people who give, all the time, of their time, materially, and mentally These people will not, under any circumstances, allow those they help to repay them in any way. At the other end of the equation are the takers, those who demand, accept as their due, wouldn’t dream of repayment, rather they demand even more. I have come across these people and, this young woman says that, to some extent, I fall into one of the categories. Clearly there are grades from one extreme to the other. I suggested to her that the givers suffer from inferiority complexes and a low opinion of their own value, in spite of the fact that they are truly valuable, and have to keep reinforcing some need for acceptance. From my own experience, I guess that the other extreme, the takers, too have an inferiority complex, though in this case they feel that their value should be recognised, applauded and paid homage to. Consequently they don’t need to recognise a debt for what they consider is their right. Am I barking up the wrong tree, or even barking mad?

The Chiefs’ & Petty Officers Rum

This Mess treated Rum like the Romans treated Jupiter and the tradition also was unique in my experience. Daily at eleven o’clock a deep-sided dish was placed on the Mess table containing fresh water. Three average sized tumblers were place, upended, in the water for the men to take their rum from. Beside it was a small skillet containing the neat rum Each man, when it suited, either logistically or from preference, would enter the Mess, measure out his tot with a steady hand, making sure the maximum possible meniscus was formed on the top of the measure before tipping it quickly and deftly into one of the tumblers. The speed of hand and the deft flick of the wrist ensured that none was spilled, no matter what the sea conditions might be; then the measure would be held to drip into the glass until every vestige of rum had drained from it - each drop was precious. When the rum had been sipped with relish - it was never drunk - the glass was then turned upside down and placed once more in the ‘rum water’ to drain’.

One day, shortly after I had arrived on the ship, I found I was the last to collect my ration and after I had completed the whole ritual I moved to lift the dish with the ‘rum water’, prior to throwing it out. There were several Petty Officers in the Mess and with one voice, accompanied by several choice expletives, they wanted to know what the xxx hell I was xxx doing with the xxx rum water. I took this syntax as Navy-speak and it ran off me like water off a duck’s back I explained how I was just being tidy and was going to get rid of the dirty water. I failed to add that it was adulterated by the saliva of everyone in the Mess as well as the rum, and it was just as well I did because I was then treated to a lecture, a diatribe even, on my antecedents first of all, then my lack of mental capacity, my total unsuitability for Naval life and finally, the reason for the harangue - it was the Chief Stoker’s day to drink the ‘rum water’.

Apparently this water had a faint taste of rum due to the drips which had run from the glasses each time they had been used and each of the Chiefs and PO’s had their day in an unwritten roster to drink this spittle-soup. You can imagine, I was terribly contrite, I could not have been anything else in the circumstances, I was afraid I might burst out laughing. It is conceivable in 2006 that this was a prank played on an ingenue, but the fierceness of the attack and subsequent drinking, turn about, made it real and very earnest. Because I was a Killick (the equivalent rank to a Leading Seaman) in a Chiefs and PO’s Mess, and worse still an HO (Hostilities Only) hardly dry behind the ears, I was not only barely tolerated, there was an underlying resentment of the fact that I had been foisted on the C & PO’s and thus was benefiting from the privileges and freedom they had striven for over years, man and boy. The whole thing was understandable, but rough on me because I had to take the brunt through no fault of my own. I had to walk softly and I was not allowed to carry a big stick.

The Tradition and Importance of The Tot.
To the RN Lower-deck that I knew, the withdrawal of the daily Rum Ration, The Tot, must have been like the death of a lover. How, in 1970, a do-gooder managed to engineer the withdrawal without murder is astounding, as you will realise if you read The Chief’s Rum Water. The history of the Tot from 1687 was a pint of 100% proof Jamaican Rum, daily, modified in 1870 by an Admiral called Grogram, hence the word Grog, and cut off in 1970 - 300 years of alcoholic bliss. The Pussers Rum website gives a broad history of the Tot, and when I say I have been searching for the real thing for 60 years, you will understand it made a deep impression.

Rum was more than a stimulant, originally a soporific to deaden the hardships of life at sea, it became a tool, currency, a source of internecine warfare and theft, a persuader, a drug and totally ritualistic. It was unbelievable what a Tot would buy. A man would wash and dry a hammock, a mattress cover, and two heavy blankest for a tot. He would take a photo of a mate’s child and paint an incredible watercolour portrait. Take a bottle with three tots in it to the Shipyard and you’d be surprised what it would buy. See It All Started With A Fish Box, to be posted.

It was a status symbol. Men on courses, in barracks, on big ships qualified only for the diluted version - grog. Neat rum was issued on small ships because the conditions were that much tougher, and therefore it became a macho symbol - highly valued. The procedure of dealing out rum was a farce, intended to ensure the rations were carefully monitored and there would be no double dealing. The Supply Rating produced the rum from store, allegedly accurately measured against the register, with absentees deducted. The officer of the Watch approved it, it should have been drunk before him, a logistical impossibility, it then went to the Messes and there, there really were checks in place; as you drew your tot, every available eye was on you to see you didn’t have a crafty method for beating the system. Friendship with the Supply Tiffy was a route to obtaining what was termed ‘Gash’, spare rum - totally illegal - and the Tiffy’s further perks. Our cook went to Edinburgh one boiler clean for the regulation four day lay over. He came back hardly able to stand and, with the help of his friend, the Supply Tiffy, I never saw him sober again. He was a one-man-band, responsible only for keeping his mates happy by cooking the food, something he could do in his sleep, his condition never rose above the Lower Deck. We were a family and close.

On VJ Day it was my duty to serve the rum for the Chiefs’ and Petty Officers Mess. I was an instructor at the Signal School, just married, living in the Town. We were to get the afternoon off in celebration, and I had promised to take my wife  to Portsmouth. It was at this point that the honoured rituals of Rum stepped in. For friendship, a payment, a celebration, one was offered to ’sip’, ‘gulp’ or ‘bottoms up’ from a man’s glass when he drew his rum. These measurements were instinctive, accepted and carefully monitored, abuse was reported immediately throughout the Mess and a reputation instantly destroyed.

VJ Day was a celebration. I stood at the rum table, a huge billycan full of 100% rum in front of me, a pint of beer beside me, carefully ensuring that every measure I took had its ritualistic full meniscus before I tipped it into the man’s glass without spilling a single drop - it is an acquired skill. The man, being a Messmate, offered me sippers - little more than the wetting of the lips. Initially I accepted, but once the beer, the fumes from the billy, my own tot and the sippers started to take effect I slowed to a totter and managed to remain coherent for the rest of the morning. However at lunch, in our flat in the Town, I fell asleep - she never did see Portsmouth, but I hear about it from time to time - 60+ years on.

To put this occurrence in context I have to write some technical information. I have discovered that any mention of physics and peoples eyes start to glaze, so I will be brief and as simple as possible. Voltage is what gives electricity impetus to move along wires, across the ether, or, as in my case through the body from the hands to the nearest contact with earth. Current is the measure of the electricity passing, and mostly it is current which kills not voltage, A few years ago Sophie, my wife, who never studied physics, accidentally filled the works of her mixer with tomato soup. She cleaned up the mess, absentmindedly held an aluminium saucepan on the steel drainer and started the mixer again. The mains ran up one arm, down the other, through the pan and the drainer and to earth via the cold water pipe. She was lucky she only had a severe shock. She was receiving somewhere around 230 volts and all the current the mains could supply.

It was on my second convoy when I received a rude awakening, a real shock to the system. I was brought from a deep sleep to a set that was as dead as a doornail, not a flicker, not a peep. It was housed right at the bottom of the ship in a small office about ten feet long and six wide. At action stations we were battened down, down there, as part of the system which cut the ship up into watertight compartments to avoid general flooding in thec event of being hit. In time you got so used to it, it seemed normal. The set operated mainly at sea level, while we had another in an officer’s cabin mostly used to seek out aircraft. The ship was so crowded even the officers were not immune from their space being shared with some gadgetry and maybe operators on rota.

When I started to test, there were a number of simply translated signs and I soon discovered that a number of resistors had exploded, a feature new to me. These components, part of a circuit which transformed the ship’s voltage to one of six thousand volts, to operate the cathode ray tube and other sensitive bits of the Radar.

I switched off the power and set about removing the exploded remnants, but I did not get too far. Standing on a steel deck, in ordinary shoes, I touched the wrong end of one of the damaged resistances, and came to at the other end of the office, sitting dazed on the floor, being spoken to as if I was a hospital case in need of assurance. In the instant before I momentarily passed out I remember that every joint, from neck to ankle, felt as if each had been brutally pulled apart at the same time and twanged together again, as if made of elastic like a child’s doll. I was so dazed, I went back to the set and committed the same act all over again with the same result, except, this time, I had the shakes added to the blinding headache and pains in my joints from the second encounter. I sat there and took stock. It was then I realised that some of the components, the huge smoothing-condensers, sort of electrical storage tanks, still held their charge which the resistances were supposed to dissipate. I am sure I had received 6000 volts at least on the first occasion and nearly that the second time, but the current was small enough merely to teach me circumspection, not the rudiments of the harp - I should be so lucky!!.

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. When the German speakers established contact, we were off on a chase.

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.

Travelling since early morning, provided with food vouchers, eating on the run was difficult. The trains were full, and one spent the journey uncomfortably seated on a suitcase, while guarding a small case and kit bag, with a hammock in the guard’s van, At big junctions there were barrows selling sandwiches and tea and there were always the canteens run by the Salvation Army ( God Bless ‘em ), but the problem was that, if you were alone, you risked having everything stolen, or had to take it with you to make a purchase, and risk missing the train. One tended to buy food at termini and not on the way. When I arrived at the ship, it was late afternoon, she was about to leave harbour to pick up a convoy in the North Atlantic. My first impression was of how small it was, two hundred and fifty feet odd in length and only twenty odd in the beam was not what I had expected, but as I was hurried aboard and sent straight down below, I saw little in that first glance.

After saluting the quarter deck, giving my name to the Boatswain’s Mate, I dropped my hammock and kit bag through a hatch and followed gingerly down a steep steel ladder into a world of new noises and smells. The nickname for those ships was the ’sardine tin’ and it was apt. Passing on the corridors, or ‘flats’ as they were called, was an intimate affair and all living a prescription for claustrophobia, even before they battened down the hatches on us at times of action. There were strict levels of social strata, unwritten rules concerning movement from one stratum to another and relationships across strata boundaries, but these rules, provided stability if not confidence. I had arrived just as the evening meal was concluding and someone asked me if I was hungry. I was starving, and was presented with a huge plate of roast meat, potatoes, and vegetables all swimming in greasy gravy. I tucked in. I have written elsewhere of my initial problems with being a Hostilities Only rating and in living in the Petty and Chief Petty Officers’ Mess.

We left the Firth of Forth even before I had finished eating and for a while I tried to get myself sorted. We sailed north and then followed a route the men referred to as ’round the North Cape’, which I took to mean through the Pentland Firth, and out into the Atlantic. That was where we really found the weather. The ship rolled and pitched for all she was worth and it was then I regretted the roast dinner; I was ill.

At some point later, one of the Radar operators came and told me that one of the sets had broken down and that I would have to fix it. Seasickness was no excuse and duty came first, so I went. I discovered that soldering was called for and that was my personal Waterloo, in more ways than one. The radar set I was working on was large enough for me to be able to fix a bucket within its confines and use it as needed while breathing in the cloying and stinking fumes of the soldering flux, which only added to my nausea as I hung on for dear life, while the ship tossed itself about. At the same time, I was trying desperately to give a good account of myself on my first trial. From that moment until we brought the convoy to harbour more than a week later I was permanently ill, I could not bear the heat of the air at hammock level and slept on the floor of my office, which was not much better as the steel floor vibrated in tune to the engines. I prayed for death and gave not a single thought to those who would accompany me. I was prostrate, in pain and almost demented. When I ultimately went ashore, the jetty appeared to be rolling and pitching as the ship had, until my brain got itself in gear. This affect is not uncommon after very bad weather. The strange thing is that after that voyage, in similar circumstances later, irrespective of the weather and not withstanding that some of the experienced men around me were sick, I was never ill again.

Blabber-Mouths. I hope you’ll forgive me for reiterating something I have previously mentioned, but it is apposite. In the mid 30s, discussion on bodily functions, female problems, divorce and anything else that was deemed ‘not nice’ was only aired by small groups of people which definitely did not include children. Consequently one was fairly mature before you learned very much about these sorts of problems. This delicacy was applicable to other areas, the newspapers were careful what they said about politicians, people in high places and pure gossip. In workplaces there was no fraternisation between the various grades of people, such as labourers, tradesmen, office staff, management and senior management. Similarly in the services the disparity between the lower deck and the wardroom, the parade ground and the officers mess in particular, was on a par with the behaviour of the inmates of the mansion of a belted earl.

It is therefore unsurprising that we in our 80s find it almost an anathema the way in which everyone from the Queen to some young, simple rising star in the entertainment world, can now be stripped bare on television and the press, even by mistake, with no checks and balances, nor acceptance that mud, once thrown, sticks. It now seems that a politician, especially one in high office, has hardly slammed the door on his way out, before there is a detailed, intimate record and analysis of his time in office, on the streets in book form and in the press. There is no shadow of doubt a lot of people, including myself, did not agree with the man’s policies, but the aspect that is most interesting is that those who have now taken over, by their actions, clearly show that they did not approve of what they were permitting under the previous regime. They did not, like some, resign in protest, they sat it out keeping their posts, when they should have acted, and only now are attempting to make amends. This volte face is not only confined to this country, the worrying thing is that the Americans, having made a total mess of their policies, and by reflection, ours, in Iraq and Afghanistan, they appear to be considering dumping the whole thing without reference to us and our responsibilities.

The rule whereby government papers cannot be opened before 30 years have elapsed, helps no one.

Is digital radio a con? It is not so many years ago that the Argos catalogue had pages of hand-held radios with all the wavelengths, and innumerable stations. We used to be able to listen in, if we wanted, to any country in Europe, and if the ether was good enough, worldwide. Now we have digital radio, with very few stations preset. And as far as I can see there is nothing like the quality or the selection of the radios that gave you that freedom. I know, I tried to buy one.

Savouring is something I have always done, as we all have, but only recently have I had time to think about it . The next time you are having a meal think about your taste buds and not your hunger. When you lift that first forkful of whatever, you taste it and register in detail the taste, in other words you savour it. Your next forkful may be of something else, and I believe again you go through the same process. It is only as you proceed that the savouring diminishes and the satisfying of the hunger takes over - often not even hunger, just usage, you have that much every day so why should today be different. When we start on a plate of scrambled eggs on toast, assuming we like scrambled eggs on toast, towards the end, do we still savour and enjoy each mouthful as we do in the beginning? If not should there be more variety, as in a Greek Meze, or perhaps canapes, even Eastern cuisine? Some people read while they’re eating, surely they’re not savouring.

Just a thought.

Another View on Global Warming and the Recent Flooding. I include here a theory that I postulated to my Dutch friend, Jan, and I wonder if you would agree with it or like the rest of my family realise that my brain is going to mush.

When you think of all the conflicting changes that take place in, on the earth and in the atmosphere there must once in a while come a time when so many things are changing at once, that something most unusual will occur. I do not believe however rapid global warming has become so rapid that it could have wreaked the sort of changes that we are finding throughout the world this year. Nor do I think that this is a prelude to a total change in our atmospheric and physical conditions. Atmospheric pressure, air and earth temperatures, volcanic effects, and induced changes in the action of the sea, together with the gravitational effect of the universe, are all with us, and affecting us in different degrees. It is the degree of change in each case which we noticed over the years, but if all of these influences have their rhythms suddenly conflicting, I believe it’s possible that the condition can arise that may not be unprecedented, but could be beyond recorded information. If I am right, it does not mean that this is a one-off instance, it may be part of a build-up and die down. Most actions and reactions in nature, I believe, are on a sinusoidal basis.

The How Did They Manage It? On UK television recently I watched fictional films of battles taking place during the Napoleonic Wars, (Sharpe), and the English Civil War, (Cromwell). In these films the battle scenes were bloody and explicit, which made me wonder how men who have been through one flight could face another. Often you see actual film footage of men going over the top at the Somme and other battlefields, and going steadily forward in a hail of machine-gun bullets.

The enactments in these films of the Civil War and the Napoleonic Wars, illustrates the extremes of hand to hand fighting, and the sheer barbarity of war. As an ex combatant, in the Navy and the police, I am able to say from my own experience that while there were times when one had concerns, either the training or the repetition without injury, seemed to be sufficient, in my case it least not to give me any serious worry concerning my own mortality. What I find incredible though is how the soldiers in those far-off days, of pikes, cavalry sabres, short swords and muskets, were prepared to go back into battle time and again. In all soldering, in the broader sense, one is convinced that ‘it won’t happen to me!’ this is part of the answer. In the old days to some extent, the reward was in plunder, and a large part of those armies of most countries was made up of mercenaries, who had a totally different outlook on war, to conscripts, or even volunteers. I know that being part of a unit, especially one with a history of heroism and honours-gained, has a binding quality, which has to be experienced to be realised. I don’t think I am a coward, but having watched these films, I find it incredible what those people were prepared to do repeatedly. ‘Fight hard or be killed’, induces a level of adrenaline which I believe blots out reason, and induces aggression that the individual is not aware that he possesses. It is a sort of reaction, like the one you would have finding an intruder in your hall in the middle of the night.

Here in Northern Ireland the British Army and the police, then, daily walked the streets not knowing if someone had a bead on them. As I have said before, one cannot be constantly worried about personal safety, in time the condition is taken for granted. Our men fighting our current wars are not only under the same stresses as their predecessors were, in Belfast, but they have to contend with a different terrain, different attitudes and customs and road-side, bombs. This has some of the same aspects as going over the top and facing a hail of bullets…Facing that with equanimity is to do with example, camaraderie, and pride - ‘if he can do it I can, - and it won’t happen to me anyway!’

Sometime ago Sophie was very ill, and I became head cook, bottle washer, and shopper extraordinaire. It was then I developed this theory. I found shopping in a supermarket so difficult, controversial and aggressive that I had to find a reason and came to the conclusion that somewhere at the back of Tesco’s was a Nissan hut, decked out like two aisles of a supermarket, for classes run by a butch feminist, for those women who felt that men had no business in supermarkets. The course would teach them aggression, hindering ploys and subtlety. Once I had evolved the theory, it was clear it was well founded. I came to the conclusion that the women were divided into three gradings, young mothers fast on their feet with a high level of aggression, matronly ladies preferably with bulk, who could emulate both a bull elephant and a drawbridge. Finally, gentle little, slightly vague white-haired great grannies of great age.

The pears on our fruit counter are close to the top end of the aisle. I was stationed there trying to decide which pears to buy. I had one hand on the trolley which was upstream of me and close into the shelves, and in consequence my body was nearly facing the shelves. Suddenly round the corner at roughly 8 knots, came a young woman, with two children on her trolley as ballast, and hit my trolley squarely in the bows with the result the corner of the handle of mine buried itself in my rib-cage; .needless to say, no apology, just a stone-faced stare for having impeded her. At the other end of the fruit counter, where the bananas are, a lovely little old lady had quietly positioned herself and her trolley in such a way that all the bananas were all hers. She tentatively touched them, clearly looking for something that wasn’t there, took some out, examine them, and put them back, and this went on as people and me piled up on the aisle. I couldn’t help feeling she was so charmingly unaware, it must have been planned histrionics.

In the middle of the range there is a mixture of subtlety, delicate insouciance, .and outright aggression. .There is the Slitherer. She pushes her trolley slowly along, peering at the stock, then just as you are reaching for a product, she slithers backwards and bars the way with herself and her trolley. So you advance and you are just about able to reach when she slithers forward again. That must have taken some teaching, because not only am I 6 foot plus, 15 stone, also with a trolley, but I smell of aftershave. She must have been aware of me.

The drawbridge is a very clever technique. A robust lady will stand close to the shelving with a trolley and herself aligned. As you turn the corner of the aisle you subconsciously register that she is there and as you progress steadily up the aisle she is still there, but on approach she suddenly swings the trolley through 90? with its bow still firmly against the shelf while she stretches out across the aisle to collect something from the opposite shelf. This can take some time, so you gently give her trolley a touch with your trolley, just to show that you really do exist. You get a look which makes you amazed that you haven’t suddenly turned to a pillar of salt, and then the eyes go back to look for what she was trying to reach.

There is also the revetment .- the protection of the produce. This can take two forms, it can consist of two people adjacent with their trolleys in a row covering some 10 feet of shelving. They are discussing some highly important matter and if you try to excuse yourself, you might just as well be on another planet. The second version is when a relative of one or other of these ladies sees them she joins them from across the aisle swerving her trolley behind her. This is a clever ploy, it not only protects the immediate products from being tampered with, it can protect half an aisle.

There are many more ploys, and I expect local newspapers will present prizes for those people who can think up brighter and better ways of destroying a man’s shopping routine.

In my time in the Navy, the people most respected as groups, were the Submariners and the Divers. Not totally because of the risk, but because the conditions of their training and work were the toughest. Subs were merely lethal weapons first and last, and the comfort of the men was well down the list of priorities. Large ships, Carriers, Battleships, Cruisers, were like floating barracks, with all that implies. Small Ships, Minesweepers, Corvettes, Frigates, and small Destroyers, of which the Hunt Class was then the latest, were unique in that the crews thought of themselves almost as a family and behaved like a family in a lot of respects.

It used to be said that the Americans put the men in the ships and fitted the hardware round them, while the Brits did the reverse. In about ‘42 the Tuscaloosa and the Wichita, two American cruisers, tied up near us in Rosythe. The Yanks, invited aboard our Hunt, could not believe our cramped conditions. When we went on their ship we understood why. They had two places to sleep, they had canteen messing with sectioned trays for eating off, and could select from a menu. We, as a mess, bought and prepared our own food, took it to the galley, where the cook put it in the oven and told us when to collect it. We were green with envy. Our system was forced on us as we had small, mixed messes, some members were watch-keepers, some were permanently on call. Hence men were eating at different times, and what they could, when they could, in periods of ‘Action Stations’. The Officers and Petty Officers had stewards or messmen to provide for them.

It takes years to produce a warship, from the early decisions, the designs, the prototype, to the final Class, with the result that the ship in wartime is out of date even before they laid down the keel plate. Through the pressures of war with its rapidly evolving new techniques, like Asdic, Radar, men to listen to the talk between the Skippers of the German E-boats, gunnery and so on, extra space was needed, space for more men and equipment, resulting in a life of unimaginable propinquity - privacy, even for the officers was unknown. I believe that under peacetime circumstances there would have been constant friction under these conditions, but while there were minor disputes, the seriousness of our lot welded the crew as nothing else would have, come what may we were in it together, Life ashore in barracks was entirely different - every man for himself.

I think that the experience of bad weather on a Hunt Destroyer can best be summed up by a brief descriptive piece I wrote a long, long time ago, it is called:- The Change Of The Watch  posted next.