Leaving Butlins We were in basic training for a month, at times it seemed endless, at others it passed quickly. How we felt was a barometer of what was happening, how interested we were or what Chalky White was putting us through in the rain.. A week to ten days before our departure we had a celebration of sorts, which involved blanket tossing. Some poor specimen would be persuaded or shanghaied into getting into a standard Navy issue blanket and then about six of his classmates would start counting, heaving the blanket on each count and then, when three was reached. throwing him up in the air. Inevitably it was my turn and they threw me so high I could see over the roof of the cabins. I made the mistake of telling them so and that was my downfall – from a great, actually an even greater, height.

An error in communication was hardly surprising with that lot who, out of reach of authority, rarely stopped talking. One of the group suggested they should count to four but only those in his immediate vicinity heard him so the bulk of the tossers were counting to three. I described an arc, a parabola? – Who cares? I was still seeing over the roofs, but landed on my hand, feet away from the blanket. There was a tiny amount of consternation, mostly ensuring none of the blanket tossers were held responsible. I assumed I had an acute sprain. I thought I should report to the Sick Bay and have it attended to. This prompted advice and discussion, mostly on how I should relate the incident in case it would affect my pension, some on denying any direct responsibility, but there was very little talk of how hurt I was. I went to the Sick Bay and on the way concocted a story about tripping over a kerb. In hindsight this was stupid as any Sickbay Attendant would probably consider you can’t break anything just tripping and so he would take my word for it that it was a sprain, wrap it in lead solution and send me on my way, which indeed was what happened. For the next week or ten days I endured my sprain until it was time to go on draft at which time I was presented to a Surgeon Commander who made me have an X-ray and the result showed I had multiple fractures with torn ligaments. It was a well autographed, plaster cast which weighed me down on my way to Newcastle upon Tyne.

The Newcastle Period I had made some good friends among the Geordies in our class even before we knew our next posting, so I was luckier than most. Sent to Newcastle I had my feet metaphorically under a number of tables even before we had arrived – which was obviously a great asset. It is a clich? but nonetheless a truism that the Northumberland and Durham people are the salt of the earth, shining examples of the widely held theory that those who have suffered deprivation not only help one another but can be generous to a fault. As an immigrant, I couple the Northern Irish in the same category.

To make the point about the Northumbrians, one night I had been to a dance and had taken a young woman home afterwards. I had missed the last tram back into Newcastle and started back following the tram tracks as a guide until I arrived at a set of points, a fork, and then I was completely foxed as to which line led to the City Centre. I noticed there was a light in the downstairs window of one of the houses near the junction and rang the bell. I explained my dilemma to the man who opened the door, he said it was miles into Newcastle, invited me in for a cup of tea and, when he had given me the once-over, suggested I doss down on his couch until the first tram at about five or six next morning. In fact his wife gave me breakfast before sending me on my way. That was not an isolated case, a number of my friends had other experiences equally open handed, equally trusting, I think it is inbred.

Permanently broke, permanently hungry, we worked long hours. Lectures went on after the evening meal, we attended evening classes for metal work and electrical practicals; then there were parades and we had menial duties connected with Rutherford College where we were being taught, with little time for socialising, just an hour or two here and there, and Sundays. At night the four of us, the Geordies, who lived at home, and myself would walk back from class into town singing in harmony, eating chip butties covered in salt and mustard to make them seem like sausages, generally relaxing after a day’s study, before going home to do more homework. In one of the streets there was an optician’s shop with a tortoise in the window wearing tortoiseshell spectacles as an advertisement. One of our group thought the tortoise looked like me and after a lot of persuasion the others agreed and I was called Torty for the time I was in Newcastle, not only by them, but everyone they came in contact with who also knew me. I had no say in the matter.

The Chameleon Theory Seven years old, now inured to Africa, I adopted a chameleon. We watched one another, daily, although it mostly watched insects – as dinner – from a bush beside the front door. I was enthralled by the stillness of this ugly creature, its strange jerky movements, and the speed of the rapier-like thrust of its long tongue. It was probably there because the door had an insect screen and at nightfall the light from inside attracted insects, an electric larder. My father kept repeating that old clich?. “Do you want to know how to drive a chameleon mad? Set it on a tartan rug’. I spent some part of every day watching the mostly motionless, bulky body supported on its spindly legs, change hue as the sun moved round, wondering if it really could assume the pattern of a tartan. Years later I devised the Chameleon Theory which states that an individual, in the presence of strangers and acquaintances, changes his identity by an amount proportional to his degree of insecurity. The ‘telephone voice’ is a common example. where the accent changes as soon as the instrument is lifted.

The theory was formulated on that horrendous ‘first day’ as a sailor. I was instructed to report to the recruiting office and there joined about five other sheepish youngsters with a general air of quiet trepidation and no idea what awaited them. I remember we hung about quite a lot, a foretaste of long periods of hanging about to come. We did some form filling, were sworn in, given travel warrants and some documentation, and then were sent on our way to Skegness via Victoria. The change in one of our number as soon as we were clear of the recruiting office was amazing.

Another chap and I chatted quietly. One man was quiet to the point of being stolid and kept himself to himself, but there was one, Smith, who made the trip a real event. The further the train went the further from home we all were, which seemed irrelevant to the rest of us, but it was having a marked effect on the man in question. I would guess he had a Chameleon Factor of about 90%. He started by making a great play of offering cigarettes and lighting up with a great flourish. This he followed with expletives interspersed with bawdy comments and by the time we reached Victoria, no real distance, his language was appalling, and he was beginning to assume what he believed were the attributes of Jolly Jack Tar, I had the impression that even his gait had a roll to it, but that was only the curtain raiser.

We crossed London to Liverpool Street Station and a long delay. Smith insisted we should all adjourn to the Salvation Army canteen supplying tea and food on one of the platforms, for servicemen passing through, Smith by now was convinced he was a sailor through and through even in civvies. Servicemen rarely wore civvies in early 1941, they would have been excess baggage we could all do without, our issued kit was more than enough when it included a hammock and bedding. We were stupid enough, or too reticent to object when this idiot over-ruled us. We felt extremely self-conscious at presenting ourselves for free meals when we still thought of ourselves as civilians. We wanted to go to the buffet but apathy and his persistence won the day. I can still feel the embarrassment as this idiot sat shouting his bragging, implying we were all well seasoned sailors on leave, fooling no one but himself, but including us by implication in his shoddy fantasy world. Even when later he was in uniform and went ‘ashore’, (the Navy’s name for leave from any base be it afloat or concrete) he implied he was always just back off convoy with tales of derring-do. No one believed him as the people of Skegness would know he was from the Butlin’s camp, Life in the services, and especially the Navy is a very intimate experience and tolerance is paramount for the general good.