Category: General

In the sailor’s induction course we were taught to handle a whaler, a thirty-foot, double-ended, clinker-built life-boat,. We rowed in unison with cries like ‘Give way together’. Our instructions were laced with colourful language by, the Coxswain, or ‘Chief’, and there was swearing in the body of the boat as the blisters began to build. Tethered in Butlins’ swimming pool, the oars with holes in the blades, instead of us passing through the water, water swirled past us and we were rock still. We were preparing, for abandoning ship -, a worrying thought – not for shopping for fish,

The rank of the Captain decided which Naval ship in a convoy was Flotilla Leader, a cache which carried privileges, not least the convoy Doctor. The other ship, or ships were the sheep dogs of the convoy – in Naval terms ‘tail-end Charley’, the canteen boat – whipping in the stragglers. When our Captain was promoted, we inherited a Scottish, ex-Merchant captain, RNR whose rank sent us to the rear of the convoys with all that entailed. There was considerable muttering aboard.

The new Skipper played the bagpipes, liked fish and when he played, usually in the small hours, his personal hound would howl like a banshee. The new Skipper was as popular as an outbreak of bubonic plague. However, fresh fish was a rare luxury, so his antics were a welcome respite. Sailing along in home waters in daylight, at six knots, if the Skipper spied a couple of trawlers plying their trade under very tricky circumstances, his attention could be distracted. The Bosun would pipe ‘whaler’s crew fall in’ and we, those who could be spared, would climb into the whaler and were lowered over the side of the ship, which by now had swung away from the convoy and was heading at a rash 20 to 25 knots for the trawlers, with us clinging to the boat and the boat whacking against the side of the ship. Who needed a fairground ride when we had him to guide us? Approaching the trawlers, the engines reversed to bring the ship almost at a standstill, when we would be dropped onto the waves, literally, with the sudden release of the falls, and then we would be rolling in the ship’s wash as it shot off back to the convoy. We, alone and abandoned, rowed sedately over to the fishing boats bearing our cargo of cigarettes, tobacco and rum from the Lower Deck Messes and the gin and cigarettes from the Wardroom. There was banter with the fishermen while we were passing up our bribes and they were sending down baskets of fish which we stowed in buckets, the surplus had to find a place at our feet. With a final flourish of cross-talk, the fishing boats would rapidly head off, not wanting to be associated with the convoy and within minutes they were over the horizon. We, out of sight of anything and wallowing in a rolling sea. would one minute see the horizon, the next we were beside a huge wave which seemed to be falling down on us, but actually rolled under us. With a full crew plus the fish, our gunwales close to the water, time past slowly.

With the sea empty, the look-out would ultimately see smoke on the horizon, the ship would be steaming towards us with a bow wave like a typhoon, a greyhound of the sea.. Momentarily it came almost to a stop and then, once we were hooked on to the lines and pulled just clear of the water, she would be off, accelerating back towards the convoy, while we were being hauled in foot by foot until we were swung inboard and lashed in place. Meanwhile the Messmen had been gathering in the waist of the ship. The skipper left the bridge and came to the well to inspect the prize emptied on the deck, and always said, ‘All flat fish into the Wardroom bucket.’, hence his nickname, ‘Fishcake McKay’. Then he would march off back to the bridge because we were in sight of the convoy once more; The Wardroom Steward collected flatfish for his bucket, but while he was gathering more, others would be taking then out of his bucket for their own, As a member of the boat’s crew I was not involved in divvying up so I was well placed to stand and watch this hilarious pantomime.

The making of a ‘Prick’ of tobacco. The ration was supplied in leaf form, as the name implied, with stalks and all, and I intended to turn this mass of dried cabbage into a plug of tobacco, which could challenge any in a tobacconists shop. Just writing that has made me realise there are few if any shops these days devoted solely to selling tobacco and the appendages that product needed. Many, like myself, graduated through the lighter tobaccos which burned the tongue but didn’t give you hic coughs, to the heavier tobaccos and finally to plug, the man’s smoke, the smoke of the aficionado and Jolly Jack Tar. It was this tobacco I learned to make from the raw dried leaves when I was at sea. I also learned to role a ‘tickler’, a thin, hand rolled cigarette, without a burning agent, saltpeter, to keep it alight.

The plug, the end product was called a ‘Prick’. Firstly the hard stalks and stems were stripped from the leaves until just the finer textured leaf was left. A strong mixture of brown sugar, rum and water was made and a square of linen about the size of a man’s pocket handkerchief procured. The leaf was then arrayed on the handkerchief in layers and as each layer was complete it was generously dabbed with the solution of rum and sugar, until all the leaf was used up. The tobacco was then rolled in such a way that it formed a cylinder and the handkerchief was tightly rolled round, with the edges turned in – a standard parcel.. This was then wrapped in a square of canvas, and twine was used to tie the canvas in place in the way a hammock is secured, with lashing at intervals along its length and tied in at each end. This was the ‘prick’. Finally, the canvas was lashed in a way similar to one that would bind anything in string or rope, except the binding started at the centre. A length of tarred spun-yarn was tied by its ends to the hammock rail so that it formed a slack ‘U’; a loop was made in the spun yarn and set along the length of the prick and held in place while a second loop was wound round it securing the first loop to the prick at the centre. From then on the spun-yarn was looped round, working from the centre out in both directions and after each application of two loops the sailor put all his weight on the prick so the loops tightened round the prick, squeezing out any surplus moisture through the handkerchief and into the canvas . This procedure progressed until the whole length of the prick was encased in tight spun-yarn which was then made secure and detached from the length tied to the hammock rails.

I always assumed that the moisture allowed an element of the tar in the spun yarn to be absorbed into the tobacco as well. The sailor then put the prick in the bottom of his kit bag and forgot about it for about three months by which time it was mature and the tobacco had been transformed into a short length of gnarled wood with all the wrinkles of the handkerchief, the canvas and the bands of spun-yarn permanently fossilised. When the end of the prick was shaved and rubbed in the palm, the aroma was wonderful, totally transformed from the ingredients, and the smoke was better than anything one could buy in a tin ashore.

I write this long description because soon pipe smoking will be a thing of the past and people will have forgotten the rituals and the simple pleasures the pipe gave. What was it the musical hall artists used to say? A woman is just a woman, but a pipe of baccy’s a good smoke. I remember some of my relatives were not enamoured with me if I smoked in the house, so it is unsurprising if pipe smoking too is a lost art.

A 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 ingénue, 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.

It All Started With A Fish Box
One day, in calm weather, the Petty Officers Messman appeared on deck and sat down to scrape a fish box. No one took any notice, but as the day progressed so did the fish box. He shaped the sides, added supports to the bottom, made a hinged towing bar with a cross handle and started to paint it. We dropped anchor at Sheerness, waiting to pick up another convoy and when we went ashore the Messman went also and came back on board with four wheels he had bought. Within a few days we were treated to the rumble of a little truck being trundled round the deck, complete with small seat, swivelling front wheels and painted like a gypsy’s caravan. It was a present for his daughter. Needless to say that was not the end of the matter – far from it.
On our ship there were two brothers in authority and competition. Both were Chief Petty Officers, one was the Bosun, responsible for the smooth running of the ship and the other was the Chief Gunner’s Mate, responsible for discipline and gunnery. Both were of a jealous disposition. The little trundling fish box had given the Gunner’s Mate an idea. The next time in harbour he disappeared over the side with a bottle of rum in his hip pocket, only to return from the dockyard with lengths of steel strip and some sheets of plywood. We were all intrigued, none more so than my friend the Gunnery Artificer, an associate, if not a friend of Guns, as the Gunner’s Mate were generally called.
Our curiosity was soon satisfied, we were dragged in to help. I have often found that people in authority get a bright idea but expect everyone else to carry it out. In this case it was the construction of a doll’s pram. The Artificers were expected to forge the springs and make the axles, the seamen made the body and my bloke, an artist in civilian life who was doing a roaring trade in rum painting water colour portraits of wives and girlfriends from photos, was hauled in to paint those gold lines all good Tansad prams carried.
We arrived in port at the end of yet another convoy and who should come down the jetty and be brought aboard but Mrs Gunner’s Mate complete with Miss Gunner’s Mate – Happy Families indeed. They disappeared into the caboosh of the Gunner’s Mate only to reappear with the pram, a doll lying there and the last we saw of them was the proud child and the self-satisfied grin of the Gunner’s Mate. The Customs men never did discover the butter, sugar, rum and cartons of cigarettes the little girl wheeled through the dockyard gate so grandly and so innocently..
You might think the matter stopped there. Indeed you might wish it did, but history demands that I record the next act. Act III. The Rivals. The Bosun, Guns brother, could not be outdone, his reputation and self esteem demanded bigger and better, and bigger and better was what we saw. The two-ring Lieutenant, Jimmy the One, The First lieutenant, the Captain’s right hand man, was nobody’s fool when it came to conning a ship, dealing out retribution for misdemeanours, but he was putty in the Bosun’s hands. The Bosun approached him and explained that there were parts of the ship which needed repair and that the next time we were in harbour he would arrange to put it in hand, all he needed was a signature on a chitty. Jimmy signed..
The next time we were in harbour a forest of timber and steel appeared at the gangway, carried by dockyard ‘Mateys’. It was brought aboard and men were detailed to stow it. Off we went again. The next time we docked, the timber disappeared along with the Bosun and a bottle of rum. The Bosun returned empty handed. On the next trip we dropped anchor at Sheerness at the mouth of the Thames; where the Bosun went to a second hand shop, bought a cheap inlaid box, with a receipt written in pencil. Back at Rosythe a beautiful bed complete with steel frame, springs, polished like new, was brought on board from the dockyard.. My bloke painted Mickey Mouse and Minny on the ends, the receipt for box now read ‘One large child’s bed.’ and all was ready for transport through the dockyard gate. ‘Great oak trees from little acorns grow’

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.
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 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 my wife to take her 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.

I suspect my parents had always had made sure I was well fed. When working in Westminster lunch out was probably a useful supplement, but naval life was a different thing altogether. However, my hunger started immediately I joined, and as we were badly paid, ten shillings a fortnight to start with, I had to find other sources of food. The obvious place at the Butlins camp was the kitchens, supervised by Wrens. One or two of us therefore cultivated the acquaintance of some of the Wrens with the result we all benefited. There was also a scheme there, operated by the more deft and more unscrupulous, which enabled them to improve their share to the detriment of their mates and that was the multi-fork system. It was not for tall people, short people were better at it. It was pure theft, and not worth a mere couple of sausages, especially as one could not gauge from whom one was stealing as seating was random. The system was quite logical.. We were fed in the old Butlins dining hall, on food already laid out, on trestle tables in rows, even before we were allowed into the building,. The vultures armed themselves with several forks, move along between table and bench-seats to find a seat, and in passing, pierced a sausage from a plate with one of the forks and immediately secreted sausage and fork. This was repeated and then when the vulture sat down at his own plate he jabbed the forks, sausage and all into the underside of the table and then withdrew them one at a time to eat. It was a lot more difficult to do than describe. The injured parties would proclaim their loss and depending upon the whim of either the cooks or the supervising authority, the deficiency might be made good from the left-overs otherwise the unfortunate went without.

In Portsmouth Barracks, the rations there were so slight that they had actually to be guarded. Each class occupied a table in the dining hall and was supplied in the evening with a day’s rations of margarine, bread, jam and sugar which was all kept in what were referred to in those days as a ‘safe’ – a cupboard, with punched, zinc grills set in wooden frames for the sides and door. The cupboards were intended to be kept somewhere cool and ‘safe’ – that is, safe from vermin as they were often kept outside the house, particularly in summer. In this case the vermin walked upright. We were so hungry, one member of the class had to sleep on the Mess table with his pillow against the door of the safe, so no one else could steal the contents; although they could disappear through the day.. I still believe that one of the reasons for the lack of food was because a highly organised Mafia spirited some of the rations out through the gate, even assuming they ever came in.

Any barracks was set up for graft in a number of areas, and where long serving people in authority lived ‘ashore’, in the outside community, it was a racing certainty there would be shenanigans. There was the classic story of the officer in the twenties who stole the Admiral’s pinnace, a steam launch costing about half a million pounds by today’s standards. He had it loaded on a horse drawn cart and took it out through the gates, unchallenged because it had passed that way on other occasions on its way for repairs. The reason he was caught was because he had taken it up a hill which was too steep for the horses to pull.

At the Festival of Britain in the 50’s, one of the men building the Festival Hall was stopped at the gate each night wheeling a wheelbarrow full of straw, which he claimed was bedding for his rabbits. The security man discussed the keeping of rabbits at length to relieve his boredom, and let him go. This went on for a week and then stopped. A year later the security man was in a pub when he passed the man with the rabbits and enquired after them. The latter, smiled, put down his pint and said “God Bless you mate! I wasn’t takin’ straw out, I was takin’ weelbarrers.”

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.

What follows is a clear indication of the innocence of teenagers in the 40s, compared with the knowledge and experience of those to day, possibly fostered by TV. It must be understood that about 1940/41 the whole of Briton was going through an incredible time of change, at home and in the forces. There was evacuation, rationing, which induced the Black Market, bombing, recruitment, and families being split. In the forces, the need to recruit men and women in vast numbers, clothe and train them, move, and temporarily and strategically accommodate them was paramount. The logistics were complicated and enormous, with the result anomalies arose, leading to strange outcomes. Being billeted was one of them,
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In Newcastle on Tyne, the number of sailors who would shortly descend on Newcastle for specialist training overwhelmed the Billeting Master-at-arms. RDF, Radio Direction Finding, the forerunner of Radar, was being fitted in ships and they urgently needed operators and maintenance staff, and these were arriving in days, me among them. Ferried by train and bus we arrive at a street of three storey Victorian houses and were delivered to the awaiting landlady. At that time, the U-Boats were in ascendancy and many of the students sent on courses were long serving men who had volunteered for the course, having had enough of the dangers of convoy work. We were given merely a bunk in a room full of cheap, black steel beds and we kept our belongings under the bed. With so many of us to a room, there was just enough room to move between the beds. Almost as soon as we were in the room, the older guys, presumably from past experience, knew exactly where we were, in a brothel, and to make the point, pulled back the sheets to reveal stained mattresses. The quiet of that night and those following, were broken repeatedly by the stamp of feet on the steps of the house next door, where trade was still in progress.

My nature, and that of most of the men there, was that if you have no solution to a problem, then forget it and get on with life. However, because it was so extraordinary I foolishly wrote and told my mother in humorous vein, but she could not see the funny side. Instead she, innocently, wrote a letter of complaint, to a naval Commander friend she knew. She forgot two things, the Navy is a club, the Commanders are trained in the tactics of war and the best form of defence is attack. They attacked.

The only meal we had on the premises was breakfast, prepared and given by the girls from next door. One day some of the lads were having fun with the girls when a pewter teapot got damaged This was all authority needed, all of us were put on report for riotous behaviour, when there was hardly elbow room for breakfast let alone a riot. For the rest of the time that we were boarded in the brothel, we were forced to scrub out the school rooms when not being taught. After that we were found new individual billets. I never did admit to my mother’s letter, ‘if there is no solution…’

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 cliché 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 New Boys We spent the first month at Butlins Holiday camp at Skegness which had been renamed HMS Royal Arthur and sounded in our ears like an aircraft carrier. Inevitably the result was that Smith and some others were able to give rein to their fantasies in the local pubs, not realising that the girls of Skegness had heard it all before as each new batch of amateurs arrived and was put through the mincer – within the proscribed month of basic training – so that we came out marching, thinking and looking alike, transformed in to automata, or so the Navy vainly hoped.

At the holiday camp we occupied the made over chalets, two to a chalet, ate in the dining halls and relaxed in other parts of the buildings, Once again the Navy showed the English lack of appreciation of Irish traditions. Two men from Belfast, one Catholic and one Protestant, were put together because they were Irish. I occupied the next chalet and the fights which went on inside the Irish domain were often fierce to the point of becoming bloody, but make some derogatory remark against the Irish and they were both at you.

The first week passed on wings, there was so much to learn both about being a sailor – with knots, lashing ropes, boxing a compass and so on. Then there were the traditions of the Navy, the reasons for the ridiculous uniform, as we were decked out in ‘square rig’, called that because the whole uniform was square, presumably because sailors in the time of Nelson were expected to ‘make and mend’ their own clothes and the design had therefore to be simple. Even the term, ‘make and mend’, had come down to us for ‘free time’. The collar was square, the tunic jersey was square, even the trousers were square and made wide enough to be kicked off in the sea if the need arose. The front was designed with a quick-release system, in that there was a huge flap which dropped down to reveal two side flaps crossing the lower abdomen as well as one’s underpants – a quick flip of the buttons and the trousers would be off in moments. Nelson was never recorded as having made any comment on any of the other advantages of his design, or, on second thoughts perhaps he did..

When the sailors got hold of the uniform there had to be further amendments to show that they were sons of the sea and not civvies dressed up. The tunic was altered from a ‘V’ in the front to be squarer showing more of the shirt, and the blue edging to the shirt. The whole collar were scrubbed and washed with all sorts of prescriptions to bring the colour out, with exactly that intent, if a sailor had been serving for years his collar would have been washed hundreds of times in sea water and would therefore be faded. Ergo, all new entrants wanted to appear anything but a novice. Some were persuaded, by ruthless shopkeepers to buy collars of a light colour, but they soon realised the synthetic colour was an even bigger badge that they were initiates, rather than an indication of long service. The washing never gave an even colour change, there were always corners where, because the ribbon over-lapped, the colour was stronger. Such vanity did not stop there, the trousers had to have gussets set in to make them even wider, and a silver three-penny piece had to be sewn into the centre of the bow on the hat ribbon, an accomplishment I was good at which augmented my ten shillings a fortnight with the sale of my services in this regard.