Old Gaffer

Category: Royal Navy

  • Hypnotism

    Since my Naval days I have never been remotely interested in hypnotism as entertainment. I would go so far as to say that I disapprove of the practice. When my daughters were young and we were on holiday, on more than one occasion they and Sophie went to the theatre to see a hypnotist and, while I did not openly object, I refused to go with them. I did though warn them not to go on the stage as subjects.

    At Leydene, there was a theatre where films were shown in the evenings and occasionally ENSA would put on a show. Sometimes the Entertainment’s Officer would call on talent within the camp and we would have an amateur show, although to use the word amateur is unfair as many of the men and women who performed had been professionals before joining up.

    One such was a hypnotist. We had first come across him on the Isle of Man where he had performed there in a similar type of concert made up of Naval and RAF talent. I attended the show and found him very competent. It was the first time I had ever seen hypnotism demonstrated and somehow even at the show I had misgivings. I disliked the idea of needles being pushed into people without their knowledge or permission, and I was always suspicious of what effect the process would have on the brain long term, I have a thing about the amount of respect which should be attendant on the brain. The hypnotist was on another course running parallel with ours and therefore several weeks after we arrived at Leydene he turned up.

    By the time he arrived I was an instructor, but did not teach his class, and as he was below the rank of Petty Officer our paths never crossed, so for some time the stories I heard of him were gossip, unsubstantiated. It was said that he held court each evening in his Nissan hut and using anyone who was there, including a resident of the hut, he would practice his skills to entertain those who packed the hut to the doors. Then the rumour became rife, which worried some of us on the staff,. It was purported that there was one man the hypnotist could put under at a distance of a hundred feet, just by clapping his hands.

    Leydene had been a large country house before being taken over by the Admiralty and had a huge stable complex with stalls and a saddling area the size of any which could be seen at the best horse trainer’s yard. The area had been converted into small demonstration rooms. The hypnotist and his acolytes and the subject all arrived at the same time. My colleague and I were standing talking in the yard when we saw the hypnotist walking towards us with a group surrounding him, and in the distance was the man whom we had heard could be hypnotised at long range. As Arthur Askey of Radio, film and TV fame used to say, ‘Before our very eyes’, and so it was, the hypnotist clapped his hands, the man in the distance stopped and seemed to become trance-like, another clap and he was on his way as if nothing had happened. It was frightening.

    Apparently we were not the only ones to have seen the demonstration. We heard that next day the two men, the hypnotist and his main subject left the camp. What happened to them was never divulged, but the Navy was no place for a man with those skills who used them for his own aggrandisement with such irresponsibility and inhumanity. I have been left with the conviction that hypnotism is never a plaything to be used just to amuse, amaze and titillate.

  • Baccy

    For possibly the last time ever, I want to revive all those stupid rituals real pipe smokers took so much to heart and spoke of with such reverence. Now we rarely see, or even smell a pipe being smoked, I feel I must record the strange, ancient habits of the sailors of my day with respect to ‘baccy’, some perhaps, long since lost. Tobacco was rarely bartered except with people outside the Service. At sea we received our allowance and could buy named brands at sixpence a packet of twenty. Ashore we took enough to do us, and when attached to an establishment one could buy 400 tailor-made cigarettes for three shillings and four pence. The other Services denigrated sailors when they met, in the way sailors taunted the RAF by calling them the Brylcream Boys. We believed we were the Senior Service and some would boast it in the company of the other Services, often followed by an affray,. The other Services inferred our interests were ‘Rum, bum and ‘baccy’ which was not entirely without foundation. The regular duty free issue of, either pipe tobacco, cigarette tobacco or leaf on a regular basis, for a pittance, was another ducat in the lower deck barter game. It was a treasured perk. The tobacco was of the best quality, and, although it was illegal, a bare handful of non-smokers in any ship’s company, would take their ration and sell it either on board or ashore, or trade it for goods or services ashore, which was more common. Leaf tobacco was rarely taken as it was a bother to process, but I learned the art, which, while being complicated, dirty and smelly, was nonetheless rewarding, if one liked heavy plug pipe tobacco. I will post for the aficionados of pipe smoking, details of the process on board ship rather than in a factory, in a day or two.

    One took a plug of rich, very dark tobacco, pared it with a sharp knife, rubbed, the cuttings pleasurably and with anticipation between the heel of the thumb of one hand and the palm of the other, then, after carefully and expertly filling the bowl of a pipe, it could then be smoked with relish and satisfaction. To a sailor the advantages of a pipe over cigarettes were that it stayed alight longer, it did not burn down in a wind, nor fly ash into the face, particularly if the pipe was fitted with a wind-guard. It left both hands free, and had a macho element too. I distinctly remember actresses in films saying words, which today sound so utterly banal and ridiculous, such as “I like to see a man smoking a pipe.” Why? They were probably paid a fortune to say it, but there were those who mimicked it and believed what was said.

    What is true, though, is that there was so much more to pipe smoking than cigarettes. The different sizes and shapes of pipes, made of so many different woods, at such a range of prices, they became more than a tool, they became an obsession. They could be collected for their own sake and it was a rare pipe smoker who had less than four. They were memorabilia, keys to events or people. Men sat and discussed the merits of this make against that, this shape or that, this tobacco or that. There were rituals which were almost unconscious but which had an inbuilt element of satisfaction. Even the mucky job of grinding out the build up of coke in the bowl had its compensation, it showed the pipe was mature. There was the ‘burning in’ of a pipe, the sacrifice of valuable tobacco, taste and pleasure over the first few weeks measured against the pleasures of a mature smoke for years to come. There was the tactile pleasure, followed by the visual one when the smoker ran the warm bowl down the crevice between nose and cheek to feel the smooth warmth of the pipe, like handling a smooth pebble, and to then admire the burr-walnut or fine wood which now shone in all its glory. There was again the tactile pleasure of the leather pouch and the teasing out of the tobacco. There were tobaccos with wonderful smells which assailed one as soon as the pouch was opened, some smelled like Christmas pudding, others were tangy, all turned grown men into Bisto Kids. Pipe smokers would hand their pouches round so others could experience the smell and texture of their chosen brand and then a long discussion on the merits of brands would ensue yet again, a script worn threadbare, but which never seemed to pall, and the dangers of smoking were rarely, if ever talked about

    Surprisingly there was great satisfaction to be had in attaining the acquired and precise art and skill of filling and tamping a pipe, which had elements cigarette smoking rarely achieved. The fact of having to carry out these tasks induced a natural break in work which could be justified at all levels and which allowed the mind a short respite for filling, lighting the tobacco evenly, which was an art in itself, and then dragging that glorious drug deep into the lungs if one inhaled. I write this long description because soon pipe smoking, which is now frowned upon, will be a thing of the past and people will have forgotten the rituals and the simple pleasures the pipe gave to the smoker, if not to the rest.

  • Pompey Barracks’ Lost Navy

    When I arrived in Portsmouth barracks I found yet another illustration of the practical use of psychology, and while it was on a more lowly plane it was no less effective, it was the axiom of the ‘Messenger’. Those who wished to remain in barracks without let or hindrance, as the lawyers might say, fully vitalled, fully paid and with their rum ration intact, possessed themselves of several ports-of-call and a piece of paper. The specification of a port-of-call was firstly a place one could legitimately be heading for, with said piece of paper. Secondly it also had to be near a ‘caboosh’. A caboosh was somewhere one could disappear into, sleep in, was personal to one or shared with someone one trusted, and had been forgotten. It could take many forms. It might be a tiny room amounting to little more than a very large cupboard, rarely used and large enough to sling a hammock. It could be a small room or even a separate building, in which generators or some other self-operating piece of machinery could operate without much, if any, maintenance. It had to be forgotten by the establishment, or surplus to requirements, and it had to be lockable so a new lock could be fitted, for obvious reasons. Cabooshes were often shared.

    It was then merely a matter of passing from one caboosh to another throughout the day, making sufficient appearances to be known by sight by authority and therefore become accepted as an essential part of the system. The Messenger had to travel so fast it was unlikely he would be stopped and questioned, and the paper, probably one of many, if it was examined at all, should fit any situation and would add that final patina of legitimacy. Authority, with its hundreds appearing and disappearing every week, could never have policed the assemblage.

    At nineteen I was obtaining an education which in future years made me the most suspicious person Soph had ever encountered. I was not in barracks for long, but it was an unforgettable experience. For a start, up until then I had either bought cigarettes at six pence a packet on the ship or rolled my own from my tobacco ration which consisted of a pound of tobacco, cigarette or pipe, once a month, in airtight half-pound tins, for about one shilling and sixpence. However, somewhere in the bowels of the barracks was a small community, who manufactured cigarettes out of the standard tobacco issue and sold them in boxes of 400, at three shillings and four pence.

    The quarters had varied little since Nelson, steel framed buildings like warehouses, with tall factory-like windows and rooms so high one had to put one’s head back to see the ceiling. In the centre were lockers and running down the centre and two sides were the rails on which the hammocks were tied. This in itself was interesting as on rare occasions, drunks would come ‘off shore’ – navalese for coming back from a night out – quietly tie a sleeping man in his own hammock as he slept, using his hammock lashing, then they would climb up onto the beams and raise the poor devil until he was about ten to twelve feet from the floor and tie him there. It would only be when he wakened that he would be aware of his predicament and by then the drunks would be too fast asleep to enjoy the joke. He, meanwhile, would be scared to move in case the hammock was not secure.

  • Pompey and Psychiatry

    Pompey Barracks – Portsmouth. After leaving the ship, in due course I reached barracks in Portsmouth to await another draft. It was the first time I had been there to stay for more than a couple of days and I soon discovered it was a world of its own.

    Immediately on arrival in barracks everyone went through the ritual of keeping appointments at the various departments in which records of his career were held. These records followed the service men and women round the world and no matter how short the stay, or even if it was a return visit after only a brief departure, the tradition of the appointment was an essential part of the first few days. It was a game – that was for sure – as the appointments were more a ritual than having any serious intent, it was a game which was an amalgam of ‘The Stations of the Cross’ and Monopoly, and those who were good at the game, the nefarious rogues, who never went to sea, never did any work, they were the lost legion, who had, in their eyes, won the game. If they were very good they kept it up for the whole duration of the war, never having to pass ‘Go’, never going to ‘Jail’, just picking up their cash and cigarettes, drinking their tot and being bored out of their minds. The size of the constantly changing occupancy of the barracks was a factor in their favour

    The key to failure was being bored. To be a single minded rogue requires ingenuity and intelligence, being part of a gang requires only obedience to the head rogue. The ones I came across were single, running their own rackets and trying to remain anonymous while being ostensibly part of the system. The real rogues were the ones on the strength who were never transferred and never drafted. Sometimes this was a bookkeeping error, sometimes as the result of greasing the right palm, but these men were legitimate members of the barracks and as such received their full pay, their rum ration, their cigarettes and even their leave.

    A Brush With Psychiatry My first encounter with psychiatry was in my last year at school to find what I was best suited for. In Pompey Barracks I had my second, there the Psychiatrist was universally called the ‘trick-cyclist’. I was on my way round the Monopoly board. I had arrived at the building housing the medical staff where I was due for yet another cursory examination. There I sat in a queue waiting my turn while others were there for many reasons.

    As I have previously said, I was a Wireless Mechanic, also only in for Hostilities Only, an HO, a new type of rating , dressed in what was picturesquely called ‘fore-and-aft rig’, a suit with shirt and tie and was generally ignored by the ‘real sailors’, who tended to talk to one another across an HO as if he was not there, and this happened at the medical wing. I recall that at least one of the men in the waiting room was handcuffed to a sailor in gaiters, which would indicate he was a prisoner in custody, he had offended in some way, committed a violent act, jumped ship, stolen, anything which could result in a sentence of imprisonment to be served either in a naval establishment or a civil jail. Men in this category were automatically sent to the ‘trick-cyclist’ for examination prior to arraignment.

    The conversation between the man in handcuffs, and others there for the same reason but not under guard, was enlightening to someone who had barely heard of the word psychologist at that time, a not uncommon state as the profession was in its infancy – but not as far as these sailors were concerned. They not only knew why they were there, having in most cases been there before, they knew the questions which would be asked, could reel off the right answer for standard Rorschach tests, knew the various other tests they were to undergo and advised one another on the answers the psychiatrist would need to be given if they were to be declared unfit for duty at sea. It was a fascinating approach to delinquency, one I never forgot, but more, it was a salutary illustration of the triumph of experience over theory.

  • It All Started With A Fish Box

    This was originally posted on 15th September last, I thought it might amuse some who had not read it.

    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 aproached 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 Wichita and the Tuscasa

    I have mentiond the first part of this elsewhere, but this is the full picture. The Wichita and the Tuscaloosa, two American cruisers arrived at Rosyth. The Americans had only recently entered the war and, I suspect, this fact affected the American’s attitude, they were doing us a favour coming over to help. Our Skipper invited a contingent to come aboard as a good-will gesture and we entertained them. They were aghast at the conditions we were living under, conditions we were accustomed to but hated. None the less it made us feel that we were ‘hardy chaps’ which might have done nothing to alleviate the discomfort but helped the ego. With the result we were generous to a fault, giving them a taste of our valuable rum, cigarettes and, in my case, spare badges as  keepsakes, and my response was the norm rather than the exception.

    In return we were invited aboard their ship. I think in between we had entertained them to a meal in the canteen. Anyway, we went on board their ship and discovered that while everyone in the world is born equal, that is where it stops. We had to eat, sleep and rest in our tiny Mess. These colonial cousins, each, mark you, had the choice of a hammock place or a proper bunk running fore and aft, not seat lockers from which one could roll on to the deck in a calm sea. They then took us to the canteen where they had a choice of food placed in sectioned, stainless steel trays and a separate place to eat, Not only that, they had a recreation area.

    The Royal Navy, in its wisdom, used to decide on the size of a ship, put in all the armament, ammunition, then all the gubbins like Asdic, Wireless, Radar, and only then did they remember they had to squeeze the men round the bits and pieces. The Americans apparently put the men in, made them happy and then, as an afterthought put in the essentials. Jealous? You’ve no idea! The final straw came when we left their bloody ships with our hands empty, no souvenirs, no badges, no tobacco, no nothing!

    The following night we were up the Noo – Edinburgh and found the Yanks cuddling the girls, in all the pubs, and, you’ve guessed it, war broke out. I was on the periphery and saw little but I was told later of the main engagement which took place on Prince’s Street. Apparently a number of our chaps, with some from other ships in our flotilla, were walking along peaceably when they were confronted by Yanks. A few pleasantries were exchanged and then our chaps carefully stacked their rain coats and hats against the pavement wall and waded in. The battle was fierce and short, broken up by the appearance in wailing jeeps of the US Naval Police who were entirely selective. They would grab a body, if it was American they would cosh it with a club, if it was one of ours they would shove it back into the brawl and grab another body. It was all over in seconds once the MP’s arrived. Our chaps brushed themselves off, carefully collected their caps and coats once again and went looking for a pub. The tales after that were long, tall, tedious and kept the Mess decks alive for weeks.

  • Teaching Navy Style

    I have always thought the examination techniques we adopted at the Royal Naval Signal School should have been the norm for the Country’s education system in general. Education is not a case of knowing information, but knowing where to find it and how to apply it. The Leydene examination organisers had obviously taken this theory to heart. We, the students, were a mixed lot. If we qualified we were going to be far from land and advice for weeks on end and solely dependent upon our own resources, so while we were thoroughly taught how to carry out repairs and the basic fundamentals of radio technology, the course was based around the fact that the Mechanic would have a text book at his elbow. The examiners also knew that cheating had to be lived with as, for the students, passing the exam was the aim, how was secondary. To combat cheating, talking during exams was forbidden, but any written matter was allowed in with us to the examination, on the principal that if we had to look anything up it would waste valuable time, compared with those who knew it all. As the students ranged from the school-leaver to the hardened telegraphist, with a few university graduates thrown in to make the life of the instructor that little bit more difficult, they designed the papers with the questions graded, starting easily and then progressing in difficulty with each question. They tried to maintain a fair balance between pure knowledge and a sensible amount of referral. The person who knew the answers would have the advantage while a reasonable referral would not place a person beyond passing.

    The marking system was equally advanced The lecturers had a good idea who would come out on top, and the general quality of his work. Having marked all the papers they examined the top three of four, first to make sure there was no doubt of reaching the standard expected, then they took the highest mark and proportioned it to receive between 90 – 95 percent, depending on the candidate’s ability and the quality of his paper. They then graded all the papers by the same factor. Someone hopeless who spent much time referring to cogs and text books would fail miserably.

    The Vagaries Of Teaching At Leydene It is one thing to sit in a classroom and criticise the poor devil standing in front trying to teach and another thing entirely being that poor devil, especially if it is what the Navy terms a ‘pier-head jump’, being volunteered without a word to say about it. Some of the instructors had been teachers in civvy life, but I was chucked in at the deep end to make the best of it. We had a day’s instruction which I totally forget, but one little jewel did stick. They told us that students learned one third through what they heard, one third through touch and one third through what they saw, and we were to instruct accordingly

    I was teaching people to be practical technicians, not theorists and if truth be known, when I started, my theoretical knowledge was a lot more sketchy than my grasp of the innards of the great many sets I was teaching. Initially this left me open to attack from men who had just come down from university with bright shiny degrees and who proposed to run rings round me for the aggrandisement of their own egos and the delectation of the rest of the class, a not uncommon syndrome, especially among university students. That I was at a disadvantage was patent, what I was to do about it was more difficult and gave me hours of discomfort in the beginning. I had two aspects in my favour, the classes ran only for a matter of weeks, or a couple of months at the most, and then my tormentors would have left and any reputation I had created left with them and I started with a clean slate. The other plus was that I am a quick study and with every encounter I learned – oh how I bloody well learned! The one stance I had to avoid was the Uriah Heap affliction, the ‘I’m not as well educated as you’ ploy, seeking sympathy. I soon discovered that the best method of defence is attack and I also learned how to dig a hole and then lead the charging bull elephants into it. I had the advantage of knowing the sets inside out and soon discovered the difficulties the students were finding. Sympathy with the difficulties the class was encountering and a feigned amusement when I might be tripped up by a brain-box, tended to balance the class attitude in my favour and as time elapsed I was very often able to impart what these university graduates had taught me as if I had known it all along. One situation did frighten me, though. We were not supplied with duplicated notes, we spent hours dictating. The routine was such, we could predict what we’d be teaching at any time weeks or months ahead and the same was true of the dictation. It was so repetitive I was able to talk and think of something entirely different, my brain on auto-pilot. So that I had to lift an exercise book from time to time to see exactly what I had been saying. I never remember having to alter a word, but, it says something about the loss of spontaneity short repetitive courses can produce in the teaching staff if it is not watched.

  • The Boredom Of The Watch Aboard

    The watch aboard on our destroyer consisted of those men who would normally be on watch at sea. In harbour the rigorous discipline was relaxed and there were hours when one could go ashore; the rest being on leave. Most of the time life was very routine and monotonous. In the first week or so after I had recovered from the seasickness which had put everything else out of my mind, I was a little apprehensive when they battened us down in the bowels of the ship as we sailed through mine- fields, or closed up for Action Stations, but that too became routine, one cannot be apprehensive forever, the stress would be too much to bear.

    In harbour, it was a relief to lose about two thirds of the crew and breath once again, with the ship silent and still, one could sleep peacefully on a locker instead of a hammock and the canteen in the dockyard saved any cooking. The monotony though was increased. I was never terribly gregarious so I spent these periods of calm, quietly doing chores which I had no time to do at sea and this included washing the hammock, the bed cover, two blankets and a pillow case, apart from the clothes which were done at the same time. Washing clothes at sea , a necessary evil, was put off as long as supplies of spare garments lasted and then calculations were made to find the minimum requirement to reach harbour.

    In contrast, the system in harbour, was most enjoyable, provided no one else wanted to use the shower. There was only one shower tray in each bathroom, or ‘heads’ as they were called, made of fawn ceramic tiles and supporting two or three shower heads.. Needless to say as the toilets had no doors it was unlikely the shower would have a curtain. Privacy was something that simply did not exist, probably for a number of very good reasons. With a bung in the shower plug-hole I would turn on the shower heads until the tray was almost over flowing. Then I would chuck in all the washing at once, copious soap, flaked from the long yellow bars we were issued with every month along with the tobacco. It was the only washing powder available then. With book in hand, I tramped round and round for ages on the washing, reading the while, or with an ear to the BBC forces programme coming over the Tannoy system. Half way through I would rub any dirty bits like the collars and cuffs of shirts, with the remainder of the yellow soap and then tramp again, finally rinsing several times in the same way. I can’t describe how therapeutic that exercise was, even if the soles of my feet were wrinkled with the long immersion. The only ironing I ever did, other than pressing the crease in the trousers, was the collar of my white shirts which were reserved for shore leave, and an area of about six inches round the collar which would be seen below the jacket. Drying took almost no time as the heat of the Boiler Room took care of that.

    Another way of remaining sane in that maelstrom of humanity was to take a fish box, set it on deck behind the funnel so I was sheltered from the wind and, with my back absorbing the warmth of the steel heated by the exhaust from the oil burners, I would sit there in the late evening glow as the sun set, and long after, watching the florescence of the bow-waves rush past the ship in their rippling ‘V’ formation and the sluggish merchant men silhouetted in the dying embers of the day. Those minutes and hours were very precious.

  • Leydene On The First Occasion

    From the IOM we were sent to Petersfield, in Hampshire, to the Naval Signal school called Leydene. We were only to be in Leydene for about ten days and in that time we had to learn the workings of some ten transmitters and receivers together with all the ancillary equipment, so it is unsurprising that I remember nothing of that first trip, except the way we were taught. To a young man who had led a sheltered life and had been tutored mainly by Oxbridge graduates, the spiel of the three-badge Petty Officer or Chief Petty Officer, needed to be experienced and still couldn’t be believed. The three badges denoted a minimum of thirteen years service, but many of these instructors had been brought back from retirement. The classrooms were converted Nissan huts containing the replicas of the radio transmitters we would find on the ships we were destined for. Some were small, not much bigger than today’s work-top washing machine, others occupied the area of the average kitchen and were contained within an earthed steel cage, with access through a door which cut off the power to the high voltage areas when the door was opened. Almost the first thing we were taught was how to circumvent this safety measure so we could test the beast while under full power, from within its bowels, so to speak.

    Most of us, who were used to radio receivers which were only one stage advanced from the crystal set, were amazed to see a valve the size of a large vase and resistors almost a foot long. The instructors had little to worry about with respect to discipline, we were so continuously bombarded with facts and so overawed with both the equipment and the prospect that we would, within a few weeks be in sole charge of its welfare, that there was neither the time nor the energy left to mess around. It was cramming taken to a fine art. Each morning we would be marched off to a classroom where we would discover yet another set with its own peculiarities. We carried a huge loose-leaf book containing all the circuitry and hints on repair, together with our class notes and a folder of a few pages of duplicated information supplied by the instructors. This library went everywhere, even to bed, because all spare moments were filled with catching up what we’d missed or mugging up what we had forgotten. I remember one of our class was married and had permission to sleep ashore with his wife. She complained that he spent most of the night sitting up studying this huge tome.

    In class we were perched on rows of long, heavy, oak benches, with no desk and no support for the back, like starlings on telephone wires. The keen ones sat in the front row and those who were in the class purely as an alternative to sailing on the Atlantic convoys, were generally either dozing or craftily smoking on the back bench. While what I was being taught was in itself a totally remarkable experience, the method of imparting that knowledge was even more extraordinary. Inside these sets were valves, resistors, coils and condensers in the main, with a few other bits and bobs to make the whole thing work, but our elderly instructors, when pointing to a component on a circuit diagram did not refer to it by its name but merely said “Now this li ‘l f….r ‘ere is connected to that li ‘l bastard there….” and so on. In fact it became such a routine that some of us were caught more than once anticipating and saying which epithet would be applied to what item of electronic hardware and were then promptly, in our turn, referred to by yet another and even more expressive phrase.

    Indeed there was the occasion when one of the instructors was inside a transmitter ‘putting on faults’ for an exercise in fault-finding. He was mostly only breaking connections, but sometimes he would insert a faulty component. The thing was that as one became more experienced the sounds of resistors being pulled from their anchorage or valves being released were so distinctive that most of us knew which piece was being tampered with. On this occasion there was a distinctive sound and someone on the front bench named the article in a stage whisper. Suddenly a face, surmounted by a battered cap, peered over the top of the fence round the transmitter and it said “Oh no ‘e F…..in’ ain’t” and disappeared to replace the part and pull out another which was equally recognisable. For me this incident epitomised the teaching in those first months of the war.

  • The 6,000 Volt Shock

    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 the 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 tome. 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 supposd 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!!.