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The Library I have already described the way we lived in general, with me doing most of the catering for our mess and the E Boat problems and how we were provided with German speakers whose sole purpose was to listen through the hours of darkness for the officers on the ‘E’ Boats communicating in German with one another in plain language, the specialists would then try to obtain a bearing on the ‘E’ Boats and we would be off in pursuit, irrespective of mines. These specialists had to be housed somewhere, so the Skipper decided to start another Mess. To it were added the ERA, the Engine room Artificer, the Gunnery Artificer and a couple of other stray bodies. A small compartment became home to us, it was cramped and uncomfortable, especially at night when most of the hammocks were slung, but we melded and that was the main thing.

The two specialists were German speakers, both straight from University with little or no training, even their dress, and their lack of interest in improving it, proclaimed them to be fish out of water. One was a lecturer, the other an Estonian who was a perennial student and had attended a number of colleges in Britain and abroad. We were not resented by the crew, just treated as one would expect Martians to be treated if they were found to be benign. We would get visits reminiscent of those of children at the zoo seeing Orang-utan for the first time, with similarly inane comments. Slowly the novelty wore off we became the focus of attention for a different reason. Avid readers all, our combined tastes were as catholic as a public library. Slowly, on the tops of the lockers grew a collection of books, and as it grew so men from all parts of the ship came to borrow. We had become a voluntary lending library. Even the Officers came and it was interesting to find that among the crew, the more uneducated the men were, the greater the number of the classical or informative books they borrowed.

Pt Shipboard Style The Navy was never renowned for its physical training, except for the famous gun crews at the Royal Tattoo every year, taking a gun to pieces, carting it from one end of an arena to the other, and firing blanks when it is assembled once more. Also young Boy Sailors run up a rigging and perform feats of daring miles in the air on a replica of a square-rigged sailing ship’s mainmast. But in my experience those were for show, generally there was little in the way of physical jerks in the accepted sense.

It was summer, the sun at its height, we were off to fetch a convoy and so action stations were unlikely to be called. The crew were hot and tired, or perhaps bored would be a better term, so someone, probably Jimmy The One, thought up the idea of something physical for the good of our health. Try to imagine a ship some 250 feet long and some 26 feet wide, with superstructures astern and foreword, guns, a funnel, depth charges, life boats and Carley floats to contend with. What was left was a sort of gangway past all these obstacles where two men could barely pass one another. There was no point then, in having any sort of exercise unless it could be of real interest, not just a matter of expending energy and oozing perspiration – another incentive. You’ve got it! Money, cash had to be brought into the equation and that was what the Bosun and the Gunner’s Mate organised.

Firstly there was a shooting gallery at the bow. Everyone paid so much a shot with a rifle at objects thrown into the sea, the person to hit the most took all or nearly all, some of the money went into the ship’s funds. Clearly the more one spent on shots the greater chance there was on winning, it was a bit like ‘Scratch cards, it had that same compulsive element. The other competition was much more physical and weighted against the more sedentary of as, the deck hands and the gun crews were odds on favourites.

We were ‘handicapped’, and, like the shooting there was an entrance fee – it was possible to have more than one go. Someone ran a book so we could bet on the favourites and perhaps recoup that way. One started beside the funnel on the port side, and then ran round the ship twice, which entailed rushing up or sliding down ladders, finally climbing, only using the arms, up a mast-stay to collect a piece of paper from a bundle tied about 12 – 14 feet from the deck, returning to the deck and running over a chalk line drawn there. The ship was still steaming and rolling while the sports were on, so the race round and the climb up the stay were a severe test on the muscles of the chest and arms and on the skin on the hands, especially in the descent. It was unbelievable what that simple competition did for moral, if nothing else it gave us a topic of conversation for days after, as we tended our wounds and ridiculed the more incompetent.

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.

The Big Bang I relate this because afterwards I found the incident in a way, rather funny, and contrary to all I had been led to believe about the imperturbability of the Navy in a crisis. We were sitting at lunch in the Chiefs’ and POs’ Mess. The table ran fore and aft of the ship which meant that the senior men sat farthest from the draught coming down the ladder leading to the upper deck while I, the despised cuckoo in the nest, the interloper, was seated immediately beside the ladder. I suspect we were either eating roast beef and potatoes or corned beef hash, depending on which end of the trip it was, when we were surprised by a bang which caused the side of the ship literally to move, in and out, like a biscuit tin which has received a thump. These Hunt destroyers were designed for speed rather than to resist the onslaught of attack so we had no real armour plate except in vital areas like the bridge and the gun turrets. Indeed the running joke was that the designers had purposely made the hull thin so that a shell would go in one side and out the other without exploding – an impossible suggestion but intended to amuse.

“We’ve been hit” several voices shouted and as some of the Mess had been in the drink already during the war, they were a little apprehensive, not to put too fine a point on it. Like the rest I jumped up and started to grab the handrail of the ladder intending to get out as soon as possible, but a big hand grabbed the back of my jersey and I was pulled out of the way and a number of the men were up the ladder like monkeys. Again I got my hand on the ladder and the same thing happened. In the end, although I was first to the ladder I was last out. I would not suggest for one minute there was panic, just determination not to be left behind.

When we reached the upper deck all was made clear. Near the horizon, yes, all that distance away, a sister ship was dropping depth charges and what had shattered the lunch was the tremendous pressure-wave which had travelled miles through the water undiminished to almost deafen us in the Mess.

Edinburgh For some reason I have never fathomed, the sailors called Edinburgh ‘The New’ – pronounced noo; we would ‘go up the Noo’. To me it was a cold city, closed to strangers and especially sailors. I remember the chap in our Mess who was a one-time lecturer, I’ll call him Reg, invited his wife up there during boiler cleans. He had arranged a completely irregular code with her which could have put him in jug if he’d been caught. She was able, from his letters, to know when we expected to dock and would meet him when he was on leave for the four days. She would book a room and he would join her. I believe it was the hotel at Prince’s Street Station, which annoyed him. When he received the bill at the end of his stay it was made out to Mrs XX (his name) and Friend. In 1942 that was just not on, the implications were implicit. He took the place apart including the manager.

On my first visit I initially went to the Salvation Army to book a bed for the night and was told that there were only beds in the Annexe. Annexes were quite a common feature of the ad hoc bunk bed doss, so I took no notice and went about my evening’s enjoyment with my bed ticket in my pocket. Come midnight I went in search of the Annexe and the bed. I found the former, but when I was dispatched to a pile of used blankets set in a rectangle scratched in chalk on the floor of a church hall, I jibbed, left and went to find accommodation elsewhere.

I met a policeman on Prince’s Street who directed me to the Station where he said they were putting Servicemen up for the night. They were, in the left luggage office, in the racks usually used for suitcases. There I was pigeonholed, cramped, and, by morning, indented like a waffle because no palliasse or support whatever had been provided to cover the slats of the racks and they had bitten into me. This experience reinforced my conception of the attitude of the locals to Servicemen. They still seemed to be in the era of the ‘No Dogs, No Sailors Admitted’, a sign, which I was told by embittered Regulars was prevalent in Southsea before the war, Southsea being the posh part of Portsmouth. I suppose there was error on both sides – they were certainly cold, and we could be a bit rough at times.

I believe that the Service was suspended in the aspic of time, almost ever since the days of Nelson – until the war, with the sudden alterations in thought and deed which that emergency and the introduction of civilians forced upon it. In turn the Nelson syndrome was thrust upon us at every opportunity by those who had served, man and boy, for more than ten years before we, the HO’s, joined, ‘What was good enough for Nelson is good enough for me’, was the formula and radical though it may be, I have learned through experience, and therefore can appreciate, that change for the sake of change, and precipitate change in particular, not through attrition or detailed experiment, can be very detrimental. ‘Defaulters’ was a case in point The word ‘defaulter’ applied to anyone brought up on a charge, irrespective of how innocuous or severe. It was a presentation by the charging Officer or Petty Officer of a crime to the Officer of the Watch in the presence of the accused and had been played, probably unchanged since the days of Nelson, hilarious to the outside eye, dear to the heart of authority but not to us at that time.

The ceremony went something like this. Someone in authority put a man on a charge and the latter was duty bound to appear before the First Lieutenant at an appointed place at an appointed time. On that day the Master-at-Arms, the Regulating Petty Officer, the Writer, the Escort consisting of two sailors decked out in webbing belt and gaiters, and the criminals would gather, along with whoever was making the charge. The defaulters would stand in a line in order of appearance, some trying to have a crafty drag on the stub-end of a cigarette without being discovered, which would only add to the charge if caught. It was at this point that the whole thing, in my eyes, became sheer theatre. “Prisoner, or prisoners, fall in,” shouted the Regulating Petty Officer, only inches from the ear of the man selected, and the defaulter would stand between the two members of the escort. “Quick march,” roared the PO and the prisoner and escort would shuffle through the door and into the office for the hearing, being goaded on with shouts of ” Left, right, left, right…….” continuously until the word ‘Halt’ was emitted in high crescendo. With the lack of space on ships there was no way they could actually march but there had to be a semblance of the real thing and the interpretation ended up as an undignified shuffle, roughly in time to the shouting. At the word ‘Halt’, everybody stamped their feet resoundingly, the RPO then roared “Off caps” although there was only one cap to come off, and, if the man was in seaman’s rig, he would be very careful how he took it off, because many were watching, not least the Master at Arms. Apparently there was only one way, and it seemed to take ages to learn.

From that stage on, things became quieter. The RPO was silent, thank God, the Master At Arms read the charge, ‘Jimmy’, as the First Lieutenant was universally known, asked the man who had brought the charge for details, the criminal was asked for his version and excuses, although the latter were never expressed openly; if it was in his province Jimmy gave sentence, if a higher sentence was demanded or the crime was outside his remit, the defaulter was bound over for Captain’s Defaulters and for very serious crimes, even he, had to pass the hearing on to a higher authority. At the end of the proceedings it was time for the RPO to come into his own again, all that noise and stamping was repeated once again. Fortunately on our little tub, through lack of space, we enjoyed a quieter version, we had no Master, no RPO in the true sense, and no room for the enactment, in fact it was all very civilised as I found out to my cost. See ‘Passing Out Parade’ to be posted later.

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, 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.

If you have led a sheltered life, in a house full of women, the services will soon change all that. You soon become aware of life as it is lived. My first brush was when we had come in from convoy and repairs had to be carried out to the relief of us all – we would have a couple of days in harbour, instead of refuelling and revictualling to immediately turn round and head off again The Harbour had a Naval canteen where hot food and beer were dispensed at reasonable prices The canteen itself was dark and dingy, about as welcoming as a ward in the workhouse, so I preferred to stay on board and catch up on sleep or walk round the dockyard looking at the other ships. On this occasion I was fast asleep on a row of padded lockers which doubled as seats in the C & POs’ Mess. With my hammock spread out, lying on the palliasse plus the blankets with the ship absolutely still, it was pure bliss indeed – I was off to sleep in a moment. The rest of the Mess was either ashore in or Edinburgh. The sailors’ hammock is made of canvas, tightly held between anchors by ropes attached to steel rings from which spread thinner ropes, called ‘nettles’ which pass through the eyes spaced along the ends of the canvas,. giving great versatility and comfort in all conditions There was no air conditioning so, by the judicious adjustment of the nettles and the use of a ‘hammock stretcher’,. to compensate we shortened the nettles in cold weather so the hammock cocooned us, and in hot weather we lengthened the nettles and forced them wide with a hammock stretcher, so the hammock was flat and open, The stretcher, was a piece of hardwood about eighteen inches long and one inch square with ‘V’ notches cut in each end so it could brace the outer nettles apart, either at the head or at each end, to allow room for a pillow and give ample room for moving one’s head. I was relishing my isolation when suddenly I was woken to find my face enveloped in beer fumes and stubble, I was being kissed awake by one of the Petty Officers. The fact that he was stoned was obvious but I was so surprised I did nothing for a second or two then, finding that pushing him off was too difficult from a prone position, I reached behind me where I knew the hammock stretcher was and clouted him over the head and shoulders until I reached his consciousness, at which point he stood, turned, walked across the Mess and threw himself down onto the lockers and went to sleep. I never told anyone about the incident, I never mentioned it to him, nor he to me. The matter was closed, he knew where we stood. One day I was called to the radar office to find that a pin connecting the aerial turning wheel ultimately to the aerial on the mast, had sheared The Engine room Artificer loaned me the key to his office so I could use his lathe to make a new one. His office was attached to the After Mess-deck, occupied by the deck hands and guns’ crews. When I entered there was hilarity and then, I saw a small girlish figure cavorting between the hammocks dressed in pink bra and pants and the men were leaning out of their hammock either trying to kiss or touch the slim transvestite. It was a member of the Mess, a young seaman. The whole thing was light hearted and I took it as such. Later, I discovered the young seaman was indeed a ‘winger’, a friend, if you like, of one of the Petty Officers., something I would never have heard about either the games or the relationship with the Petty Officer if the pin had not sheared. Every Mess was an entity and what went on within, stayed within.

The third occasion I was to come across homosexuality was when I was teaching. My friend Fred was smitten by one of the Wren pupils in a class we both took. One night, under the influence of a few pints, he said he wanted to meet this girl but as one of her lecturers he thought it placed him in a difficult position. I agreed, and offered to find out what I could of his chances of success. The next time I took the class, during a period of practical fault finding, I drew one of the Wrens to one side and explained that Fred was interested in this woman and wondered whether he had any chance. She burst out laughing. Her friend who was standing nearby wanted to be in on the joke and when the first one explained she too laughed out loud. I quietened things down, although I realised that Fred’s secret ambition would be common currency five minutes after class ended, “Do you see ‘X’ ?” she asked pointing to a big blonde working in a corner with Fred’s light of love. I nodded. “Those two go to Portsmouth together every chance they get.” “So?” I said, not being up to speed on lesbianism. “They sleep together, she wouldn’t be interested in Fred,” the Wren said, talking to me as if I were as thick as two short planks, which in that field I was. Such a pity for Fred, his choice was probably the prettiest member of the class, but then she would have been snapped up long before he had seen her if things had been different, so I suppose it boiled down to the same thing in the long run.

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 day 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 the way that one 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, 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, 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.