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There were two occasions at the Jolly Sailor which stand out in my memory and both, at the time, seemed to epitomise the whole reason for the existence of the English Pub and were a tremendous contrast to the drinking ethos of Belfast at that time, where drinking had seemed to be a serious business not to be taken lightly.
I had just been installed as a teacher and was still living in Leydene when Frank and the others took me under their wing and introduced me to the delights of the Jolly Sailor. It was my first night off as a member of the teaching staff and as we walked into the pub to celebrate, Frank said to the owner, ‘Al ! “Here’s another recruit.’

Al was pouring a pint into a silver tankard and as we approached the bar, after passing it to Frank, he took another from a row hanging at the back of the bar and started to fill it. “Has he brought his own tankard?” Al asked with a knowing smile, handing the second tankard to Don, and again went through the ritual with yet another tankard, a glass one this time. “You’d better instruct him,” he added, handing the glass tankard to me, following that by bringing out three sets of darts from below the counter and passing them over. “Al, here, keeps our tankards and darts for us, he does it for all the regulars,” Frank said, “You’ll have to get a tankard and some darts for yourself.” Al lent me a set for the night with the admonition that I would have to get myself kitted out pretty soon if I was to be a regular.

I know it was a ploy to keep the regulars loyal and Al was no sentimentalist, but he had the human touch so many pub owners seem to have either by instinct or cultivation. For a man miles from home, in a new environment and a new way of living, that little bit of schmaltz, that consideration, fake or not, was a great lift. It seemed to be the form that we each bought a round of four pints of beer and then played darts, bar billiards and dominoes, for small stakes, ending up in a manner reminiscent of my days in Newcastle, singing in harmony all the latest hits as we walked home. I was hopeless, of course and had to take the melody, I could never put a left hand to it no matter how I tried.

The suggestion that the attitude of the owner of the Jolly Sailor to us on my first night might have been contrived rather than instinctive was negated several months later when, after Sophie and I were married she came over from Ireland to share my meagre one-room-flat. We, the gang, were due for our regular trip to the Jolly Sailor and as Sophie had sent me my pewter tankard it seemed only reasonable she should see the whole routine for herself. We entered and she was duly amazed at the way we had integrated into village life. We then went to play bar billiards and as there were now five of us and she had no wish to play, she was left to do the scoring. When Al saw this he came over to her and said “you must be bored with these chaps, come with me.” He went to the bar, collected a sherry and then took her to the other end of the room where there was a roaring fire and a group seated round it chatting. He introduced her, sat her down with the sherry and left her to enjoy the other’s company. This was a salutary experience for both of us, it was the best introduction Sophie could have had to the camaraderie of the English pub, but it also taught me humility, and the duties of a new husband and not to be selfish, all of which I promptly forgot.

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.

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.

I don’t think I ever entirely accepted the Navy philosophy of calling any accommodation, be it a house or a concrete bottomed wreck, a ship. I could never think of myself as being ashore when I went out the gate. In fact I thought the whole concept childish and foolish, but it was surprising how simply it rolled off the tongue without thinking, and does even now when taking about the Navy Instructors and senior staff at Leydene were allowed to live ‘ashore’, this gave the married men the opportunity to have their families with them, which I think was at the back of the privilege, but the single men also profited. I was not at Leydene long before I was introduced to Madam Spirella and her concentration camp. Although we were given a living allowance and still enjoyed all the facilities of Leydene, including retaining our bunks and being fed, living ‘ashore’ was inevitably dearer, added to which there were the local attractions in the form of the pub, The Jolly Sailor, the cinema and Portsmouth just down the road, were all a drain on an insubstantial income.

My mate Frank had suggested Madam Spirella’s as a suitable pied a terre and I was duly ensconced. I rented a single room on the first floor, furnished with a narrow, single steel-framed hospital bed, a card table, two cane dining chairs, a dressing table and a wardrobe which trebled as a food cupboard cum cleaning store. With linoleum on the floor and a worn mat in front of the fireplace which contained a 500 watt cooking ring that doubled as a heater, for which we paid some extortionate sum – this was to be home for quite some time. It was bleak, inhospitable, but a relief from the years of communal living, the claustrophobic atmosphere of mass humanity, repeated expletives, noise, perpetual noise, the constant demands of the public address system and Vera Lynn at every hour of the day from the wake-up call to lights out. Don’t believe all they tell you about the popularity of the Stars of the past, even they had a sell-by date and constant repetition can pall

Madam Spirella was our name for the woman who ran the house. I say ran, that is an overstatement because all she did was collect the rent, the tenants had days when they were responsible for the cleanliness of the hall and stairs and they were totally responsible for their own rooms. On the front of the house was a brass plate which said ‘Madam XXX, Corsetier and Spirella Specialist’, or words to that effect. She was not unlike Madam Arcarti in the film Blithe Spirit, detached from reality, on a higher plane of artistic genius, but that didn’t stop her coming down to earth with a thump if anyone digressed from the list of do’s and don’ts pinned up everywhere, or on rent day. We were a happy band of refugees from authority. One of our number played the trumpet in a dance band at a nearby seaside town on the weekends when he was not on duty. He constantly amazed me how every night he would take out the sheet music of the latest tune to hit the streets and proceed to orchestrate all the parts for the band, without playing a single note. Frank and a one-time school teacher from Huddersfield called Don, also had rooms and the three of us would sometimes eat together, generally on the first day of the weekly ration. At that time, 1944, with the Second Front in full swing, rations were fairly strict and only those in the know could take advantage of the black market, with the result that on Monday of every week we had a blow-out of almost all the week’s ration at one go, and then ate in the local Salvation Army canteen for the rest of the week.

Sophie, coming from Ireland did not suffer the same restrictions as we did in England. and when she came over to stay at Christmas, she brought a good deal of food she had gathered up, for the two of us, or so she thought. What she had not realised was that we, at Madam Spirella’s, tended to share and share alike and so her precious butter and eggs were destined not only for us, but my mates. It was more than a shock to her, I think it took her a day or two to get over it, especially as in our chauvinist society she was expected to cook her provender as well. It was the first morning after Sophie had arrived in Madam Spirella’s prison camp when, as I knew the ropes, I decided I would make the breakfast. Staying there were two Wrens and one was in the kitchen when I arrived downstairs. It was clear she was not in the best of form by her posture, from the way her dressing gown was holding her up rather than the reverse, and by her reaction to my breezy ‘good morning’. When I asked her what was the matter she looked at me with the most jaundiced look I have ever seen and said, ‘I hate this place,’ meaning Petersfield, ‘its full of Irish and Plymouth Brethren.’ For a moment there was silence, but she was totally unaware of her gaff. For me, there was no way I could let that go, it was too good an opportunity to be a chauvinist, so I made her bad day even worse, I told her my wife was Irish. The size of the hole which opened at her feet and into which she disappeared was just enough to accommodate her and make my day.

Isle Of Man, Two – A careless death The second visit to the Isle of Man was an entirely different experience, we were now Petty Officers with the privileges that entailed. The work if anything was harder, and the sets we were learning much more sophisticated and in some cases as big as a small kitchen. When one can walk into a large high-voltage transmitter, it seems to have less threat than putting one’s hand within a small one, with the result when a Radio Mechanic left the door of a set open while functioning on full power, an operator, who regularly dried his clothes inside the set ‘On Standby’ – the heat of the huge valves would dry his clothes in an hour – walked in and was electrocuted. This act was analogous to throwing an electric fire into a bath. I’m sure the practice of hanging washing in a dangerous area went on, long after I left the Service, you see, we all, by necessity, had the philosophy that ‘it could never happen to us’.

The Italian Prisoners Several blocks further along the front at Douglas, in a loose compound, surrounded by a barbed wire fence nothing more than a gesture to security, the Italian internees were still housed, but when we arrived they were about to be moved out, block by block and we were instructed to supervise the clearing out of the hotels and boarding houses they had been occupying. These men were prisoners, in spite of the fact that they had held jobs at every level in British society, and one can but guess at the trauma incarceration had caused them and their families. The one aspect which pervaded all these lodgings was the way these prisoners had decorated their prison. There were murals on walls, pictures on windows giving a stained glass effect and the quality of the work, in many cases was breath taking. I have often wondered if the returning occupants retained those works of art, as many had a religious flavour, it is possible that they might not have been acceptable, but the quality was irrefutable.

Leydene
The Cabooshes The fact that we were Petty Officers had no effect on our accommodation at Leydene – a top bunk, on a tier of two, in a row of twenty, on each side of a standard Nissan hut, with a coke burning, fat bellied stove and steel chimney set in the centre, and one chair each. That was home. The top bunk was just below the shelf running the length of the hut on which stood the small suitcases and hat boxes, safes where anything valuable or of a deeply personal nature was stored, and that was the limit of privacy. At night rats would sometimes run along the shelf above our heads looking for food and cats would produce kittens on the beds of the lower bunks. We had a cat called Vera frequenting our hut, a strange creature, with hind quarters like a rabbit, she could jump prodigious heights with ease. Vera adopted me. I would wake up to find a furry creature snuggled down under the blanket, face on the pillow, purring like a Morris 8 going up hill. So it would be no surprise that the instructors organised alternative accommodation, away from the Tannoy system and Vera Lynn, where one could relax, sleep read and write. The cabooshes were small brick huts which housed machinery for the sets we were teaching and, because we serviced them, we had the keys, and so our irregular behaviour was unlikely to be discovered.. Occasionally we had to make them shipshape for some inspection, but as we generally scheduled these as well, we were never caught on the hop. We were the men in charge, the officers were merely there to make up the numbers

The Silly Side Of Leydene A student, on a long course, had built up a relationship with one of the Wrens billeted in Leydene. She slept in a dormitory high in the main building, overlooking a flat roof. He was in the habit of climbing onto the roof, entering the room through one of the windows, and getting into bed with her, quietly, and leaving before the others woke. If the others were aware of what was going on it was never divulged, but in the end they were rudely awakened. The Wren was suddenly taken ill, and her replacement in her bed, was a woman in her forties, stern and prudish. You’ve guessed it! The sailor got in beside her. The rest was pure Ealing comedy.

With the war ended people were looking to the future. One guy intended setting up his own business in radio repairs, and was collecting stock towards that end. The authorities, aware petty thieving was rife had everyone below Wardroom rank searched before leaving on the bus. I saw the man queued up, searched. tying shoes, while the driver was revving the engine. An accomplice rushed up, a bundle of washing clutched in his arms shouting that the man had forgotten his laundry. It was duly handed in, the bus took off and another load of valves, condensers and a B28 receiver were on their way to his new shop at a certain port in the North of England.

It was just before the Italian landings that several Landing Craft Tanks (LCTs) were brought into Belfast to be fitted out as Landing Craft Guns (LCG’S). They were in several of the dry-docks, and the work was so urgent all the trades were working together, so there was controlled chaos, which meant that I had to work at night when thing had quietened down. The modifications to the LCGs consisted of making living quarters in the centre of the ships which would house the gun crews of Royal Marines and would also act as the support for the 4 inch guns they proposed to use for shelling the shore before the landings.

To enter the dry-dock one passed through huge wrought iron gates, at least twelve feet high, supported on Gargantuan pillars. The gates were most impressive and were opened every morning and closed and locked every night. When I had finished work at two one morning, I found the gates were closed. It was dark, and no street lights due to the blackout. With a torch I managed to see enough to tie all my tools, meters and equipment, together with a length of flex. Wrapping the flex round my wrist I climbed to the top of the gate, hauled the gear up one side and down the other, and finally clambered down the gate, safe and sound – just – it had been a hazardous experience. The jolt came later. As I was walking back to the hut I found the walls on either side of the gate had been blasted away in the Blitz – I could have walked round the pillars and out of the dry-dock. I was l told the unions insisted the gate keeper was an essential part of security and he was to be retained. to continue opening and locking the gates morning and night. Such are the rocks of precedent upon which our war effort was buil

When I arrived back at the hut I was too tired to put up the blackout, instead I put on the electric fire and crashed out on the couch. After a while I woke thinking I was taking the flu, coughed, turned over and went to sleep again. I awoke twice more, but on the third occasion I lifted my torch to see the time only to find the beam of the torch was no longer than two feet, the room was filled with a white choking smoke. Immediately I went to the door, I was both sick and dizzy. It transpired that someone had leaned a coil of rubber-covered telcathene cable against the fire and it was burning. I am convinced if I had gone to sleep just once more I would never have awakened

A young married woman complained to me the other day that for a long time she and her husband had been trying to obtain a mortgage, and now the mortgage rates were going up yet again their target was vanishing over the horizon. They are a hard-working couple, he with a university degree in Media Studies for which he cannot get a job, and still has a postgraduate loan to pay back. This little occurrence raises a number of questions in my mind. Why is it that the money people, the banks etc, who must be aware that every action that they take has often grave repercussions especially to those on low income levels and choose to ignore the fact?

I often hear of students selecting to study subjects that I believe have a limited requirement in the job market, sometimes because there may be a cache in studying the subject, or because it is easier. I can remember when I used to train graduates who came straight from university with good degrees, having to bring them down to my level because that was what the job required. At university they had been trained to design some of the latest, costliest and most complicated structures, which they would never come across unless they were working for a very exceptional, specialised firm.

In the world of commerce one of the rules that all people generally have is that of supply and demand. It is only a fool who stocks up his shop without reference to what he is likely to sell and yet I question whether there is an assessment of the universal demand of the various subjects being studied related to the demand by industry, the government and the private sector. When you get the sort of credit crunch that we have at the moment, when well educated, well trained specialists are actually losing their jobs, not to have some knowledge of supply and demand of the various trades, professions, and opportunities is surely inadequate. That information will be of considerable help to those advising youngsters what they study, or if indeed a university degree is the correct option. These advisers must be able to give sensible advice, based on facts, not as I suspect, guesswork. These kids are entitled to at least choose the better of several options, even if those on offer are not what they had hoped to find. Education is going to cost them money that they can ill afford, and only if they get a job at the end of their training are they going to get out of the quagmire of debt. By the same token, any student who does not finish the course, or fails to obtain work in his chosen subject is wasting the bursary.