| | The cadets were treated with derision, the coloured cadets be they members of foreign royal families were treated particularly badly. The cadets were often sea sick and were kept on the run day and night. Black cadets could not cope with the cold and seasickness.
We went cruising. showing the flag to the North of Europe in the Spring up North the Baltic and Near Arctic in spring with winter in the West Indies or the Mediteranean. The West Indies were cancelled and we had two winters in Malta. One long stay as the ship was drydocked after storm damage in the Gulf of Lyons we spent three weeks ashore in an ex RAF Camp at the airfield at Hal Far.
We were routinely stoned by local men and boys then in the evening we walked down to the bar at Ghar Lapsi and drank am bit or am tut with them.
We were trained in riot control armed with dust bin lids and pick axe handles we were trained to disperse rioters, as at that time Dom Mintoff was fighting to throw the British out.
As a fellow socialist I was much in favour and made friends with Maltese I later met similar people when we went back to Malta in the nineties.
We went alongside in Grand Harbour, but mostly moored off in Sliema creek.
The ship flew the flag, held receptions wherever we went the Royal Marines Beat the Retreat and played us in and out of harbour. We painted ship constantly and every piece of brasswork was polished until it shone.
We went to St Malo and toured the coast of Britanny and had a civic reception in Concarneau. I explored the German fortifications on the Cotentin Peninsula, and did expedition training. We went to Lisbon and went to a reception held by Salazar I made friends with a group of students from Coimbra. In Cascais there were still the very large rowing boats used for fishing launched off the beach through the surf. I ate fresh boiled Cod and boiled potatoes. After a period in Gibraltar we circled the Atlantic Islands for a Nato exercise, battered and bent USA ships broke off and returned to Gibraltar we did not finish the exercise. Then to Livorno where we had two days in Rome Florence and Pisa as guests of the British Embassy, Naples with visits to Pompei and Etna to look down into the crater. Sicily the Straits of Messina then Malta. Mooring in Sliema Creek, or in Grand Harbour when we were drydocked in the drydocks. The ship was leaking , when the rust was chipped off the bottom there were hundreds of holes which had to be covered in welded patches. We thought then that we were being patched up to get us home so that she could be scrapped.
The aluminium superstructure was separated from the steel hull by a layer of roofing felt and bitumen, but electrolysis parted the fastenings, in the Bay of Lyons in a force eleven the superstructure began to part from the hull and waggled back and fore several inches in a seaway. During the annual full speed trials the jackstaff moved six feet from side to side as the bows began to hunt and set up a standing wave oscillation. No wonder these war time built ships were a nightmare to maintain, no wonder they were to be scrapped.
Once we had a breakdown in Plymouth the rest of the squadron sailed without us we took a day and a half to Gibraltar but used all the fuel oil which made the ship very tender as stability was maintained by full oil tanks.
Life on the lower deck was hard asbestos lined steel deck heads and ships sides bare steel deck a space seven feet by three feet to hang a hammock, always more men that hanging spaces so the favoured slept on vinyl covered horse hair cushions on top of and under the tables. When we fired the four inch the air was dense with a fog of asbestos, most of us will die of asbestosis if we live long enough, not a present though I have had chest X rays to check but so far so good.
We had a system of central messing food was issued daily, a rota made everyone take turns as cook of the day, Food was the bare ingredients if any ingredients were missing these had to be bought from the NAAFI canteen a small cubicle in the eyes of the ship manned by a Maltese who made their money in all sorts of ways to retire and buy land on Malta. Some were good cooks some could not care less. Breakfast did not need preparation but was collected from the Galley by the Cooks of the Day. Dinner was prepared by the Cooks of the Day before turning to to day work. It had to be cooked in large aluminium fannies ,with limited space on or in the range in the galley so recipes were limited to a dozen or so dishes.
Hot water for tea making for washing up had to be fetched in a fanny from the galley, not easy in a sea way. The washing up water was ditched down the gash shute slung over the ships rail on the quarter deck aft, the rhyme " tinkle tinkle little spoon, knife and fork will follow soon " was used when someone had left them in the murky water and the first sign was too late as they hit the sides of the metal gash shute.
The heads were forward, they were not fitted with doors the showeres were oposite. Everyone at the end of work was expected to shit shave and shampoo and change into clean "Rig of the Day", usually a white front and no 3 serge bell bottom trousers with the high waist, flap front, ironed with seven horizontal creases to commemorate Nelson's seven victories.
Taking a pee was "shedding a tear for Nelson" or "pumping ship" a fancy bird was "I would crawl a mile over broken glass to yaffle her shit", 69 was a " yodel in the canyon". "get you feet under the table" was to get intimate with someone.
Officers were pigs, the wardroom the pigstye. Ratings and officers rarely met a sociable word was unheard of.
This made us university graduates anomilous.
The regular officers were left over from the war, of aristocratic origins or pretensions and of varying degrees of competence ranging from,mad to barely competent.
Life was in their hands certain jobs were inherently dangerious and you got away with it if you were given a dangerous un thought order and you told the to "fuck off", when it was actually life threatening. With cadets aboard they were trained in seamanship, they all took their turn in taking charge.
A potentially nasty job was of "buoy jumper" being landed on a mooring buoy to receive the strop and later to shackle the cable to the buoy. If the ship was not stopped in time the buoy was run down under the fore foot and the jumper literaly had to jump for his life into the sea and swim clear to be picked up by the whaler. Once the strop was attached the ship went astern to clear the buoy, if too far the buoy was dragged under water, everyone ran as when the strain was relieved as the buoy shot to the surface, several tons of metal could damage anything in range.
The semi drowned buoy jumper was issued with a tot and screamed a storm of abuse to the bridge.
Another dangerous evolution was seaboats crew, sitting in a whaler slung out on davits over the sea as the ship went at full speed the boat was lowered away until just above the crest of the waves, the order to slip should be given just as a wave crest was under the whaler too early a drop of many feet too late fell down the back of the wave to be dragged through the crest. The bowman pulled out a pin through the eye of the boat line his was the final decision. If the Officer in Charge got it wrong particularly if we were acting as a plane guard for an aircraft carrier flying off at night it was a terrifying experience to be dragged at thirty knots through a rough sea and having to cut the boat line with an axe, with the boat half full of water.
Activities using wire hawsers were dangerous if you ever heard a wire "sing" everyone dived for cover behind the nearest solid object until the wire went slack or parted
I was a Quartermaster and Bosuns Mate, my job was to man the wheelhouse, to run the ships routine by making pipes with a Bosuns call at sea and manning the gangway in port. This meant logging everybody going ashore and returning to ship, and reporting all those who overstayed their run ashore. We let our mess mates slip on and off and relied on their ability not to be caught.
At night we did rounds of the ship checking everything, adjusting the lines if we were tied up alongside in a tidal area, otherwise the ship could be "hung up to dry" until the lines parted as the tide went out.
At anchor we took bearings on the hour to check that the ship was not dragging her anchor. These we took from the bridge wing.
In dry dock all the services were turned off and the crew were sent to barracks, we were left as night watchmen, in a deserted ship in a silent dockyard, charged with preventing fire and running the pumps to pump out any seepage into the dry dock.
For fifteen months I worked twenty four ours on twenty four hours off in four hour watches with a "Make and Mend" every second afternoon.
I joined the Royal Naval Sailing Association a normal for a rating, this brought several benefits, I could take away any of the ships boats, we had an RNSA 14 aboard you had to be qualified to use it I had it launched and used it whenever I could getting out of normal routine as a rating if anyone wanted to use it, if they were not qualified my job was to teach them and pass them as competent.
I took the ships whaler and sailed it between Gibraltar and Malta, the ship rendezvoused with us once a day.
Each year we had Captain D's inspections where every part of the ship was exercised. We thought our first lieutenant was a bit of a dick When I piped for him I said " First Lieutenant lay aft" normally used for a rating not " the First Lieutenant please report to the quarterdeck". A puce and purple First Lieutenant berated me but in my most refined accent I said "most awfully sorry sir" he did not know how to deal with this as the crew who heard the pipe all cheered.
During Captain D's inspection in the Solent we had run for an hour under full
power, carried out evolutions. The first lieutenant was ordered to berth alongside between an aircraft carrier and another ship. He conned the ship into Pompey Harbour, this he did at speed with considerable brio, brushing ferries and small ships aside.
He shot ahead into the space not noticing that aircraft carriers bows have a considerable overhang nobody said a word as he took off our mast, top of the funnel, radars, ariels etc as we all ran for cover under the rain of debris. |
