Chapter 7 - Navy

March 28, 1947 – HMS Gosling             

So when the King wrote to me and asked (no told me) to go and work on one of his ships I hadn’t the heart to turn him down. It was in February of 1947 that I boarded a train and went to a town called Corsham in Wiltshire which was the kitting depot where we all dropped our civilian togs and donned the uniform supplied to us by H. M. government, this was probably the place where the phrase “One size fits all” was coined.

March 31, 1947

First thing everyone complied with was “get your hair cut”. No matter that you had one at home a couple of days before. It was quite something to see all the trophies (Tresses) hanging on the walls of the operating room where the lady named Phoebe did her thing to each and everyone. I can’t imagine how some of the guys wore their hair in those styles in civilian life. The good news was there were no charge and no tipping, ha, ha. The bad news was every two weeks you were there again for another haircut ready or not.

This Corsham barracks was named HMS Royal Arthur. Sleeping accommodation in the barracks was several rooms all without doors and containing two pairs of bunk beds, enough room to house four new recruits. There must have been six rooms on each side of a central corridor that could hold a total of forty-eight. One room at the entrance had only one occupant who was a long time Navy member and probably unfit to handle any other job than keeping an eye on us, about forty new arrivals. He had a twisted sense of humour and around 2 a.m. every night he would pay random visits to the rooms waking up the sleeping new sailors and ask the question “Do you want to buy a Battleship?” Then he would go off back to his bed chuckling away to himself. After about a week of this crap someone waited for the nightly visit to be over and then went to his room, woke him up and asked “How much?” I think that was the end of that little caper.

Each and every shore base also had its own HMS name attached, and after two weeks we were sent to HMS Gosling, which I think was Portsmouth barracks for basic training, AKA square bashing for four weeks. Here we were classified into which branch of the service you selected or were put into as per qualifications. So those of us who were lucky enough to make it into the visual signal branch were then dispatched to HMS Scotia in Lancashire near Warrington and Leigh. Funny thing when we were lined up to leave HMS Gosling they called out names checking them out against the typed listing. There was only the about nine or ten of us. The officer called out, Buand, which I did not acknowledge as my name so I was left last in line. Then he asked me what my name was and how it was spelled. I told him and was given my spot on the lorry.

On arrival at the other end at HMS Scotia there was another roll call and there they had me called Buant so this greatly amused the rest of the squad and it became a name which they called me quite often until the joke became worn out. There was no shore leave until we were established into classroom training at Scotia. After that one could go off base a couple of nights a week for about five hours and then for longer periods at the weekends and overnight. These trips usually meant going into Manchester by train from the station that was just across the road from the entrance to the camp, HMS Scotia.

The training at Scotia lasted for nine months which had me reflecting that I was to be in the Navy for two years and one of them was to be spent on training when you add the weeks of kitting out and the weeks of square bashing.  Whatever it’s their money. 

It was like being back in school with classrooms holding thirty budding signalmen each and there were four classrooms. Classes started at 9 a.m. after breakfast and morning parade, which included everyone in the camp. The classes went on for eight hours per day Monday to Friday. The main lessons were Morse code, semaphore and flags. I had the jump on most of them having learned Morse and semaphore in the Scouts. And just like schools there were periodic tests and the rooting out of candidates whom the teacher (Petty Officer) thought would never make the grade and were sent back to boot camp for re-classification into another trade or simply into the seaman branch. Test results were posted for all to view and evaluate. Which kept you aware since no one wanted to belong to the seaman branch, which was the lowest of the low and advancement was pretty well impossible.

The starting rank was ordinary seaman, and then after six months of training with ability tests one could became an Able seaman AB for short. Leading seaman status was rare indeed. So it was important to do well and not have to scrub decks and paint the Battleship, which was a job for life. I think my skill with Morse etc. earned me some envy or even some enemies as I was usually in the top three of the class at each evaluation. Also, probably because I was from the North of England and not considered the equal of those more fortunate Southerners which is probably why I was conned into a dastardly prank some of them cooked up and conned me into taking part.

To describe it briefly there were bets placed against the ability of one chosen recruit to lift three others lying on a small rug. Now being the practical thinker I still am, I knew it would be impossible for anyone straddling over three bodies and grasping the edges of a rug to lift three other guys off the ground so I became the scapegoat of the trick. I was placed in the middle of the rug and the two accomplices unknown as such at the time were laid one either side of me. The leader decided that we had to be lain closer together so the lifter had a better chance to make the lift so the two outside men’s legs were overlapped onto mine to make the pile narrower. Then the arms of same two were placed under my neck, which now had a pretty good stranglehold on yours truly. Now the leader comes forward holding a tube of toothpaste and stands over me with the intent of unbuttoning my trouser flap, and immediately I thought I am not going to enjoy this so my inside arms, elbows were thrust into the guys faces either side of me which immediately got their attention and released their grip on my legs which allowed me to place my feet into the belly of the approaching clown with toothpaste tube at the ready and I launched him airborne into the brick wall behind him and he slid down into a twitching heap on the floor. This created a mass exodus from the room and enabled me to stand upright to repel any other bad intentions, which fortunately did not occur. Happily from thereon in nobody messed with Ray anymore.

Fighting and horseplay was strictly a NO, NO and any participants were dealt with severely, regardless of who started it and what the outcome was. All involved were charged and punished equally with a number of days loss of leave and the same number of days loss of pay usually not less than seven days which meant no shore leave and of course nothing in the pay packet. Also there were extra duties allocated daily like kitchen work on your own time and square bashing routines designed to knock the spunk out of anyone, I particularly remember the Frog March was most unpleasant and definitely made one think “I don’t want to do this ever again” which of course was getting the intended message across very forcefully.

After completion of training all the recruits with passing grades were sent to HMS Mercury (on the ground) in Petersfield, Hampshire that was the ancestral home of Beatrice Lillie a British film actress of some fame. The property having been taken over by the Royal Navy at the outset of WW2, were we awaited eventual draft to shipboard. This was the luck of the draw thing and you simply went where you were allocated which in my case was to HMS Howe a real ship that floated. It was a 35,000-ton battleship of the King George V class of which there were five ships originally, namely KGV, Howe, Anson, Prince of Wales & Duke of York. Howe & Anson were named after Admirals who were around about the time of Nelson. The Duke of York and the Prince of Wales were both sunk during the war. KGV was actively involved in the sink the Bismarck skirmish.

One of the perks of being a member of a ship’s company instead of shore based was that at eighteen years of age one had to be designated as follows. Three categories were available, UA meaning under the age of 18, which was the legal age for drinking in the UK at that time. The next was T meaning temperance and the last was G meaning Grog. If you chose Grog one received a daily ration of Rum, and if you chose T you got an extra three pence a week in the pay packet. Since three pence a week was not going to impact my state of wealth, I became a G. This whole Rum thing was quite a ritual almost a ceremony. Each of the members of the mess took it in turn to be Rum bosun for the day and had to take a large polished billycan to where the Rum was being issued and collect the amount due for all the men eligible on the mess deck. We averaged ten to twelve. Then you would take and dole out into large cups the amount for each person. It was customary for the Rum bosun to hand each man his cup and then the man would hand it back for the Rum bosun to have what they called sippers which should be no more than wetting your lips, then you gave it back to the recipient. The next ritual was if it was anyone’s birthday everyone handed his tot of Rum to the birthday boy and he would have what was called gulpers, which was a generous swallow of the Rum. If your birthday happened to occur on the same day that you were Rum Bosun by the time you had had all the freebees and then your own tot you were pretty happy and not feeling like going back on duty after lunch. The Rum came in large casks about 4 feet long and 14 inches in diameter. The cask was straddled across a galvanized tub and the bung removed then the stuff oozed out into the tub it was the consistency of molasses. Next, there was a quantity of water added, the Rum was mixed and then the officers were served the allocation. More water was added and the Petty officers were served, more water was added and the rest of ship’s company was served. After all this dilution it was said that what we got was twice the strength of Rum you could buy ashore in a pub or retail store.

Most of the time on board was spent in Portland harbour which was a Naval base near the town of Weymouth in Dorset on the south coast of England. KGV was in dry dock at Portsmouth for a major refit and when it was done all the ship’s company was transferred from HMS Howe onto the KGV and then Howe had the same treatment and KGV went to Portland. One of the neat things I was witness to was the full speed trials in the English channel and the ship reached thirty one knots and every rivet on that thing was vibrating like crazy, there was also a rumour that the 16” guns were going to be tested but it turned out to be just a rumour. During any gale warnings the ship had to be made ready to go out to sea so engine room was alerted to have steam ready for three hours, then two hours and lastly one hour. The next move was to cast off anchor and head off into the channel to ride out the storm, usually all-night but sometimes longer depending on the severity of said gale. The reason for this action was to prevent the ships from dragging anchor and becoming grounded inside the harbour, which would have been one hell of a mess. One storm lasting three days prevented the Queen Mary from sailing out of Southampton for that length of time and the Captain of KGV wrote a signal that was to be sent by semaphore to RMS Queen Mary (RMS means Royal Mail Steamer).  The merchant seamen were not nearly as skilled in Morse code as were the Royal Navy, so that’s why semaphore was chosen. Whichever signalman was on duty when this event took place would have the honour of sending the message. Because this signal was pinned on the message board awaiting for this to happen when the great liner passed by us in the Channel it was easy to memorize the contents of the signal which read  “As bearer of an illustrious name so closely associated with yours, we wish you Bon Voyage and a safe return.”  I was the lucky one! It was amusing to see the crew scrambling about looking in the ship’s lockers for their semaphore flags to reply to the signal. They never did find any but some junior officer grabbed two caps and used them to signal the reply.   After the two years of conscription had been served I was due for demob, which was delayed for three months because of the threat of the Korean War. Again, no choice in the matter and useless to complain anyway.  

However one nice sunny day in early May of 1949 I was given a railway ticket and some money and sent back to Grangetown to resume life as an apprentice Roll Turner. The interrupted time spent in the Navy was divided into three equal parts of nine months each. Which on reaching the age of 21, (the normal time to have completed the apprenticeship) was applied in this manner. The first nine months instead of earning full journeyman’s wages it was reduced to 5/6ths of full pay. The next nine months was paid at 11/12ths of full pay and the last 9 months was forgiven, or full wage scale was paid. This was much better than waiting till age of 21 to go into the service and earn Navy pay instead of full wage scale or almost the same as.

So financially it was the smart thing to do which was not to apply for deferment at eighteen and go off into the forces to earn peanuts, which was almost the equivalent of apprentice wages anyhow. The alternative was to wait until you were twenty-one and have no choice but to be drafted and get paid peanuts when in one more years time you would have been enjoying full journeyman’s pay scale. (Like a no brainer decision).

During the war all serving members of the armed forces when demobbed were given a suit of clothing called a Demob Suit. There were other descriptions used to refer to these garments, and thankfully the practice had ceased to be by the time I was demobilized. The quality of materials suffered a great deal in wartime plus all the good tailors were away in the forces leaving only inexperienced workers to make the suits. So I used the cash given upon leaving the Navy to invest in a nice suit from Jackson the Tailors of Linthorpe Road in Middlesbrough.