Chapter 5: Home Fleet and The Mediterranean 1948-51

We boarded Wrangler in the river via a scrambling net, whilst our kit was passed from the picket boat which had taken us out to her from Shotley pier. I don't know whose bright idea it was to make us clamber aboard in such an undignified way, but it gave the ship's company a good laugh as I scrambled over the guard rail to a shout from one wag:
"Throw that tiddler back, it aint big enough!"
A gale and a half was blowing (it always was when I went to sea) as the ship steamed out of Harwich harbour and set course up the east coast for Rosythe on the Firth of Forth in Scotland, from whence we would operate for the next three months. That seemingly endless voyage, through one night and most of the next day, until we turned into the Firth of Forth and headed up river, was not the worst voyage of my sea-going life, but it seemed so at the time. Not a morsel of food entered my stomach during the thirty six hours we were at sea; it tried to, but was immediately ejected. Despite this, we were still expected to take our turn on lookout in the small hours of the morning, having been detailed for the 'Morning Watch' (4am-8am).

We were based at Rosythe, officially, but seemed to spend most of our time entering and leaving the Loch Foyle, en-route to Londonderry in Northern Ireland, or exercising off the Outer Hebrides, in the Atlantic Ocean, north west of Scotland.

My first impression of visiting Londonderry was the sight of hundreds of German U-Boats secured stern-to-the-bank on the east side of Loch Foyle. Apparently, they had been brought in at the end of the war, in 1945, and were lying there waiting to be bought up for scrap.

The city of Londonderry also holds for me the first conscious awareness of the terrible conditions in which so many millions of small children live out their deprived lives around the world. That experience, and many that followed, have left a lasting impression, and, at times, a sense of guilt in my mind because, although our own lives were not exactly comfortable or affluent, they appeared so by comparison with the living hell that was, and still is, endured by so many children. My first run ashore there was in the company of several other boy seamen. We had not stepped a dozen paces outside the dockyard gates when we were accosted by several bedraggled, filthy dirty, little boys who appeared to be about six or seven years old at the most. They were all holding out their hands in a begging manner and almost bleating:
"Gi us a parny mister, gi us a parny."
That soul-searing cry of international beggars was made even worse by the fact that it was in a language that we could almost understand, and this brought it that much closer to home. In all the horror that has been the terrible story of the Irish troubles of the past half-century there has been, and will always be, that one image which comes to my mind and which I associate with that unhappy, tragic history - I suppose it has had this lasting effect because I was so young myself and at a mere sixteen years one is very impressionable.

A few days later some of the crew brought one of those very young lads back on board to give him a decent meal, but they insisted that he wash and scrub himself first. I shall never forget that little boy, kicking and squealing, as the chaps tried to wash him. It was hilariously funny because it seemed he just didn't know what they were trying to do to him and he thought the soap was some kind of poison. He certainly tucked into the food which they gave to him as if he hadn't eaten for days - perhaps he hadn't. I'm sure I saw that same little character outside the gate on many other occasions calling his sad little jingle: "Gi us a parny mister gi us a parny". It seems that in recent years similar scenes are daily enacted in many of our own towns and cities; I wonder what Dr. Barnardo would make of London today.

My few months in HMS Wrangler,(they seemed many at the time) were lightened by a leave at Christmas. People complain about railway services today, but I remember that journey from Rosythe to London took us no less that seventy-two hours as we were constantly shunted into sidings to allow essential coal trains to pass; there had been a national fuel crisis that year, which had brought the country almost to a halt, and, to avoid a repetition, the government had given the coal industry priority on the nationalised railway.

On return from leave we were informed, early in the New Year, 1949, that we would be leaving the old V/W destroyer to join the much more modern Battle Class destroyer, HMS Solebay, in Portland Harbour, prior to leaving home waters for the Mediterranean. The boy's Divisional Officer in the 'Wrangler' tried to convince us that we had been specially selected for the Solebay, which was leader of the 5th Destroyer Squadron, and that great things were expected of us as members of 'Captain D's' crew. He was wasting his time - we were seasoned sailors, with all of three months sea time behind us, and recognised 'bull' when we heard it; we had yet to learn a great deal! After a very long journey overland from Rosythe (why couldn't all my journeys have been that sensible way?) we arrived at Portland Harbour, and were taken by picket boat to join our new ship.

Solebay was moored in the harbour with several other destroyers, frigates, and two Light Fleet cruisers. Lying alongside the jetty was Britain's last and aptly-named battleship, HMS Vanguard. There was also an aircraft carrier in the harbour, I think she was HMS Illustrious. This grand fleet (to my novice's eye) was to form part of a larger fleet, including ships of European war allies, in order to carry out combined exercise in the Atlantic - the forerunner of the NATO fleets and armies we hear of today. I would be less than honest if I tried to deny that I found the whole scene extremely exciting - just what my boyhood daydreams were made of.

The exercises took place out in the North Atlantic, and into the notorious Bay of Biscay. The weather lived up to its evil reputation and I lived down to my miserable routine of a two-way food channel - down the hatch and almost immediately back up the hatch - for the next two very long weeks. It was during this period that I saw, for the first time, a real, old, three-masted, square-rigged, sailing ship, under full sail and running free - 'Sailing full and bye' as the old sea- dogs say. We got quite close to her but had to observe the rule of the road at sea that "Power vessels always give way to sail": she really was a fantastic sight and sound, and, for a few glorious minutes, I was able to retreat into another boyhood daydream, as we watched her sail off and disappear behind a headland.

The exercises came to an end and we set course for what was to be my first visit to a foreign city, Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. I have visited that city on several occasions over the years, but I will never forget the sense of eager anticipation and zest for exploration that I felt as we steamed slowly up the river Tagus on that beautiful warm spring morning. Cynics may scoff, but there really is nothing quite like one's first visit to a truly strange, foreign port. Some twenty years later I was to witness that same thrill, so clearly visible, in the youngsters I was accompanying on a school ship visit to this same city, but in very different and much more agreeable circumstances.

It is not my intention to make this a kind of personal travelogue but, although I could wish to have made my youthful travels under more pleasant and enlightening conditions, those travels did play a very important part in developing my outlook on, and attitudes to, much of life. They will therefore be an important part of the story of my teens and early twenties and I will not pretend that I do not suffer a degree of nostalgia for a youth spent in this way.

Leaving Lisbon, only two days later, we steamed south to the entrance into the Mediterranean Sea and altered course east to take us to that most impressive and historic massif 'The Rock of Gibraltar' Is this beginning to sound like some excited schoolboy's dreams coming true? That was exactly what was happening to me and I'm truly grateful that, even at this distance in time, I can still recall and feel that sense of thrill and wonder as I first saw that incredible place come up over the horizon. 'Gib', as all servicemen who have served on, or visited, know that renowned fortress, is as English, in many ways, as a small country town but, unfortunately, not as green. This was the first of many times that the ships in which I served berthed in her sheltered harbour, and, over the years, her unmistakable features were to be a very welcome sight after a tiresome, unsettled, voyage.

Unfortunately we were not able to cross the border into Spain in those days - a certain Generalissimo Franco, friend and confidant of the late Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, was still making life uncomfortable for those he disliked in neighbouring Spain, and he thought that a lot of friendly British sailors in Lalinea was not a good idea.

As a special 17th birthday present to me the Admiralty dispatched HMS Solebay to the free port of Tangier, in Morocco, North Africa - at least, that's the yarn I tell my young grandsons, and it sounds good. Whirling Dervishers, The Casbah, and some very strangely-veiled ladies are my rather hazy memory of that birthday treat. Oh yes, and the return of the eading hand of our mess mounted on - a donkey! That old salt had a reputation for returning to the ship by rather unorthodox means, but that particular time was to cost him dear: he was demoted to AB, after what I thought was an unnecessary humiliation in front of the whole ship's company. It was a few days later, after we had left Tangier, that I witnessed, for the first time, that strange naval custom known as the 'Reading of a Warrant'. Our leading Seaman had been charged with "Returning on board drunk in charge of a donkey" and when a rating was found guilty of certain offences the captain could order him to be 'Punished by Warrant' which involved the whole ship's company being ordered to "Clear Lower Deck" and to assemble in one place, usually the foc'sle. The offender would then be marched on, under escort, and the order would be given "Off Caps". The officer in charge, usually the first lieutenant, would then read the warrant specifying the offence and detailing the punishment awarded. The almost unbelievable wording went as follows:
"Shall suffer death--- or any other punishment as hereinafter mentioned".
This was almost the second half of the 20th century and the dear old British Navy was, ostensibly, retaining the death penalty for the most trivial of offences, and this was known as 'observing the traditions of the service'. This kind of treatment was quite often meted out to offenders, and it soon began to raise doubts in my young mind about the justice system under which we served. The purpose of the whole charade seemed to be the humiliation of the offender, or defaulter as the navy termed them; I was learning fast, and not all of the daily education in a sea-going life was positive.

The next few months took us to other ports along the North African coast, including what was then the French naval base of Oran in Algeria. The war had been over only four years, and memories of what had happened to the French Fleet in Oran to prevent it being used by the Axis powers when Vichy France surrendered in 1940 were, we were warned, still very much alive. The boy's divisional officer gave us a pep talk about not getting involved in arguments with our French hosts whilst ashore and explained the events which had caused very bad feeling between our two navies. That was one of the few occasions that I remember being told something of interest and importance about a place before we went ashore.

Oran itself was, and probably still is, much like any sea port but the place that we paid a brief visit to, and which, again, engaged my boyish imagination to the full, was a desert town some distance inland called Sidi Bel Abis a name familiar to readers of such ancient texts as "Beau Geste" as the desert headquarters of the renowned, and feared, French Foreign Legion. It was a strange place: there seemed to be more men speaking German than French, although dressed in the traditional Legionnaires uniform: the explanation was that they were ex-members of Rommel's Africa Corps who had been Prisoners of War and had joined the Legion after the war; they were, to a man, well over six feet tall - but by then I was all of five feet one inch - tall enough to join the navy - the old Ganges doctor was absolutely right!

Those months in the sunny, and not so sunny, Mediterranean, in the early part of that memorable first year at sea, seemed to pass quickly, and we returned to our home base the Chatham Dockyard - and a spot of leave. On that leave I learnt that Frank had returned from Barnardos to live with our father and his 'house keeper'. I well remember that Frank was just not himself when I saw him, and was quite obviously not happy at home, or in his poorly paid job; I did not know then that Frank was, in fact, very ill. Before I saw him again he was in hospital suffering from tuberculous peritonitis, and expected to die more than once during the next few months which I spent at sea in the Solebay, oblivious to his illness, since no-one thought it necessary to write and tell me. My time was spent visiting European and Scandinavian ports and paying a courtesy visit to the town of Southwold in Suffolk, off which the battle of Solebay was fought against the Dutch, which gave our ship its name and class.

Back at Chatham, I went to see Frank in hospital as soon as I could. It is probably best to skip over those events after all this time. Suffice to say that my observations did not best please my father and when Frank very sensibly decided to return to live with our foster mother after his convalescence, Dad made it clear to me that he thought I was responsible. That, and the fact that I was left to discover, accidentally, that we had had a step-mother since 1941, did not make for a close or easy relationship. Neither Frank nor I took to her, although Frank, who did actually live with them for a time, has a much kinder opinion of her than I have. Hearing that Frank had returned to live with our foster mum made the next months away from home that much easier.

I mentioned in an earlier chapter that we have another brother, Bob, who, some fourteen months older than I, is, in fact, closer to me in age than Frank, nineteen months my junior. For reasons unknown to Frank and me, our older brother had somehow escaped the Barnardo years, and I do not remember seeing him again until after the war, but Frank and he insist that Bob made a visit during our foster years. I also do not remember seeing Bob on that depressing and disillusioning visit to our father's new home at Southend in 1947, before I left Watts. It was not until I had actually joined the Navy and had gone on a weekend leave to my father's home that I recall getting to know Bob again. I remember, with some rueful amusement, an occasion shortly after he had been called up in the RAF for his National Service; that would make him over eighteen years of age and I would have considered myself to be an old salt of seventeen, but was actually still a stroppy Boy Seaman. Our step mother had a permanent lodger by the name of Arthur. We called him 'Old Arfer', not very politely, for he was constantly finding fault with us. He did not like seeing us in service uniform, for, as a rabid member of the Communist Party, he regarded the British Armed Services as 'The lackeys of Imperialism'. It was the summer of 1949, the time of the 'River Yangtze Incident' when the Frigate Amethyst, and other units of our China Squadron, were in the news. Old Arfer and his associates were holding a meeting on Southend sea front to "condemn our imperialist actions against the peoples of the Democratic Republic of China". Not only had he told us all about it, he had also encouraged us to "come and listen to the facts" as he claimed.

At that time Servicemen, more often than not, wore uniform when on leave (I had no other clothes - you couldn't afford both uniform and civilian clothing on a boy seaman's 'pay' of seventeen shillings and sixpence a week, of which we were allowed to draw ten shillings a fortnight, the rest being put into account to pay for the upkeep of our kit and to meet other Admiralty deductions - life was hard for us young sailors!). That evening we were strolling down to the sea front for a spot of ornithological observation when we noticed a large group of people were gathered along the promenade around a chap who was shouting the odds about the wicked actions of our aggressive naval forces in Chinese territorial waters.
"That's old Arfer's gang" says Bob, "let's go and have a laugh".
We were not the only ones with that in mind because the speaker was already being given a pretty rough ride by some of the crowd, and we were not slow in adding our gibes. Encouraged by the crowd we were having a good laugh, trading insult for insult with the local comrades, but we were all too conspicuous, being in uniform, and we did not see a rather large police sergeant bearing down on us, or at least, I didn't. Suddenly Bob shouted: "Watch out Reg! Scarper!" and he promptly sped off at a rate of knots towards the Kursal Funfair. Something grabbed me by my sailor's collar and spun me around to face a Sergeant of the Local Constabulary. Holding me at the full length of the long arm of the law, half suspended, with just my toes touching the deck, was Sergeant Kilamanjaro - he was exceptionally tall, very dark, and gave me a distinctly black look - and the top of his towering helmet was white with what was probably perma frost! The policeman turned my head towards him and read my cap tally saying, with some emphasis:
"HMS Solebay, wot the hell is that, a branch of bleeding Sarfend worter cart? Now get the hell out of it, son, before I put my boot up your backside!"
He released me and I hit the deck running full pelt in the direction I had last seen my heroic, Brillcreamed, National Service erk bruver disappear. Around the corner, leaning nonchalantly against a Cockle and Welk stall, I found him:

'You should have seen his face all wrinkles
As he scoffed his tanners worf of winkles
And - he was picking all the big ones art!'

The thought has sometimes stuck me: why should I, an upright, sober, short-serving but long-suffering member of His Majesty's Senior Service, have been born between two RAF National Service erks? Life just aint blinking fair, ainit.

Although Bob joined the RAF as a National Service man he did actually re-engage, and we saw very little of each other for many years. He became a Flight Sergeant before he completed his full twenty-two years service but gawd knows how, because he had no wings! I reckon that if I could have been the same kind of sailor as Bob was an airman, I would never have been seasick - just a very happy, shore based, stone-frigate sailor.

My new name amongst my shipmates was 'Sippers'. It stemmed from the totally illegal practise of buying favours with that 'guarantee of trouble', the sailors 'tot of rum': if you did a big favour, you were rewarded with 'gulpers' - a real big swig; if the favour was small you received only a 'sipper' - which was where I, the small one, came in; it was just another example of the sailor's gift for nick names. I hasten to add, I did not drink the stuff; I was under age, and did not like it. You had to be twenty years old to draw your rum ration, and when that ancient mark of time came I remained a 'T' rating - not 'TT', as in teetotaller, but just 'T' for temperance, or, as the others claimed, 'T for Tight' - I preferred the three pence a day extra pay!

But all was not well with 'Sippers'. At the age of 17yrs 6months I reaped the benefit of my school efforts at Ganges and was promoted to Ordinary Seaman - six months early. However, at this point, someone, somewhere in authority, had a qualm of conscience about boys of only fifteen, with no experience, having been required to sign away the next 15yrs of their life in order to join the service, and, in 1949, the Admiralty gave permission for boys to change their service contract from 12years, plus 3years boys service, to 7years plus 3years boys service, and 5 years on the Royal Naval Reserve. This change had to be requested by the age of 17yrs 6months and, for seasick sailors like me, it was a godsend. When I first asked to see my divisional officer about changing my service contract it seemed to me that every thing possible was said in order to change my mind. However, I persevered, and was told I would have to request to see "Captain D". I am not sure whether this was just to try to put me off or if there was some reason why my Divisional Officer thought I should be sent up to the Captain.

Eventually I found myself at the Captain's table, as a 'Requestman'. It was the first time I had been in front of such a senior officer officially; all the squadron's gold braid and brass hats, that is, the Captain's staff officers, were in attendance, and my request was formally read out in the usual service gibberish. After reading what seemed a very long document the Captain said:
"Why are you throwing away a promising career?"
The question floored me - I certainly didn't see that I had much chance of a career, let alone a promising one. As best I could I tried to explain that I did not know if I would want to remain in the service in seven years' time. This seemed to irritate the 'old man' (Captain "D") and he rather sarcastically replied:
"What makes you think the service will want you then?"
All I could think of saying was to me an obvious truth:
"If the service did not want me, then, I am sure the feeling would be mutual, Sir!"
You could almost feel the collective contempt with which my reply was received.
"Request granted" the Captain curtly replied.
I was ordered to salute, about turn, double march, and all that ridiculous bull, and was hustled out of the cabin.

That was not the last I heard of it. Later that day my Divisional Officer sent for me and proceeded to give me a dressing down, accusing me of being insolent to the Captain. He then said:
"Of course, you realise that your white paper is no longer valid?"
I replied: "Yes sir", but I had not a clue to what he was talking about - I just wanted to get away before I really spoke my mind and landed in hot water.

The Coxswain of Solebay was a very pleasant Chief Petty Officer who took a proper interest in the Boy Seamens' welfare; 'Chief Snowy' we called him, his surname being Snow. He had been at the Captain's table that morning and saw me on the upper deck, after I had received that blast from my DO, and very quietly said:
"Come and see me in the Regulating Office some time in the dog watches" As an Ordinary Seaman, as I then was, you still did what a chief said, if you had any sense. At about 1800 I reported to Chief Snowy and he said:
"I suppose you are feeling pretty browned off with the Andrew (the Royal Navy) right now?"
I had reached a stage where I wanted to forget all about it, but I asked him if he knew what my DO meant about a 'white paper'.
"Well lad" he said, "that's the price you've got to pay for not continuing as a 12year man".
He continued: "Didn't you know you were being considered for Upper Yardsman? That's what your DO was talking about - you have to be a 12year man in order to retain that white paper and be eventually recommended for commission. You haven't quite burnt your bridges so, keep your nose clean and no more cheeky wise- cracks to the old man!"
Why couldn't that Divisional Officer have explained things as simply and pleasantly as that? Why did so many naval officers have to adopt such a superior, patronising, insulting manner when speaking to ratings? - a question I was to ask myself on many occasions over the next few years.

The next year in Solebay passed off almost uneventfully with a further spell in the Mediterranean. There were the usual, by now routine and boring, exercises with ships of the Home and Mediterranean Fleets, and our American cousins, and visits to the south of France, Italy, and, of course Malta and Gibraltar. Back in home waters we visited the naval base at Londonderry again, spent too much time at sea to the north west of Bonny Scotland, and I still didn't get my sea legs, but they did promote me to Able Seaman, shortly after my 18th birthday.

Having reached that dizzy elevated rank, I had to decide which specialist training I wanted to apply for. That DO of mine had recommended that I be sent to the gunnery school for specialist gunnery training, but in no way was I going to do that! Guns have never held any interest for me; in fact I detested the things, and still do. Eventually, after getting further into that gentleman's bad books for not accepting his advice, I was allowed to apply for training in Radar and Navigation, which meant that a drafting to HMS Dryad awaited me on our return to our home port.

HMS Dryad was, and I believe still is, the navy's School of Navigation and Radar, at Southwick House, near Fareham, the place from which the D-Day landings were directed in June 1944. It was for me a very interesting and profitable twelve weeks learning the intricacies of reading radar screens and plotting information onto special tables geared to the ships movements. One of the more difficult skills one had to acquire was to learn to write in reverse in order to put information onto a transparent screen, aptly named the MAD (Main Air Display) plot, when recording radar information on aircraft contacts.

I had been sent to Dryad primarily to train as a radar operator and plotter. At the end of that course I was sent for by my course officer and was told: "You have been recommended to undertake further training to qualify as a Navigator's Yeomen". It was suggested that this was a real feather in my cap and an opportunity not to be missed as only a very few were selected. However, it was also pointed out that the qualifying requirements were very demanding, and a pass-mark of 95% was required in each subject. That seemed an almost impossible target to me but, I thought, 'Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained', and it would at least keep me at Dryad and ashore for another six weeks. Furthermore, the position of the Navigator's Yeoman on board ships was a much envied one, and had certain attractive privileges.

That course was certainly intensive and demanding, and required a great deal of individual study in the dog watches. There were only six candidates, two of whom failed. I scraped through, with the bare minimum of 95% in two of the subjects. An extra personal benefit which the course gave me was to awaken my own thirst for knowledge and self-improvement. I think its successful conclusion gave me back some of the self-confidence I had lost in the past two to three years, and I determined to enrol on a correspondence course to improve my general education. That determination was to serve me well beyond my naval career and it also gave me a very interesting and personally responsible job for the next three years that I was to spend mainly in the Far East.

At this point, the reader might harbour the thought: this is a very peculiar kind of sailor - he doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink rum, he's always seasick and, so far, the only females he has mentioned are his Mum or other matronly figures! In case such suspicions have entered your mind, a little diversion may be in order.

Far from the impression that my narrative may have given, I was indeed interested, indeed, involved may be a more honest word, with a young lady during the preceding two years. We were both very young, too young to have taken our selves quite so seriously, but youth is an impetuous time, an uncompromising period for many; intelligence and reason appear to play a very unimportant part in our lives, and our emotions hold sway. DEB was not her name, they were her initials, but they became my very own name for her. She was a Barnardo girl with whom I had been at school. Quite how, or when, our relationship began is not now clear, but it must have been whilst she was taking her matriculation examinations and I was on leave from Solebay; neither of us could have been eighteen years old. We wrote regularly whilst I was at sea, and I made a bee-line for her home whenever my ship was in port and I had shore leave; both of our foster parents seemed quite happy to see us courting. Of course, when we began to talk of becoming engaged just as soon as I became an Able Seaman and drew a man's wage, they teased us about being so young. The simple truth is that I was besotted with Deb and I thought she was equally so with me. We did become engaged, shortly before my 19th birthday, and we actually talked about getting married before I was to be sent to the Mediterranean. The rest is history, as they say, but a very emotionally painful history for me because Deb had the good sense (I can say that now) to break off the engagement only six weeks later. That should have been a lesson to me but as events turned out it was a lesson that did not last very long - perhaps it was more a blessing in disguise.

In the course of the early part of 1951, and just before the engagement was broken off, I met, for the first time in nearly fifteen years, my older sister Lillian. I was visiting my older brother, John, his wife Doris, and baby daughter, Carol, to whom I had become very close, when John said to me:
"You are going to have a visitor today"
Nothing new in that - they seemed to have relations and friends always dropping in. The visitor turned out to be a young lady of about twenty five whom I barely recognised. Nowadays we are shown programmes on television when relations or friends meet again, in public, after many years of separation; I can only say I was glad that the meeting with my sister Lilly was in the privacy of my brother's home; it was too emotional to be shared with other than close family. Soon it became obvious to me that all those years apart had created a divide between us, and that we had little in common. I found her hatred of our stepmother hard to understand but I now realize that the people who really suffered as a result of the tragic death of our mother were my father and older brothers and sisters, who understood at the time - we babies were sheltered by the innocence of our too few years. Lilly, however, was at that very vulnerable age of ten or so, and she not only suffered the loss of a much loved mother but, soon afterwards, lost all the little brothers and sisters she had no doubt helped to care for, and, only two short years later, was herself evacuated from her home in London. I think the overwhelming losses she suffered as a young girl may account for the deep, deep bitterness she seemed to possess towards people later in life. It was a bitterness that was to cause her to break almost all ties with the family and emigrate to Australia in the late fifties. That bitterness affected her relationship with our eldest sister in particular, and they seemed to be at 'daggers drawn' with which it was difficult not to get involved. In a cruel irony, not having spoken or corresponded in over twenty years, our two older sisters died within two weeks of each other at Christmas, 1987. Sad to say, it would appear that Lillian took her bitterness to the grave, and never forgave me for excluding her from my wedding because she had threatened to display her bitterness towards our step-mother; I could not have allowed her to spoil that day for my wife and me.

Whilst writing of the ladies I must now admit that when I remarked that the lesson of a broken engagement did not last for long, I was referring to the fact that only weeks later I met the young lady who is now my wife of some forty-seven years! I met Margaret only a few weeks after Deb had broken off our engagement, and we 'courted' (a good old-fashioned word that) for the six weeks prior to my departure for the Far East. I suppose I was really and truly 'on the rebound' as they say, but some rebound! It was sufficient to survive those thirty months apart and the subsequent forty seven years of marriage, three daughters, and seven grandchildren! Perhaps it would be wise to let those simple facts speak for themselves.

Meeting Margaret such a short time before leaving home made it all so much harder, but knowing she was back here waiting made those years away from home and our loved ones infinitely easier to bear. There was much that happened in that time which put our resolve to wait those long months, and years, very severely to the test, but I suppose those events were the things which kept us together through all that endless time, when we were thousands of miles apart. In the main they were events we both found extremely hard to bear: the loss of my dear foster mother some eighteen months later, and of both of Margaret's parents, within a few weeks of each other, only months after Mum died. It was not the happiest time of our lives.

On completion of my Dryad courses a Senior Navigation Officer sent for me. He was an extremely pleasant, even a friendly man, without that awful superior manner I had come to associate with so many naval officers. He explained, he had been appointed as Navigating Officer (known aboard RN ships as 'Pilot') to the light fleet cruiser HMS Cleopatra, which was due to sail for a two and a half year commission in the Mediterranean, and he asked if I would like to volunteer to be his Yeoman. I could hardly believe my ears - I was actually being asked if I would like to do something, and not being detailed to carry out an order. I had hoped that my next foreign service would be in the Far East, but this sounded an opportunity too good to miss. The Cleopatra being a much larger ship, a Light Fleet Cruiser, I also quickly reasoned that I might not be seasick quite so easily and so often. I was never to find out, but in July I did join HMS Cleopatra lying at anchor off Sheerness.

Aboard Cleopatra I was pleased to find that her Chief GI (Gunnery Instructor) was none other than my Instructor at Ganges and, fortunately, the one who had a good opinion of me, not the duck's disease one - this one was a fellow sufferer! A month or so later, when I thought I had settled onboard nicely - she seemed so much more spacious than a destroyer and I was sure she wouldn't roll as much - my old mentor the Chief GI sent for me: "Pack your bag and hammock" he ordered, "you've got a 'Pier head jump' to China", which meant a sudden posting to another ship. Again, Able Seamen didn't question the order of a CPO, and so my very brief time in Cleopatra came to a rather sudden end.

Having been so suddenly drafted to RNB Chatham to await our transfer to the troopship for our voyage to the Far East, we were then left kicking our heels in the naval barracks doing nothing of any interest, and getting thoroughly bored. Early one morning we were all ordered to muster in the drill shed with hammocks and service great coats, but not the full kit which we would have had to muster with had we been on the move to the troopship. Thoroughly puzzled, and not a bit pleased at being ordered to do something daft without any explanation, the future crew of HMS Cossack duly mustered under the equally puzzled supervision of our senior ratings. In the drill shed we were joined by several young officers, also wearing service great coats, who appeared to know no more than our senior ratings. A 'Master at Arms' (a CPO of the naval regulating branch) then made an announcement to the effect that:
"You idle lot are about to become film stars!"
He then explained that the service had been asked to provide personnel to act as extras in a naval film being made at Borehamwood studios. He added, with some relish:
"As the service can't afford to use real sailors we are detailing you idle lot" Charming fellow.

We were then ordered into those huge, rattling, rumbling, bone-shaking, old service trucks, for our journey to the film studios. It was the beginning of what was to prove a fascinating experience and my one and only appearance on the big screen, in a film called "The Gift Horse" which I have never seen to this day. We stars don't watch our own films - reading our rave notices is sufficient.

The story was about the destroyers our generous American allies gave us, in World War Two, just prior to the Dieppe raid in which those particular ships took part. I was very impressed by the remarkably realistic film set of a dockside with the Gift Horse secured alongside, but we were not so impressed when the action began. We had to repeat the same scene no less than seventeen times while the producer and others frequently yelled "Cut!" because some detail was not correct.

One of the details concerning me was the placing of the odd actor playing the part of ship's 'Buffer'(Chief Bosun's Mate). His role was to march us onto the dockside in front of the ship, which, although made of canvas, appeared remarkably realistic. We were 'fallen in' (formed up) in three ranks of fifty each, with me, as the smallest, centre front, just behind the actor Buffer whom I was supposed to keep in position as we marched onto the dockside, carrying our hammocks on our shoulders. The actor chap shouted an order "Shoulder Hammocks", which we had never heard before, but it sounded good enough, and we moved forwards each time, but we never got it quite right.

To add to the already very realistic film set some clever Dick decided everything on a real dockside should be very wet and so, just as we began to march on, they hosed down the dockside - and our boots! Some hundred and fifty matelots were soon shouting a request to "Turn that f--ing thing off!" It was quite a chorus, but wasn't in the film script.
"Cut! .... Take 17... Action!" and we began our final attempt to march onto the dockside. The actor Buffer still got there before me but the director had obviously given up on him by then, and they passed on to filming the next scene.

I've read that Trevor Howard is recognised to have been an accomplished actor, and he certainly showed his ability in that scene. He played the part of the Captain of the Gift Horse, a LtCmdr in the 'Wavy Navy' (Royal Naval Reserve), and looked and sounded every bit the part of a hard-bitten, hard-hearted, old sea dog. The manner in which he addressed us, his new crew, would have certainly made many of us sit up and take note, had he been for real; he was indeed a very impressive actor. Later we saw him and that other well known film actor (now director) Richard Attenborough act out a scene in the "Captains Defaulters" in which Dicky Dharling was a naughty sailor up in front of his Captain. They both played their parts with a realism that made one wonder: had they ever had experience of that odd service disciplinary procedure?

Our last scene was to cause some consternation to the director as a few of our more rumbustuous characters nearly got out of hand. As we marched onto the dockside we had to pass a pair of very dubious-looking actors in the roll of American sailors. By this time we were feeling rather less than enamoured with our repetitious roll in a crowd scene that seemed to please no one. As we passed the Americans one of them shouted out, in a very convincing American drawl: "Hey, Bud! Come and get this bunch of Limeys". His acting was so convincing that he sounded derogatory enough for some of our lads to have a set to with them, and theyere about to thump them when our real Chief Petty Officer saw it and promptly ordered them back into line, explaining, as CPOs do:
"Watch your step, you clowns, or you'll be in the rattle (trouble). They are only acting"
It was a typical British sailor's reaction to our American cousins unsolicited compliments, and the subject of many a tall yarn in the mess deck.

My 'Pier Head Jump' actually landed me on the Troopship Empire Fowey, bound for Japan, to serve in HMS Cossack, of the 8th destroyer squadron; yet another V/W class 'destroyer of my soul' that rolled, pitched, tossed, and yawed around the Pacific Ocean between Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Borneo looking for every ruddy typhoon she could find - just to upset me!

We left dear old Blighty in Sept 1951 and arrived back in April 1954. Without doubt this was the longest, in many ways the most miserable, but also interesting, even fascinating, thirty months of my life.