大象传媒

Just got back from a week's holiday in Blackpool and there it was, sitting on the mantelpiece: that dreaded correspondence from the King, my calling up papers!

Blimey! I was only eighteen yesterday, July 6 1945 - they must be hard up! Still, now that the Germans have packed up, only leaves the Japanese. Think they might pack up as well, now they know yours truly is on the team? I Don't think so!

The King told me to report to HMS Royal Arthur - no it's not a battleship, it's a shore station in Skegness. Used to be a holiday camp before the war, but I bet it's not now!

So I packed my little brown case, together with my postal order from the King, stood on Coventry station and off I went on the train, eating my bacon butties. Arriving at Skegness, it still looked like a holiday camp and we were billeted in the chalets.

Made a few friends, or "oppos" as they call them in the Navy. We鈥檙e only here for three weeks and get the weekends off, so went with Taffy into Skegness on the first Sunday and on to the amusements. Met two girls, spent the day with them and they paid for our teas - things were looking up! And we made a date for the following Sunday!

On the next Thursday they sent me a telegram saying they were bringing another girl with them and could we find her a partner. Old Ron said he would join us and, although the girl he met wasn't quite up to his taste, he stopped with her all day.

The following Monday we were transferred to Pwilheli in North Wales - another place that had been a holiday camp. But this definitely wasn't. The commanding officer there had been in charge of the Navy's toughest camp (Whale Island) and he certainly put us through it - "squad-bashing".

As we only got paid once a month you can guess that in the last week we were almost broke, rolling tickler (Navy tobacco) and fed up to the teeth. But old Ron cheered us up, he produced a photo of the girl he had the date with in Skeggy and she was our pin-up for the rest of the week! With her peroxide blonde hair and pillar-box red lipstick she'll never know how it brightened up our last few days there!

Next stop was Chatham down south and I was to be known as a 鈥楥hatham rating鈥� because that was my home barracks. Navy regulars there showed us how to get to London at night by train a cheaper way. You went to Chatham station and purchased a ticket to the next station Gravesend, but you didn't get off there. You stayed on till New Cross and straight on to the underground, where you shoved tuppence in the collector's hand saying you hadn't had time to get a ticket at the last station, and you were through to London! Next morning you got a workman's return to New Cross station, kept on the train to Chatham and gave your Gravesend return in and did the same the next day! Probably saved five bob, which was not too bad when I only got five pounds a month! Mind you, I don't think we fooled any of the railway staff but it was wartime and it was the Navy. In fact I was talking to a guard on the gate at London Bridge station and he said it was like pandemonium when the train came in with the Navy lads piling out. "They all rush at me", he said, "and I find bits of old card, Woodbine packets and goodness knows what in my hand instead of tickets but they'd gone by then!"

Back to Chatham we were allocated the jobs we would do for the rest of the duration. There were only two to choose from when it came to my turn: a sick-birth attendant or a steward. Well, I didn't fancy bed pans and all that so I 鈥榳aited on鈥�. We worked weekends about in the wardroom bar and there was a dear old Commander who was nearly always the last to leave the room but always left us all a drink! After a few weeks of this I got bored and as I had a "townie鈥� (Coventry lad) in the regulating office I asked him if he could get me a foreign draft and he did. And what a foreign draft it was - I was to be with three other ratings as steward to the Admiral in Kingston, Jamaica. Imagine that! I was thrilled to bits. Fourteen days foreign draft leave and away we'd go. But after a week I received a telegram: 鈥楥ome back to Chatham鈥� 鈥� 鈥済reat鈥�, I thought, 鈥渨e're going early鈥�.

Sadly no! Before, when I was in Chatham, a notice went up for volunteers to train as EVT instructors (Educational training) - something like schoolteachers. Well, for a giggle I had put my name forward, as I knew a little bit about art and drawing, and it was this position that they wanted me for 鈥� so it was 鈥淕oodbye Kingston鈥�! Off again 鈥� this time to HMS Caballa (another shore station in Manchester), where we underwent a course. I passed, and it transpired that I was the youngest EVT Instructor in the Navy - well I was only eighteen! And while we were there I went to see Manchester United play Manchester City, standing on my toes (for the whole game!) in an old stand, trying to see the match stuck behind fans bigger than me! I also backed the Grand National winner some 鈥楥ottage鈥� or other at 25-1 (it was 1946 by now)!

Back to Chatham again and an interview with a very serious-looking officer, who asked me if I knew where Trincomalee was? I thought: 鈥淚reland, Scotland or Wales?鈥� No such luck - it was seven thousand miles away in Ceylon (now Sri-Lanka)!

Another leave and then we were off on a converted American Aircraft carrier named Rajah. All the usual American goodies were on this ship including Coca-cola machines but, yes - you've guessed it, not for the Royal Navy!

I stood on deck one lovely starry night going through the Med, which was as flat as a pancake, eating peaches and moaning to myself saying I was going the wrong way. Then it was down the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea where some old salts were trying to kid us where the sea had been parted in the Bible.

Eventually we landed at Columbo, the capital of Ceylon. The Island had a fruity smell and was about 120 degrees in the shade. Still, we got used to that, as it was not a muggy heat like in the UK. Only been there a few days and I collapsed on the football field with dysentery - they said bananas caused it, so I never ate them again!

We moved across the island to Trincomalee only a couple of hundred miles or so 鈥� it took us from three o'clock in the afternoon until eight o'clock the next morning to get there on the train and it was an experience I'll never forget.

The seats in the train were like park benches and they had buckets by the side where the locals spat red beetle-nut juice that they were chewing into them, and there seemed to be singing and dancing at every station we passed!

Settled in at HMS Highflower - another shore station - made up to 鈥榣eading hand鈥� and worked at the school. We had a local lad who worked for us whose name was Kandyappuharmi, so naturally we called him 鈥榃illiam鈥�. One day he was out in the courtyard of the school and he lassoed a black scorpion with a piece of string and turned it on its back. I said to him: "Why have you done that" and he replied: "In my religion we don't kill things鈥�. I thought if I tell him it will die anyway through starvation or be eaten as it can't get off its back I might start an argument so I let it pass.

We worked mornings five days a week and sometimes in the afternoon but quite a lot of the time we played football. Games only lasted half an hour each way because of the heat and could only be played after four o'clock in the afternoon but you had to get used to that. Then one day I found out I had been picked to play for the Navy against the Ceylon national team on their own ground. I played outside right and could run a bit but I'd never played for any big team. Imagine my surprise when I was teamed up with lads who were signed on for Arsenal, Newcastle, Portsmouth and Derry City. And imagine my surprise (again) when we went one nil down in the match after only thirty seconds! But then the captain, a chap called McShane (had regular letters from Arsenal), shouted "Get stuck in they've got bare feet!" And we did, with those big old-fashioned boots, and it worked a treat as we scored half way through the second half and drew 1-1 with the national team.

Having been in the Navy for two years, I was feeling a bit homesick so I was pleased when the officer in charge said, 鈥淵ou'll be going home soon鈥�. My replacement turned up and back to sea again I went - this time on an old German troopship call "Empire Trooper鈥�. Seven weeks it took us to get to Portsmouth from Columbo but this time I knew I was going the right way!

Back home on leave at last. All sunburnt, but a little miffed as Coventry had had one of its hottest summers in 1947 and everyone had a tan! Had to go back down to Portsmouth and then got demobbed in a large hanger 鈥� we were given a grey pin-stripped suit, raincoat - all mod stuff!

And that was it 鈥� except: have you ever heard of a British sailor who has never travelled on a British ship?!

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