大象传媒

My father Clem Walker was serving on
HMS Boreas during the early stages of
WW2,the so called phoney war period.
His ship a destroyer was on patrol in
a somewhat rough North Sea.Now destroyers
did not have the luxury of a rated cook
on board so it was a case of volunteering
as a cook and going on a roster or having
the fickle finger of fate volunteering you!
He remembers one occasion the meal prepared
was cabbage and pork.Not the nice crisp
crackling pork but fatty pork which might
have had some meat attached.The new chums
still finding their sea legs and sometimes
and unfairly derisively called HO's (hostilities only
ratings)came off duty and down into the mess
deck displaying a somewhat green pallor to
be met with a thick aroma of cabbage and pork.Their pallor darkened to a deeper green
and they raced topside to the ignominy
of the guardrail.Meanwhile the oldtimers,
the old three badgers,helped themselves to
extra rations,knowing from past experience
that the new chums wouldn't mind!The Boreas
later assisted in rescuing survivors from
the minesweeper Sphinx which had been bombed
and was close to foundering in a gale.

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