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Day Leave at shore-stations was usually from 1645 to 2300 on weekdays and 1230-2300 on Saturdays and Sundays, so I seldom went ashore on weekdays. Weekend leave was from 1330 on Friday until 0700 Monday. The London train left Plymouth at 1355 and arrived at 1920, and departed at 2150 to arrive in Plymouth at 0520. The compartments of the train were usually crowded. Because of the requirements of wartime black-out, the lamps were very dim and the blinds were drawn down at night. On arrival at Paddington on the night train I always made straight for the middle of Platform One where, up a flight of stairs, there was a very large forces canteen. After a good breakfast there one was ready for the opening of the Underground Station at 0500. Returning from leave, the last scheduled train was 2150, but in fact there was an unscheduled train at 2300. It ran very slowly for some of the journey, usually beset by air-raids, and travelled sometimes via Bath and Bristol. Arriving in Plymouth one was heartily glad of free tea dispensed from a stall run under the enterprise of the Mayor of Plymouth's Fund, although such was the shortage of crockery that the tea was served in jam-jars.
Whilst in training I purchased a tiddley-suit from Gardiners of London. For this, in lieu of clothing-coupons, I had to request a chit from the Divisional Office. Very precise measurements were taken. These included many not usually regarded, such as the circumferences at the wrist, forearm, and upper arm. The finished trousers had 26" bottoms, and were pressed into seven horizontal creases (for the seven seas), with no vertical crease of course, to be stored folded in this manner in a kitbag or locker. The jumper was skin-tight and therefore one struggled to don it, and the front opening was lower than that of the issue jumper, revealing the maximum of manly chest. (Ph4,12) As an Ordinary Signalman I was issued with an arm-badge shewing two crossed semaphore-flags, red on black+, but for the tiddley-suit I had one embroidered with gold wire. Gold silk badges could also be bought ashore.+
We had a talk by the Chaplain, and subsequently he interviewed us all individually for about three minutes each. He asked me to serve at Communion.
After a month we were allocated to a hut of wooden construction and we slept on two-tier bunks. Some liked to play Brag, and since all gambling is forbidden, except for the official Tombola, (the Navy's term for Bingo) they would hang a blanket from a top bunk to shield the bottom bunk, on which lay the cards and the money, from direct view from the hut door. There was a coal-stove in the middle on a hearth, and banks of lockers. My readers may be familiar with these from wartime films, including those many with prison-camp themes.
At this time we had our first week-end leave, Friday 6th March to Monday 8th, to go home and show our folk how splendid we looked in uniform. My story A Pound of Leaf describes a very foolish act of mine on this occasion, (although I was luckily not discovered), and goes on to describe another adventure I had in Londonderry. On the Saturday my parents & I saw John Mills in the matinee performance of Men in Shadow, from seats D17-19 in the Upper Circle of the Vaudeville Theatre. Not long afterwards the same play was performed by ENSA in the Impregnable Drill Shed, in a production every whit as good as that seen in London.
On first joining I struck up a friendship with Ted Gunn of Kettering. This was hardly surprising because his name preceded mine on the roll, his birthday was the day after mine, his Official Number was JX424095, - one before mine, he was in Mess 47 with me, he was a fellow-stamp-collector and mouth-organist, and shared with me a church-going background, but unfortunately he fell into the weak habit of using strong language, which was fatally easy to do when one heard it all around one every minute of the day. We drifted apart. Later he was drafted to the River-Class frigate ITCHEN, and lost his life when it was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic on September 22nd., only 43 days into his active service. I found a kindred spirit in Reg Judge, a fellow-cockney of a philosophical nature, and we became congenial partners in our signal-training.
Our physical health was the subject of the usual procedures. We were all seen by the ship's doctor, Surgeon-Lieutenant Smith R.N.V.R., and by the dentist, who gave us the necessary treatment. We had a first-aid lecture about wounds and circulation, and another on fractures and splints. We were also favoured with inoculations, (T.G.V. & T.T.) and vaccination. It seemed always to happen that, when the arm had become red and swollen, we were taken for an hour's boat-pulling in the harbour. Perhaps it helped to assimilate and disperse the inoculation, though it could prove painful if one was unlucky enough to be seated on the starboard side of the thwart, so that one's left arm could be bumped by one's companion on the port side. We also had a serious lecture from the Doctor about the dangers associated with certain ladies of the town.
A lad called Ron Sturgess became ill, and it was obvious from his pallor and from the dark hollows of his face that he had tuberculosis, and he left us. Happily now this disease is easily cured and has almost disappeared in the Western world, but in those days we were all familiar with the symptoms.
Soon after joining we were taken to H.M.S.Drake, the seamen's training-ship, and photographed, and afterwards given a Pay-Book containing our photograph. On pay-days we mustered in the Drill-Shed and, when one's name was called, one stepped smartly to the table, placed there one's cap, with the Pay-Book thereupon opened at the photograph, and chanted one's number and name, and the pay was placed upon the book. My pay was three shillings per day, and with the deduction of eight shillings per week I allocated to my mother, I drew thirteen shillings per week. This allowed little expenditure beyond such small matters as postage-stamps, a cup of tea in the canteen, a cinema visit and a snack whilst ashore. On one occasion, when I was to go home on leave next day, I so arranged my expenditure that I had just two pence left for the 'bus-fare home from Turnpike Lane Station; but I went for an evening walk on Plymouth Hoe and was accosted by a flag-seller, who relieved me of my 'bus-fare, so I had to walk home.
On Saturday May 1st my parents and I saw Quiet Week-End from the Upper Circle seats B30/32 at Wyndham's Theatre, and on the following Saturday we saw Anton Walbrook in Watch on the Rhine from the Upper Circle seats B9/11 at the Aldwych Theatre. On May 29th I had an extra week-end leave and we saw Robert Morley in The Man Who Came to Dinner from Upper Circle seats H 23/25 at the Savoy Theatre. There was strict rationing of foodstuffs and clothing, obtainable only with coupons, and shortages of soap, matches, and other common items; so one went on leave bearing an R.B.12, a card of special coupons to enable the folk at home to manage.
I thought it incumbent upon me as a sailor to be tattooed, but felt very much afraid to have it done, so I thought it necessary to overcome such fears, so I went to Old Leo's shop and paid him 2/6d for a design of a fouled anchor (an anchor of ancient design with a rope looped artistically around it) on my left forearm. Calculating on a mains supply of 50 cycles per second, sustained for twenty minutes, I reckon that represents sixty thousand needle-jabs. I must have conveyed to Leo my suspicion that his shop might be out-of-bounds, but he denied this strongly, and said that his premises and equipment and procedures had been inspected and approved by the Surgeon-Admiral. He shaved my arm and wiped it with a mild disinfectant, and began. In an interval whilst he was changing his colours a large soldier walked in and announced he wished to be tattooed with his Regimental Crest; but when Leo resumed work on me we heard a thud, and found the soldier had fainted. My tattoo produced very little blood, but the arm was swollen for a couple of days.
An old-fashioned anchor is commonly miss-drawn as a cross with the centre of an up-curved line tangential to the base, but in reality the top bar and the fluke bar are not in the same plane, but at right-angles, so that, when the anchor reaches the sea-bed, the bar causes the anchor to turn the point of one fluke so that the pull digs it into the sea-bed. Modern anchors have a jointed fluke-casting with cammed shoulders which cause both flukes to take hold, and it is this type, surmounted by wings and crossed by a Tommy-Gun, which formed part of the Combined Operations ('Comic Opera') badge.
I returned later to have the right arm tattooed. The design cost me another 2/6d, and shews a heart entwined with flowers and leaves, surmounted by a bird holding a letter in its beak. Across the centre is a scroll bearing a girl's name, but the girl proved mercurial and the name has long been illegible. Old Leo knew his job.
I had a clarinet with me, and sometimes in the hut the others would tell me to get out my bazooka and give them a tune, and I would play popular songs and those present would join in singing.
I did not go ashore very often, partly because of the expense, though those who were having their pay made up from their previous employment could afford more trips ashore. Plymouth had been heavily bombed. The Cathedral of St.Andrew was an empty shell, and on a board on the altar was inscribed Resurgam — (I shall rise again.) My shore-leave was usually spent in walking on The Hoe, visiting the cinema, and eating a meal at a services' canteen. (Tea at the Y.M.C.A. could be had for 1/3d). I sometimes patronized the Central A.R.P. (Air Raid Precautions!) Restaurant, which was always crowded, because remarkably in those days of shortages, although neither fish nor potatoes were rationed, they seemed to be able to obtain plenty in spite of the obvious competition, and the fat in which to fry them. There was a church-hall canteen in St.Budeaux where one could buy a suppertime snack for 7d. I stayed a night in Plymouth many years afterwards and was unable to recognise the town at all.
Impregnable had a sailing-ship's mast, such as you may see in pictures of Tall Ships. The first platform was at 100', and reached by climbing the shrouds, which were rope rungs tied between steel cables. Just below the platform was the great yard-arm, with a fixed steel-rod walkway leading to the ends, used in former times when hands had to climb along them to furl the sails. The second platform was at 160', reached from the first by narrower shrouds, only two rungs wide, and just below it was another, smaller yard-arm with merely a slack wire walkway. From the second platform the truck, (a large flat circular ‘button’0 at 180', was reached by a single Jacob's Ladder of wooden rungs, and just below it was the third and smallest yard-arm. Under the rigging was a steel-wire mesh supported at a height of four feet, presumably to break one's fall. I suppose it might just have saved one's life, if little else, but if on the way down one had bounced off one of the many steel guys one might well have missed the net entirely.
On the first available evening I donned plimsolls with the brave intention of climbing to the top, but, like many others, after reaching half-way to the first platform I came rather carefully down again. However, it seemed to me that since I might at sea be required to ascend the mast I had better accustom myself thoroughly, so I persevered. After a time I reached the second platform, and eventually I conquered this Everest and could sit on the truck with the three-foot spike of the lightning-conductor between my thighs, and sit astride the end of the top yard-arm. I was joined in these activities by Ernie Jones, a Welshman from Penarth. Being shorter than myself, he was able to stand upright on the truck whilst holding the spike. When civilians were coming aboard for an E.N.S.A. concert, Ernie and I would stage a little show for them. We would climb out to the ends of the topmost yard and swing it to and fro, and descend to the ground from the top hand-over-hand down the steel guy-ropes.
In about 1988 I visited my old shipmate Harry Copeland, and he reminded me of an incident aboard the Watchman which I had completely forgotten. The mast of a 20th-Century warship, not designed to carry sails, was of course much smaller that the 19th-Century type. It was provided with a Crows Nest for occasional high-level lookout, and had a single yard-arm, which carried the radio aerials and to which were tied four or more pulleys, each carrying a signal-halyard, - two at the extreme ends, which were the most-used, and others spaced equidistantly along the yard. A halyard passed through each pulley, and on both ends there was spliced a special brass quick-release Senhouse Clip. When not in use, the clips would be joined and the doubled halyard secured to a cleat. The Signal-Flags were kept pigeon-holed in alphabetical storage in a locker at the side of the bridge, each flag being sewn to a length of rope with a Senhouse Clip at each end. To hoist flags one clipped them top-and-tail onto the halyard and pulled on one line until the other hit the pulley at the top, and to lower, one pulled the other line. It some times happened that the Signalman would lose his grasp of the clip, and because of the greater weight of the other rope he would be left with a pile of rope on the deck and the clip up by the pulley, and there was no remedy except to ascend the mast and retrieve it. If there happened to be a flag still attached to the clip, the case could be urgent because except in a very strong wind the flag might still be recognizable as a signal, and was in any case a disgrace to the ship. Harry said that he was once on watch when he lost a halyard and, seeing the mast-head zooming rapidly to and fro against the clouds as the ship rolled and pitched, and lacking the confidence to climb the mast and scramble along to the end of the yard-arm, which on every roll was hanging clear over the sea, he remembered that I would be relieving him in a few minutes, so left it for me to retrieve. When he next returned to the bridge he found that all was well again.
Reading though my letters in 1990 I was surprised to read two references to the fact that the Establishment was known in 1945 as U.S.S.IMPREGNABLE. I had completely forgotten this, nor can I remember how I came to hear of it. I can only presume that it was loaned to the American forces in connection with the Invasion of Europe. However, when the time came for my discharge from the Service in 1946, I found myself once again aboard H.M.S.Impregnable, because it had been converted into a Demobilization Centre. On my first evening there I donned plimsolls and ascended the old mast. As I was sitting aloft on the truck nostalgically surveying the harbour I gradually became aware of shouting from below. The Quartermaster had come to order me down, because the rigging was considered dangerous, because the ropework had become old and had not been renewed.

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