A long time ago in the land that time forgot (I was 28 years old) . I was going places, I dreamed of being something else maybe a teacher or a professional in some kind of well-paid job. I decided that such a change would only happen to the likes of me in the Royal Navy. I started life at sixteen as Junior Naval Air Mechanic. Going to the RN recruiting office in Holborn, London with my dad was an experience at fifteen. I had no effective qualifications and so Officer entry was out of the question. They gave me tests in Maths and English and then offered me some jobs.
Junior Naval Air Mechanic sounded exciting and different from the mundane job I was doing at Air Oil Burner in Horton Road, West Drayton. My dad helped me get that job as he was working there as a tool maker and other ex-servicemen encouraged me to join up. So, I did, off to HMS Ganges on January 13th 1976. Six weeks of square bashing, fitness training and lectures. Being shouted at by Gunnery Officers and told that I “wouldn’t get very far in this man’s navy”.
After Ipswich it was Lee-0n-the-Solent and HMS Daedalus. I made friends had fun, worked hard and retook my maths and English tests to become a Specially Selected Air Mechanic. To HMS Seahawk and Royal Naval Air Station (Culdrose ).
I met new friends, (those "oppo's" a term derived from opposite number, the person who is on watch when you are off) and they were from all over the UK, from Scotland to Northern Ireland, Geordies, Paddies, Taffs, Nosmo's, Janners and Sandy's, Ronnies and Radars. I even met girls to fall in love with and eventually my future wife.
Drafted to HMS Hermes, an aircraft carrier, in 1977 I began to see the world through the eyes of a real sailor. Since then, I have served on frigates, Royal Fleet Auxiliaries and even on a Dutch vessel called the Zuidercruisse. I have served at every Fleet Air Arm base there has been and even served at Wimbledon All England Tennis Club and finally ended up in Whitehall as an Export Control Licensing Officer.
Serving Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth was an honour for me. I was going nowhere in the so called “civvy street”. I came close to conflict, the Falklands (1982) I prepared to go onto the Canberra with my 'Mechanicians' course of that year. At the last-minute Col H Jones took back the Falklands. Ten weeks later, I joined the Mobile Aircraft Support Unit as a Petty Officer and my first job was in Port Stanley.
I served on HMS Chatham, a type 22 frigate (1996-1999) serving in two back-to-back Armilla patrols in the Persian Gulf. Then on our way to South Africa, we were diverted to the Ivory Coast to fill up the ship and tasked to evacuate ex pats from Sierra Leone. In 1998, the AFRC/RUF (Armed Forces Revolutionary Council/Revolutionary United Front) was a coalition of two distinct groups that had joined forces to control the African country. : The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) was a military junta formed by a faction of the Sierra Leonean Army who overthrew President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in a coup d'état in May 1997. The leader of the AFRC was Major Johnny Paul Koroma.
HMS Chatham was tasked by the UKG to sail down the Congo River and launch 515. My Sea King aircraft which I was to convert from Anti-Submarine capability to Passenger carrier and fit with machine guns. I was given anti Malaria tablets, body armour and a pistol and fired it off the end of the ship to practice. We waited for ten days in the Ivory Coast who refused us fuel. Signals were being passed to the ship daily “Remember the Amethyst” in each signal referring to the last time a naval frigate sailed down a river in combat.
[In April 1949, HMS Amethyst was en route from Shanghai to Nanking (now Nanjing) to relieve another Royal Navy ship, HMS Consort, which was acting as a guardship for the British Embassy as Communist forces advanced.
On April 20, 1949, while sailing up the Yangtze River, HMS Amethyst was unexpectedly fired upon by the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The ship sustained heavy damage, and the captain, Lieutenant Commander Bernard Skinner, was mortally wounded. The ship ran aground on a mud bank.]
Reading this filled me with fear and dread whilst our pilots and navigators were dreaming of medals. Planning to sail down the Congo river to launch the helicopter and then my “chosen men” would set up a forward operating base, (FOB) and the aircraft would lift and shift ex patriots (pats once of the U.K.) to safety and airlift them to awaiting flights back to Blighty.
It was a scary time for me and my team. But luck played a part again with a new plan which ousted from Freetown and the AFRC/RUF junta were taken down by the ECOMOG intervention in February/March 1998 supported by Royal Marines who went down the Congo River in dirigibles and kicked ass.
So we went to South Africa as planned my last trip on the “Grey Funnel Line”; after that I was relieved of my three years on the Chatham having visited most of the world by then.
Now, I am sixty-six, I’m not alone but do miss my colleagues and the camaraderie, the “crack” as they now call it. I work as a customs and export and import specialist. How long I will do that for - who knows!
The young man who entered the recruiting office was unaware of the journey ahead. Despite challenges and fears, the structure, camaraderie, and sense of purpose stayed with him. When at a crossroads, a direction with clear purpose can perhaps help you find your footing and discover your potential. Just a thought from someone who once faced life’s uncertainties.
Finally, here’s a message to anyone who have no stellar options, pursuing mundane jobs of minimum wages and renting to have a roof above their heads - get a life, or be like me and those other jolly Jack tars like the saying goes (for me); ‘I was born in Yiewsley, but I was made in the Royal Navy”
At a Crossroads
The boy left school, walked so tall,
No qualifications of note, life felt small
No glittering path, no beacon bright,
Just the grey road to work in the fading light.
The weight of rent, to meet my needs
Meagre pay, that planted different seeds
Just another ordinary day, a face I couldn't show
Of a humdrum shift, and a task I didn't know,
Nothing to lose, I’ve got to live
The recruiting office had much to give
Fitness, friendship, love and toil
What’s a few years, for a life to boil
No easy answers, no silver spoon,
Only exciting journeys beneath the moon.
Beats the feeling trapped, in a restless fire,
I had yearning for something higher.
So look within, Boys and Girls, beyond the grey,
Perhaps there is a different, bolder way.
I admit it was not always easy gravy
But I came from nothing made in the Royal Navy