An Hour to Ourselves
People often imagine that Royal Navy training consisted entirely of shouted orders, endless marching and impossible standards.
There was certainly plenty of that.
But what I remember just as clearly are the quiet moments between the noise.
Those were the moments that helped us survive.
At HMS Ganges the Annexe was built around a square parade ground. Every day began and ended there. Drill filled the daylight hours, instructors seemed to appear from nowhere whenever mistakes were made, and every recruit quickly learned that perfection was expected whether or not perfection was actually possible.
It could be an intimidating place.
Yet, once the working day finally drew to a close and evening rounds were over, something changed.
For about an hour we were allowed to sit beneath the covered walkway that surrounded the parade ground.
It sounds almost insignificant now.
At the time it felt like freedom.
No instructor was timing our every movement.
No one was shouting drill commands.
No one was demanding impossible standards.
We simply sat together with our parade boots.
Boot polishing became our excuse for doing absolutely nothing else.
Of course, polishing parade boots was never really doing nothing. Pusser regarded highly polished boots almost as a measure of personal character, and none of us wanted to appear on parade with dull leather if we could possibly avoid it.
So the tins of polish came out.
Small circles.
A little more polish.
A drop of water.
Then another hundred tiny circles.
The strange thing was how peaceful it all became.
The conversation drifted wherever it pleased.
Someone would mention home.
Someone else would describe the job they had left behind.
There would be arguments about football, music or girls.
Before long the discussion always returned to the only subject that apparently mattered.
How do you get the perfect shine?
Every recruit possessed a different theory.
Some insisted Cherry Blossom polish was perfectly good enough.
Others swore by Kiwi.
Someone claimed tea produced a better finish than water.
Another recommended using the back of a spoon.
One or two adventurous souls experimented with things that had absolutely no business being anywhere near a pair of boots.
Most of those experiments ended badly.
Kiwi usually won the argument.
The funny thing was that none of us really knew why.
Like so many traditions in the Royal Navy, it simply became accepted wisdom.
Those quiet evenings gradually became my favourite part of the day.
Not because of the boots.
Not because of the polishing.
But because, for a little while, we stopped being recruits and became ordinary teenage lads again.
Looking back now, I suspect those conversations mattered far more than the polishing ever did.
Without realising it, we were building friendships that helped carry us through the weeks that followed.
The instructors taught us discipline.
The parade ground taught us precision.
Those evenings beneath the covered walkway taught us something equally valuable.
They reminded us that behind every identical uniform was an individual trying to adapt to an unfamiliar world.
That hour never appeared on any training syllabus.
No instructor ever explained its importance.
Yet I suspect it did as much to keep morale alive as anything the Admiralty officially intended.
When I think back to the Annexe today, I remember the drill, the inspections and the pressure.
But I also remember a row of young recruits quietly polishing their boots while daylight faded over the Suffolk sky, talking nonsense, laughing at each other's wild theories, and—for perhaps the only hour that day—simply being boys.
Annexe 131 - Primary source: RN-001, RN-020, RN-023
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