Why I Wrote These Sea Stories
Between 1971 and 1977 I served in the Royal Navy during a period that now seems to belong to another age. I joined as a fifteen-year-old Junior Seaman at HMS Ganges, completed my training at establishments including HMS Raleigh and HMS Vernon, and later served in ships ranging from the guided missile destroyer HMS Glamorgan to HMS Charybdis.
These essays are not intended to be an official history of the Royal Navy. Others are far better qualified to write that. Instead, they are the recollections of one ordinary matelot who happened to serve during the early 1970s, remembering the people, places, humour, hardships and occasional absurdities that made life in the Service what it was.
Like many veterans, I discovered that memories often return unexpectedly. One small incident reminds you of another, and before long an entire episode that had lain dormant for decades suddenly becomes as clear as the day it happened. Over time I realised that if these memories were not written down, they would eventually disappear with me.
I witnessed just such a miscarriage on the death of my stepfather. "Pop" had stories he could tell like no-one else and I remember being bewildered by him as a kid. Despite that there was much that went unsaid and he remained private about much of his life like many of his age did. I remember putting the thought away in my mind and blaming it on the human cost of World Wars and the like.
Nevertheless, I distinctly remember also thinking that such a loss of hands-on untold knowledge, experience and memories accumulated by just an ordinary gentleman was almost unfathomable and wrong. Something invaluable was lost on the day Pop died and I determined at that sad time that, one day, I would do something that in some way might make amends to the future, so to speak.
More Than Nostalgia
This is not an attempt to paint the Royal Navy through rose-tinted spectacles. There were experiences that were enjoyable, others that were difficult, and some that I strongly disagreed with even at the time. Training could be demanding, discipline could be uncompromising and life at sea was rarely comfortable. Yet those same experiences shaped generations of sailors and deserve to be remembered honestly.
Whenever possible I have compared my recollections with surviving documents, photographs and published historical sources. Memory is a remarkable thing, but it is not perfect, and I have tried to distinguish between what I know happened, what I reasonably believe happened, and those occasions where time has blurred the finer details.
An Ordinary Matelot
There is nothing especially remarkable about my naval career. I was neither an admiral nor a decorated war hero. I was simply one of thousands of young men who learned their trade, stood their watches, sailed where they were sent and tried to make the best of whatever Pusser threw at them next.
Perhaps that is precisely why these stories matter. History is often recorded from the bridge, the wardroom or headquarters ashore. Everyday life on the lower deck is less frequently preserved, despite being the experience shared by the overwhelming majority of sailors.
If these essays succeed in capturing even a small part of that vanished world, then they will have achieved exactly what I hoped.
About These Essays
Each essay stands on its own and may be read independently, but together they follow my journey from HMS Ganges in 1971 through training, sea service and eventually civilian life. Some are humorous, others reflective, while a few explain aspects of naval life that younger readers may never have encountered.
I hope they provide former matelots with a few familiar smiles, offer family members a glimpse into a world many veterans rarely spoke about, and preserve a small piece of Royal Navy life as it was during the early years of the 1970s.
Source References:
RN-018, RN-019, RN-020 (editorial introduction)
RN-E-101
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