Up Spirits: A young tot-drinker's memoir

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A Dryad RP2?

I’m the only person joining HMS Dryad this morning and the only person in the Ship’s Office queue.

‘Name?’

‘Broadbent.’

‘Rate?’

‘Able Seaman.’

The face is different but the attitude of the world-weary Petty Officer sitting on the opposite side of the chest-high counter is exactly the same as the last time I joined the Royal Navy’s Radar Plotting establishment at Southwick. He flicks through his card index tray with nicotined fingers before looking up at me with unfriendly eyes.

‘You tired, laddie?’

‘No, PO.’ I stiffen slightly: he’s a Scotsman.

‘Then don’t lean on my counter.’

I straighten up.

He looks at my right arm. ‘Are you the Able Seaman Broadbent who repeatedly failed his simple starring exam a couple of years ago?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes what?’

‘Yes, PO.’

‘What simpleton recommended you for an RP2 course, Able Seaman Broadbent?’

‘Don’t know, PO.’

‘So,’ he said, waving my index card in front of me. ‘What shall we do with you until your course starts?’

‘Sullage party?’ I suggest: I’d enjoyed a stint dealing with Dryad’s rubbish the last time I was here.

‘Sullage party... sullage party.’ He scratches the side of his veined nose with his pen. ‘A perfect combination perhaps... you and rubbish. I’ll talk to the Buffer.’ He drops his pen. ‘You’re in Ross 8 mess. Report to the Buffer at 08:00 tomorrow morning.’ He slaps Dryad’s ridiculously complicated joining routine papers on top of the counter. ‘Complete those and return them fully stamped by 15:30 today. Next! And don’t you lean on my counter, laddie.’

There is nobody behind me.

As I turn to leave, the Petty Officer lights a needle thin, hand-rolled tickler.

HMS Dryad is a familiar place and I take my time getting some of my joining routine stamped and signed at the numerous offices and hideaways. With half of it complete I decide that enough is enough for the time being: having reached the magic age of twenty I’m looking forward to my tot and dinner.

Tot-time at Dryad is an anti-social affair. I join an orderly queue under the watchful eye of the Officer-of-the-Day, the duty Regulator and the Master-at-Arms to show my ID card and be ticked off on the ‘entitled’ list. It’s my first day, my joining routine is only half finished and my name doesn’t yet appear on the list.

‘Stand over there,’ says the Leading Regulator, waving me away before nodding to the bloke behind me. ‘Name?’

I wait patiently until the queue has gone. The Officer-of-the-Day takes a while to calculate, from my date of birth shown on my ID card, that I am old enough to draw my tot.

‘Your joining routine should have been completed before you came for your tot, young man,’ says the Master-at-Arms, glaring at me from beneath the peak of his cap.

‘Didn’t realise that, Master,’ I reply as I wrap my ‘green coat’ tightly around me.

He nods towards a tray on which stands a solitary glass of ‘two-in-one’.

I grab it, knock it back, place my empty glass upside-down on a tray near the dining hall door and slope off without a backward glance. The tot was over-diluted and disappointing. I stifle the time-honoured post-tot belch as I join the back of the dinner queue.

The benefit of my tot doesn’t kick in until I am partway through choosing the least unappetising of the over-cooked vegetables on offer.

‘What are these, chef?’ I ask, waving a hand at a tray full of purple-tinged stuff.

‘I’m a cook... not a ferkin detective,’ replies the bloke, brandishing a vegetable scoop. He sniffs and wipes his nose on his sleeve. ‘Want some or not?’

‘Stick ’em.’

‘Please your ferkin self.’

***

So begins an enjoyable period working as a member of HMS Dryad’s Sullage Party. It’s a ‘Blue Card job’, which means I don’t have to do duty watch and I therefore avoid the indignity of having to sleep fully clothed in a Nissan hut as part of Dryad’s Emergency Party armed with a badly fitting tin hat, a Pusser’s torch and a night stick.

The canteen lady, who hands me my Saturday morning stand-easy tea and cheese roll, asks me if I am still in touch with Wilco.

‘No, not recently.’

‘She’s living with a Chinese bloke apparently... in Hong Kong.’

‘Really?’

‘In the latest issue of the NAAFI Magazine someone wrote that she was getting engaged to an Oriental magnate.’

I vividly picture the advertisement that regularly ran in The Beano for a powerful magnet. I’m completely confused. ‘A what?’ I ask.

‘An Oriental magnate,’ she replies, pulling an equally confused expression. ‘Don’t ask me, love... I only pour the teas.’ She overfills my cup and wipes up the tea puddle with a grubby cloth.

I pay for my tea and cheese roll. My stomach does something unusual. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.

***

Despite the weather being awful, Easter leave is a welcome break. I go to Elland Road on Good Friday and watch a surprisingly efficient Leeds United give Newcastle United a footballing lesson. Johnny Giles, a new signing from Manchester United, is brilliant and scores the game’s only goal. The toilets are in the same disgusting condition as they were the season before last. On the plus side, my half-time pie has a little less gristle in it than I remember.

I’m no longer inclined to wear my uniform while on leave: I’ve realised that a Royal Naval uniform doesn’t impress anybody these days, particularly the girls of land-locked West Yorkshire. That oft-used phrase ‘the decade of free love’ when referring to the 1960s unfortunately doesn’t apply to 1965 West Yorkshire: as far as I’m aware Pudsey hasn’t signed-up to it.

I ask Mum what an Oriental magnate might be. After a bit of a laugh she explains that it could mean someone from the Orient who has lots of money. I don’t know if I’m pleased for Wilco or not. I certainly miss her and I decide that I’m more than a little jealous of the Oriental bloke who is currently enjoying her skills.

***

Last year, onboard HMS Lincoln in the Far East, I eventually passed my starring exam and was promoted to Able Seaman. Despite being kept away from anything remotely Radar-related while onboard Lincoln, I was mistakenly recommended for an RP2 course when I left the ship. I don’t know who recommended me - probably either someone who doesn’t know me or who has made a potentially dangerous clerical error.

One wet and windy afternoon, while slumped in the Laundry after all the day’s rubbish has been collected and dumped, I decide that it’s time I got to grips with this Radar Plotting stuff. Otherwise I will be branded a complete dead-loss to the Royal Navy’s most up-to-date branch.

My RP2 course starts on the second day of June 1964. Our Course Instructor tells us that concentration is the key to Radar Plotting success... concentration... and more concentration.

Outside the entrance to Fort Purbrook. A class of experienced Radar Plotters (the exception being the lad second from the right on the back row)

Along with the rest of class RP2/40 I become a regular at the Red Lion and the Golden Lion public houses in Southwick village. Most nights, I stagger up the back drive and sit hung-over in Fort Purbrook’s or Dryad’s classrooms the following morning trying my best to concentrate.

At the end of June I surprise myself by passing the Fort Purbrook part of the course. I get an official pass mark, but am nearer the bottom of the class than the top.

I will miss the NAAFI steak & kidney pies that were a favourite Stand-easy treat from the Fort’s NAAFI canteen. I will also miss the relaxing morning and the end-of-day bus journey to and from Dryad along the top of Portsdown Hill.

The remainder of the course is at HMS Dryad itself and the possibility of getting roped-in for morning Divisions is a disturbing possibility.

In mid August I surprise the Royal Navy’s Radar Plotting branch and, more importantly, their Lords at the Admiralty by passing the RP2 course with a creditable 77 percent. I’m not the top of the class, but nor am I the bottom. I spend the entire evening unpicking my RP3 badges and replacing them with RP2 badges. I’m flabbergasted and more than a little proud of myself... I think I may have mastered this concentration business.

After returning to the Sullage Party, I realise that being an RP2 doesn’t impress my intellectual superiors in the pig-sties. Once fed, they totally ignore me and my new status.

***

It’s a dismal day when I am summoned to the Ship’s Office. The world-weary Petty Officer sitting behind his chest-high desk looks at me for a moment, scratches the side of his nose with his pen, exhales and sighs. ‘Able Seaman Broadbent, you are living, walking, talking proof that miracles do happen... even at HMS Dryad.’

‘Am I, PO?’

‘How in heaven’s name did you pass an RP2 course?’

‘Concentration and lots of hard work, PO.’

‘I think their Lords at the Admiralty should re-examine the course syllabus.’

‘If you say so, PO.’

‘Sarcasm is far too sophisticated for you, young man.’ He waves a card in front of my face. ‘You have a draft.’

I question him by raising an eyebrow.

‘HMS Gurkha, Rosyth in December,’ he says enthusiastically.

‘Thank you, PO.’

‘Fortunately a good distance away from the centre of Royal Naval operations on the south coast.’

‘Yes, PO. Thanks.’

I saunter back to the Laundry. Rosyth. As if life couldn’t get any worse: December north of the ferkin border... oh no! I make a point of telling the pigs that I have a draft to Scotland. They smile, break wind and retire indoors without a backward glance.

***

Summer leave is a relaxing affair. I have no girlfriend and the football season is finished. I meet up with a couple of my old school friends but we have little in common. I spend some time watching Pudsey Saint Lawrence play cricket but I don’t see my mate Sir Len at any of the matches.

Mum takes my forthcoming visit to Scotland with a pinch of salt: she is getting used to my globetrotting.

It is the first time since joining the Navy that I really don’t mind going back at the end of my two weeks leave. I’m bored with the limited delights of Pudsey and am looking forward to seeing my messmates again.

At the end of November I assemble with the rest of HMS Gurkha’s Radar Plotters for five days Pre Commissioning Training. My recently perfected concentration skills are once again stretched to their limit as I learn all about the new Tribal Class frigates and the new type of radar they have onboard. We are a varied bunch, ranging from a Petty Officer at the top of the RP pyramid to a group of Junior Seamen Radar Plotters fresh out of the basic course at Dryad at the base. Along with three other RP2s, I am ranked somewhere in the middle.

Dryad has constructed a copy of a Tribal Class Frigate’s Operation Room and we spend hour after hour cooped up in this darkened space while the Senior RP and the occasional Officer show up to assess our performance. HMS Gurkha has a sophisticated long-range air search radar that I know nothing about. Me and a bloke called Mack McCubbin from Scotland are thrown together on more than one occasion and begin to work as a team. Mack qualified as an RP2 five months ago and is pleased to be drafted to Rosyth as he lives in a place called Queensferry which he says is nearby.

In December I return my folded and ironed overalls in a mock ceremony held in Dryad’s laundry at the end of my last day on Sullage Party. Everybody wishes me well. To rub it in, someone plays a dirge on his nose that he thinks sounds like a badly tuned bagpipe.

***

As the train clatters over the Forth Railway Bridge, I glimpse Rosyth through the swirling Scottish mist. It hasn’t changed since I was last here on HMS Bermuda. If anything, at this time of year it looks less welcoming.

On arrival at HMS Cochrane, we Radar Plotters are allocated a murky mess-space below the waterline onboard HMS Hartland Point, a manky floating accommodation vessel berthed some distance away. Some of us grab hammock-slinging points, others find places to lay out their hammocks on a dry section of deck. Alongside us is HMS Girdleness and the destroyer HMS Chevron both used as overflow accommodation ships.

I am grabbed by the shoulder as I’m stuffing my kit into a small, smelly locker under a hull-side bench. ‘Well, if it isn’t the boy heaving-line thrower! Are you following me around the fleet, you ugly old bastard?’

I turn to face a smiling oppo of mine. ‘Hey Sugar, you ugly old bastard.’

‘And you, you young bugger. How are you?’

‘I was OK... before I arrived in this ferkin dump.’

Sugar and I were onboard HMS Bermuda together and we bumped into each other in Singapore last year. He was one of the Able Seamen who helped me, as a newly promoted Ordinary Seaman, come to terms with the intimidating main Seamen’s Mess onboard Bermadoo. We clashed at times when a heaving-line thrower was required on the quarterdeck as we both reckon we’re brilliant at it.

‘You on Gurkha?’ he asks.

‘Yep, you?’

‘Yep. Get changed and we’ll have a couple of wets in the Canteen. Do your joining routine tomorrow.’

I nod. ‘Is there anybody else ex Bermadoo here?’

‘Not as far as I know. They’re all probably locked up securely somewhere.’ He laughs.

‘Yeah, right.’

The Rosyth Dockyard Canteen hasn’t changed since I was last here. The snooker tables look a little worse for wear. There are patched areas and dark cigarette burns on the not-so-green baize and the wooden surround is patterned by the circular marks left by thousands of damp pint glasses. The linoleum deck is stickier than I remember. On the plus side, the local ‘Heavy’ is brilliant.

Sugar buys the first round. He has brought his mate ‘Jack’ Tarr with him, a gunner from Cumbria.

True to form, Sugar spends some time chatting to the peroxide-blonde lady behind the bar whose party piece is pulling a couple of pints of Heavy at the same time from pumps three feet apart. She has impressive upper arms, well-developed shoulders and a cleavage that is full of Highland promise.

Returning to our table, Sugar spreads his hands palm upwards and smiles. ‘The lady behind the bar has invited me home for tea and stickies.’

‘Tea and stickies?’ I say.

‘Metaphorical.’

‘Wha?’

‘Metaphorically speaking.’

‘What’s meta ferkin forical when it’s at home?’ I ask.

Jack leans on his elbows. ‘It’s when you say something that represents something completely different. He may not actually be going to her place for tea and stickies.’

Sugar nods and winks. ‘Correct. I hope to be offered something much more enjoyable.’

‘More enjoyable than tea and stickies?’ I ask seriously.

Sugar waves a hand at me. ‘There speaks a Yorkshireman.’

I’ve asked a number of times before, but nevertheless I ask again. ‘How do you do it, Shugs? You’ve only been here a quarter of an hour. What have you got that the rest of us haven’t?’

‘Charisma, young Peter... charisma,’ he smirks. ‘And a noticeable bulge in mi trews.’

‘But that’s your rolled-up hanky,’ says Jack.

‘You and I know that, Jack,’ says a smiling Sugar. ‘You and I.’

‘What’s this about a hanky?’ I ask.

‘Finish your beer, young ’un. It’s your round.’

‘What’s her name?’ asks Jack.

‘Sorcha.’

‘Sorcha?’

‘Apparently it’s Gaelic for bright,’ says Sugar. ‘I know it’s naff, but she says I can call her Bridgette if it makes me feel better.’ He wraps his coat around himself. ‘I’ll let you into a secret, lads.’ He bends low and whispers. ‘I spent the whole of yesterday evening at the bar chatting up Sorcha. Groundwork, my friends, groundwork. Always worth the time and effort.’

Our mouths hang open as we watch Sugar and Sorcha, each cupping the other’s bottom, amble towards the exit door and depart without so much as a backward glance.

***

The following morning Sugar is bleary-eyed as we muster for both watches.

‘Good night, was it?’ I ask.

‘Unbelievable. I think I met my match last night in the suburbs of Dalgety Bay. Either that or I’m out of practice.’

‘Where?’

‘Dalgety Bay - somewhere to the east of here.’

‘Was it everything you hoped it would be?’

Sugar blinked repeatedly. ‘Give me a moment.’

‘OK.’

‘More, young Pete,’ mumbles Sugar. ‘Much more.’

‘Did you call her Bridgette?’

‘A number of times... if memory serves me.’

***

The weather clamped firmly above the Firth of Forth is dreadful and shows little prospect of improvement. The Scots onboard have all opted for second leave so that they can celebrate something distinctly Celtic. A week before Christmas, along with the majority of Gurkha’s non-Scottish crew, I depart Rosyth for the more mellow climate south of the border. I leave my ship in the capable hands of those who commemorate something called Hogmanay.

As I travel south through Newcastle and York the weather barely improves. West Yorkshire has its own micro-climate at this time of the year. To emphasise the fact that Yorkshire folk are a sturdy breed, the conditions scream winter. On my arrival in Leeds the white stuff is a foot-and-a-half thick, with more hovering like an intimidating grey blanket above my head. West Yorkshire is preparing to shut itself down: this is how it survives this time of year.

My mother owns a busy off-licence business at 63 Robin Lane in Pudsey; my younger brother Tony lives at home having recently left school. During the Industrial Revolution, Pudsey was reputed to be one of the most polluted areas of the UK due to its position in a valley midway between the two industrial cities of Leeds and Bradford. The valley trapped pollutants and created thick black smogs. This is believed to have led to jokes that pigeons in Pudsey fly backwards in order to keep the soot out of their eyes and that residents put up chicken wire fences to keep the fog out. Despite Pudsey’s grimy history it is the place where I grew up and I have a soft spot for it. I was educated at the superb Greenside Primary school and then at its brilliant grammar school. I learned to swim in the local swimming baths, made some interesting friends and enjoyed a brief physical entanglement with the well-developed girl who lived next door but one.

Pudsey is typical Yorkshire, an area of England known for its deep pockets and short arms. When I arrive, the main subject of conversation is how Pudsey will illuminate and decorate the town centre for the festive period. A front page article in the local paper reports that the town centre illuminations this year will be provided by the Assistant Secretary to the Chief Clerk who has been instructed to leave her office light on in the Town Hall over the Christmas holidays. One of our customers, who works at the Town Hall, is outraged at this display of civic extravagance and says it should be re-examined.

I’m surprised when I take a wander around the darkened Market Place on Christmas Eve and notice a single light from one of the Town Hall windows casting a mellow, yellow glow on the pavement outside. Maybe there is a growing age of recklessness within the corridors of Pudsey’s civic offices.

Christmas morning is a low-key affair. The weather has prevented anybody going into Leeds to buy anything, so we pass each other as much money as we can afford. I end up with enough to buy myself the Charlie Buchan’s 1965 Soccer Annual. We enjoy a brilliant Christmas lunch of turkey and for the first time I have an entire bottle of Tetley’s Family Ale all to myself. The snow stops briefly as Christmas Day draws to a chilly, West Yorkshire close.

I forego the pleasure of the Boxing Day match at Elland Road because the snow has started again and the Sammy Ledgards bus service between Pudsey and Leeds is cancelled. It’s just as well as Leeds United can only muster a scrappy 1-1 draw against Blackburn Rovers.

There is a letter in the Boxing Day edition of the local paper from an anonymous Town Hall employee, complaining about the ‘frittering away’ of taxpayers’ money on the Christmas illuminations. He, or she, claims that a similar effect could have been obtained from a 60-watt bulb instead of the 100-watt bulb that was used. The writer hopes that fiscal lessons will be learned before next year’s festive period.

My leave expires on the morning of 27th December. Tony and I spend an hour or more clearing the waist-high snow from the front door. I say my goodbyes and hang around the bus stop outside the shop in the hope that Sammy Ledgards can negotiate the sludgy roads as far as Leeds City Railway station. It’s important that I get back north of the border so that my Scottish colleagues can go ‘haeme’ to celebrate Hogmanay.

***

Jack and I are in the habit of going to the payday dance at the Mecca in Dunfermline every other week. Jack, who is an enthusiastic dancer, is the first to latch onto a woman, who dances with him all evening. Sometime later, I manage to have more than one dance with a Scottish girl called Lorna. Initially I have a problem with her Fife accent but I work hard to come to terms with it as Lorna is a good-looking lassie... and a nurse!

The following night I smother myself in Old Spice toiletries, courtesy of Sugar, and catch the bus into Dunfermline. Lorna and I have arranged to meet in the main bus station. We spend a brilliant evening in a bar where we drink frugally and talk about each other nonstop. She is the eldest daughter of Mr & Mrs McDoone frae Limekilns. By the end of the evening, we know an awful lot about each other and have built the foundations of an Anglo-Scots relationship. She works at the hospital in Kirkcaldy. We kiss each other briefly after I chaperone her the short distance to Dunfermline’s bus station to catch her bus home.

During the following month my relationship with Lorna develops along traditional Anglo-Scots lines: seriously non-sexual. It is plainly obvious, even to a relatively inexperienced young Sassenach like me, that the senior members of the McDoone clan don’t take kindly to their eldest daughter walkin’ oot with a transient English sailor. Lorna’s younger sister takes a serious dislike to me.

***

At the beginning of February, Gurkha’s refit is visibly coming to an end. The Captain clears lower deck and assembles us in the dining hall as it’s raining cats and ferkin dogs everywhere else in Scotland.

We shuffle our freezing feet as an Officer with three gold rings on his arm introduces himself as the Captain.

‘Gurkha ship’s company stand at ease and relax,’ he says. ‘I won’t keep you from your duties for longer than is absolutely necessary. Firstly may I tell you that you are crew members of one of the Royal Navy’s most advanced class of frigates, the Tribal class. As regards our programme, all I can tell you at the moment is that we are due to start day-running out of Rosyth at the end of this month. We will then proceed south for our work-up period at Portland before going to Portsmouth to take part in this year’s Navy Days. We are programmed to depart for the Persian Gulf sometime in October, a tour of duty that is scheduled to last eight to nine months. We are due back in Rosyth in August of next year. Before I end I am told that it is traditional for us all to learn HMS Gurkha’s war cry... ‘Ayo Gurkhali’ which means ‘the Gurkhas are here!’’

We look at each other.

‘Ayo Gurkhali?’

***

On St Valentine’s Day we leave the hovel that is HMS Hartland Point and are allocated messes onboard a spick and span HMS Gurkha. Compared to my previous ships, Gurkha is brilliant. She is one of the first Royal Navy frigates to be fully bunked: not a hammock anywhere. We no longer have to collect food from the galley and eat it in the mess as we have a fully equipped dining hall. HMS Gurkha is also air-conditioned throughout. Built by