New Entry Division

So all in all we numbered about 40 of us poor souls that first night in the New Entry Division. We were the youngest class of entrants that HMS Raleigh had seen so far that year, and many of our number were classed as Juniors, with a good few of us still only 16. Maybe we were considered a bit young and impressionable, but at that time all new entrants were treated that way for the first few days of their Naval lives.

New Entry Division gave everyone a chance to do a few things. Mainly it gave us young lads the chance to sample Naval life, if we felt that it wasn't for us we had the option to PVR (Premature Voluntary Release). This meant that we would be given another train ticket back to whence we had come and that was it. I seem to remember that we lost about 4 of our number in those initial days. We were also given our initial kit issues and measured up for our new Number 1 uniforms. Our class was one of the first to get issued the new style uniform, but this also meant that we were one of the last classes to get issued the old style uniform as our number 2 uniform. So we had a fore and aft uniform for ceremonial purposes and also the old square rig too. Once our kit had been issued we then had to get used to looking after it. Kit had to be washed, ironed and folded in a certain way, boots had to be polished, our parade boots had to be bulled. 

















One of the most confounding things that I had to come to terms with was tying a cap tally. We even had diagrams, but I could never fully get it right. As luck would have it I was a dab hand with an iron. So someone would be tying cap tallies, someone else was polishing boots, others were bulling them, and I was in the ironing squad. Everything also had to have your name stamped on it, in either white or black paint. The whole purpose behind this was probably to start us getting used to working as a team.

We also had to do something called our Naval Swimming tests, now I learnt to swim quite late in life, I must have been all of about 12. Yet in that time I had gained various awards, so it was safe to say that I was confident in water. We had to wear our overalls and jump into the pool from one of the diving boards, swim a circuit of the pool, tread water for a few minutes. Remove our overalls, knot the legs and whipping them over our heads so trapping air in them. All easy enough for me but not for some of the others, the most frustrating thing was not being allowed to help them.  

While this was going on we were having to 'march' between classes, we even had to march to and from meals. We also had to have a class leader and a deputy class leader, supposedly they were meant to take charge of us, and a couple of old'uns got these positions, they were only 17 themselves. Heaven help any class caught messing about or failing to march in an orderly fashion, as extra drill practice would beckon. We discovered that our entry comprised of those of us who were destined to join the Fleet Air Arm (known as WAFUs or Airey Faireys) or those who were to become Stewards (crumb brushers).

Once our time in the New Entry Division was up we were let loose amongst the other trainees, this meant leaving the confines of the NED and moving into one of the other blocks, or Divisions. We became the Hawke 28 class, named after Admiral Edward Hawke and we were the 28th class that year.I daresay that things have changed quite a bit since my day all of those years ago, but having said that I wouldn't have changed any of it. It was a bit of a culture shock, but when you consider that all that I have written hasn't even taken in the first week yet it was quite active. I do remember having a very healthy appetite then, but I was still built like a racing split pin. Those days are long since behind me. So if you have made it this far thanks for reading, there is more to come in the next few days.

 

The Dit Continues

Now I realise that I ought to remember what the weather was doing on July 12th 1977, after all it was such an important event in my life. For those who don't know what I am talking about you ought to read the previous blog. For on that auspicious date I was destined to join the Royal Navy. As a new entrant I was given a list of bits of kit that I was meant to turn up with. These items included pajamas and vests, both things that I hadn't worn since I was about 5. There was also something called a housewife, now calm yourselves as this is basically a sewing kit for running repairs. So with everything shoved into a holdall and a packed lunch it was down to the train station, and a trip into the great unknown.

So I first had to travel up to London, and then go across town on the tube to Paddington station. From there it was all the way down to the West Country and Plymouth. Even though the family had previously been down that way on holidays, that was the first time that I had undertaken a journey of that distance on my own. Knowing me, after reading my travel documents for about the fourth time, I would have started to wonder if anyone else on the train was also destined for HMS Raleigh, and I would have tried to spot who they were. Also knowing my powers of observation one could have been sat next to me and I would have missed him. As far as I can recollect nothing untoward happened on the train journey, and eventually the train pulled into the station at Plymouth. My introduction to Naval life was a Petty Officer in uniform shouting up the platform "Any new entrants for HMS Raleigh muster outside on the Naval bus". Well talk about the red carpet treatment, or maybe I was just easily impressed. On this blue bus there were a handful of young lads looking anywhere but at each other, I think that it is safe to say that we were all slightly nervous.

After about half an hour the same Petty Officer got onto the bus, as there were no more trains due in for a while. Maybe he wanted to get rid of us before we started having second thoughts. So with the old Naval bus coughing and wheezing we left the station and headed for the Torpoint ferry. Nobody had mentioned about sea travel quite so early in our Naval careers, maybe it was a test to see if you had your 'sea-legs'. Those who have braved the Torpoint ferry will know that the crossing is quite short. Once on the other side we headed for our new home HMS Raleigh. Now this establishment has been responsible for looking after new Naval recruits, on the opposite side of the road was HMS Fisgard which dealt with baby artificers. Now when I went for my interview at the careers office I was asked if I had any inclination towards becoming an artificer (commonly known as a tiff). My elder brother had clued me up on these tiffs, 'they can tell you the cubic capacity of a jam jar, but they can't get the lid off', so that had ruled out that avenue for me.

No, being in a get your hands dirty sort of environment sounded much more appealing to me. So it was a left turn from the main road and into HMS Raleigh for us lot. Now the powers that be had thought about things and all of us new guys were kept separate from the salty sea dogs who had amassed at least a week of Naval life. We were ensconced in something called the New Entry Division, supposedly out of harm's way and all of the horror stories about how tough Naval life really was. I seem to remember that one of the first tasks was to grab a bed and then make it. Some people had never heard of hospital corners, and those of us who had were able to help out. At least it helped to thaw the ice, if not break it. There was a steady trickle of fresh faces coming into this dormitory and eventually there must have been about 40 of us in there. No one really talking, just sorting our bed spaces out while lost in their own thoughts. The next surprise was we were informed that at 2200 hours it would be 'lights out' and we would be getting a 'shake' at 0600. Did these times really exist? Sure enough 2200 came round and all of the lights were switched off, it is an unusual feeling trying to go to sleep surrounded by 39 other people. No one really wanting to make a sound for fear of disturbing someone else. Then all of a sudden someone calls out "It's alright Elizabeth, you can come out now". Well that was it, and the micky taking and sniggering started. It was all cut short by the duty Petty Officer sticking his head round the door and telling us all to 'Shitn'it', we correctly guessed this meant keep quiet. Unfortunately the floodgates were opened and people were trying to disguise sniggers behind coughs, and it seemed as though there was a contest for who could fart the loudest or longest. I guess that you could say that the ice had been well and truly broken by then.     
 

Dit On

Like many a young lad growing up in the 60s and 70s, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do when I left school. I just knew that I wanted to do something, yet I didn't know what. My parents were all for me staying on into the 6th form and doing 'A' levels, but by then I had had enough of the classroom and studying. I think that what I craved was a bit of adventure. I couldn't really see myself working in an office, and I already had a Saturday and evening job as a shop assistant in an Ironmongers. It all seemed pretty much the same as my friends were doing, and I didn't really see any of it as a chosen career path for myself, there was no challenge, and it all seemed a bit sheep like doing the same things along with everyone else. 

 Now the previous year my elder brother had joined the Royal Navy. At the time I thought that it was a bit random, as Surrey has never exactly been coastal, so he could hardly have salt water running through his veins. That's by the by, as he used to come home on leave and tell us all about it, and to be quite honest it didn't sound too bad. Also round about that time on BBC1 there was a documentary 'Sailor'. It all looked quite exciting, and not forgetting that the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations were also impending. Now not being one to follow directly in my brother's footsteps I didn't want to go into the General Service, I wanted to work with aircraft. Just like they had shown on that Sailor programme.

So I applied to my nearest careers office, which was in Croydon, and went along for an initial interview. I was subjected to the normal battery of questions, and probably fed the normal line of garbage. For at that time there was a big manpower drain, and it almost seemed as if you could make it to the careers office, you were in. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration, but you get the gist. Well they didn't put me off at the initial interview, so I was invited back for an aptitude test. Out of four people invited I was the only one who showed up, which possibly went in my favour. The questions were fairly simplistic, for example "What tool do you use to put a nail into a wall?", and then you had 4 options, a hammer, a saw, a screwdriver or a chisel. There was also spelling, general arithmetic and a simple logic test.

Needless to say I passed all of that, of which I was duly notified a couple of weeks later. My next task was to go for a medical in High Holborn in London. I don't remember much of that apart from standing in draughty old corridors stripped to the waist. I daresay I was pinched, poked and prodded, made to turn my head to either side and cough. I do remember being checked for colour blindness though as I wanted to be an aircraft electrician. All of this was done during the winter of 1976, I hadn't taken my exams at school, and I had been accepted on my own merit. I couldn't sign up there and then as I was only 15 at the time, and the youngest you could enter the Royal Navy was 16.

So I guess that took a lot of pressure off with the CSEs and GCEs, I already had a job when I left school no matter how my exams went. So I had been passed as medically fit, I was not barking mad nor was I a total numpty, I was in, they had accepted me. I was given my provisional joining date of the 12th July 1977, and told to expect a railway warrant for my trip down to Plymouth. One of the last things that I did before joining the Royal Navy was to go round all of the ships anchored up at Spithead for the Queen's Silver Jubilee review.