Pull up a bollard - Memoirs of a Matelot.

A few years back on Rumration I started compiling my memoirs. It wasn't really intended as a blog or anything but over the years I've written down a fair bit of shite. There are also a few dits which I've posted on here that fit in nicely to the overall story which I'll try to cut and paste into the mix.

So if any of you can be arsed to read it, here is a rough version of events based around my highly illustrious career in the Royal Navy. It's been a while since any of this stuff actually happened so I reserve the right for the sequence of events to be a bit mixed up in places.

Names of oppos have been changed for PERSEC, names of people I don't like remain the same.

So here goes.

 

Like all 15 year olds I wanted to be a fighter pilot so I went to a careers fair at my local town hall with the intention of speaking to someone who could help me in my quest to fly F14s and play volleyball while wearing dog tags.

After running the gauntlet of local council representatives trying to sign me up on gash public service college courses and people trying to sell really shit franchises to my mum, I found the RAF careers stand. I spoke to the chap for a good ten minutes and I can honestly say his attitude and lack of enthusiasm completely put me off the idea of joining his shite organisation forever.

Reluctantly, as if he was doing me a massive favour he routed around in his bag and gave me a leaflet about becoming an RAF policeman or a chef, I threw it in the bin in disgust and walked away completely dejected wondering what the fuck I was going to do with my life.

At the other end of the hall I noticed a stand with sexy green camo and guns on it, ooooooh shiny, so I went and had a chat with the pongos. I found them to be very likeable and a complete breath of fresh air compared to the crab Corporal I'd encountered earlier. With my projected GCSE grades, I was told I could go to Welbeck and eventually become an Officer in the REME repairing helicopters and tanks and stuff, sounded awesome to me. Only snag was that I wouldn't be paid while at Welbeck and my old dear wasn't really in a position to support me while I was there but hey ho, I could probably sort something out with the bank of Grandad if the worst came to the worst.

While seriously considering the Welbeck option, I heard a tannoy announcement: ''The Royal Navy will be giving a video presentation in such and such a room in five minutes.'' I thought fuck it, I'll check it out. I'd heard of the Navy, I knew they had ships and wore gay outfits and did that thing with canons at the Royal Tournament but that was about it really. Being from North London, I can't say I'd really had any exposure to them.

So I went to the lecture, I was the only person who turned up. The Chief there was brutally honest and basically said that this time next year I could be at sea on a Destroyer, fucking around with massive guns and missiles while tearing up foreign ports in sunny places. He explained that the Army's offer of Welbeck was a very good option but that as an Artificer in the RN, I'd get the same qualifications, while being paid and while serving on a proper ship and not stuck at college.

Sold.

 

I passed all the initial exams and interviews but failed my medical. Turns out I had protein in my piss from too much teenage tuggery, but at the time, the doc suspected it could be kidney malfunction. As such I had to jump on the train to Haslar for further testing.

So 15 year old me goes up to the desk and I'm put through a further piss test, a blood test and I'm asked to provide a stool sample.

The pretty nurse handed me a small plastic jar and pointed me in the direction of the bogs.

Now having never provided a stool sample before, I was intrigued as to how things worked. On opening the jar I discovered a small spoon, like you'd get in your ice cream at the cinema.

Devoid of a diagram or any legible instructions, I cupped the jar to my hoop and curled a Bungle's finger straight into the jar. A teenage diet of McDonalds and crisps ensured that it was way too big for the jar. Some artistic creativity was required.

Thinking on my feet, I quickly figured out what the spoon was for. Grasping it betwixt thumb and finger, I crammed the turd down with the spoon, pressing it down until it filled every corner of the jar, I then carefully used the back of the spoon to smooth off the top, before finally sealing it up.

Proud of my effort, I dumped it on the nurse's desk.

She was horrified. How the fuck was I supposed to know you only use the spoon to scoop up a tiny bit?

 

^ that is funny. Strangely enough, I too was put off by Crab Air's marked lack of enthusiasm, although I stuck with green, especially as they told me to come in for a aptitude test the Wednesday after first sticking my head around the recruiters door - my route was as an army apprenticeship though, so again, still getting paid.


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Raleigh was your usual phase 1 stuff with lots of drill, bullshit and PT. To be honest it's all a bit of a blur now but the things that stick out most for me were crap scran at traf galley and the mong inbreds who served it, listening to Bon Jovi in the ironing room and being forced to fight other trainees by a particularly sadistic booty who was duty in our block one night. I enjoyed the fire fighting and flood damage training but the rest was pretty shite. I struggled with the maths exams but the lads in my division helped me out, in return I helped them with boot polishing and ironing. My advice to anyone joining the military is to work as a team, if you are struggling somewhere tell your oppos, likewise if you see your oppo struggling, help him out. This is something I learned very early on and it stuck throughout my RN career and well into my civvy life. I found the lads that didn't make it through training were the ones who struggled to work with others and bond as a team.

After Raleigh I went to HMS Collingwood (Collingrad) for a few months studying usual part 2 trainee shite. The days were fairly dull and every penny that I could save was spent on going out on the piss to Fareham, Gosport and Pompey. As a freshly passed out matelot, I thought I was awesome but really I was a spotty little shit. Amazingly I managed to pull occasionally, usually in Emma's or Prague Junction. As I was only 16 I had a doctored ID card which had my made me 2 years older.

I used to arrange my pit with a wig on the pillow so that when the duty PO came round to do bed checks he'd think I was in it, as opposed to hanging out the back of some Pompey scutter. During this time I went on a sailing exped to France and got horrendously drunk and nearly fell overboard while crossing the channel at night, luckily a switched on junior officer who was with us saved me. I suppose Cherbourg was my first ever foreign run ashore. When I returned to Collingwood my class received our sea drafts, unfortunately I was informed that I wouldn't be going to sea just yet as the rules had just changed and I would have to wait until my 17th birthday, gutted.

I watched as my oppos fcuked off and joined their ships with some heading out to exotic far off lands, but most just going off to do Basic Operational Sea Training (BOST) or extended refits in Guz or Pompey. I spent the next 3 months dossing around Collingwood, doing odd jobs where needed and going on extended leave (extenders) every weekend. I spent a few weeks making tea at the weapons sections in the rubber road and managed to get some of my task book weighed off early on. An old alcoholic Chief was tasked to look after me, quite frankly the bloke had trouble remembering his own name let alone that he had me to look after, as a result it was a cheers easy time all round.

As a reward for being a good lad and I suppose because I'd been a bit shafted in being left behind, drafty let me choose which ship I wanted. I checked all the longcasts and saw that HMS Newcastle was on a South Atlantic trip which I could catch her halfway through, this meant meeting the ship in the Falklands, hitting the East coast of South America and the Caribbean. Fcuking perfect.

So on my 17th birthday, my mum drove me to RAF Brize Norton or possibly Lyneham, I forget which and I jumped on a crab air Tristar to Mount Pleasant Airfield, Falkland Islands, via a short stop in Ascension Island. The flight was much the same as any civvy flight I'd been on except the stewards were even gayer and wore flight suits. I managed to sleep most of the way to Ascension and was wide awake by the time we got there. I read a book for a bit and waited in the sun while the plane refuelled. I saw a fit female RAF officer and had rude thoughts about her.

After four hours we boarded the plane again and headed to MPA. On the final approach a pair of RAF Tornadoes flew on our wing tips escorting us in. I remember thinking it was cool as fcuk to see a fighter plane so close. As we taxied in the RAF SAR helo crew had a huge banner saying 'welcome to hell' with one of them dressed as the grim reaper. The pongo in the seat next to me started telling me how pissed off he was about being here and how 6 months was going to kill him and ruin his marriage. I just shrugged explaining that I couldn't give a fuck because I'd be in Rio in a few weeks.

After a quick brief from the Royal Engineers or possibly RLC about mines, I collected all my crap in the baggage hall. Unfortunately my pusser's kit bag had exploded on the flight and all my kit came round the conveyor belt a single piece at a time, I looked like a tramp as I walked out of the airport carrying armfuls of gear in bin bags.

The duty driver picked me up and it was a relief to see another matelot after spending around 30 hours with pongos and crabs. We chatted a bit as we drove through the snow to East Cove where the ship was berthed and he showed me to the gangway. The QM signed me in and I was given a short tour of the ship. I recall being completely overwhelmed by the smell and I remember it to this day, a strong mixture of diesel, chip fat and shit from the sewage treatment plant. All stumpy 42s smelt like that.

After the tour I realised that I was completely fcuking lost and that every corner of the shipped looked identical. Eventually someone showed me to my mess and I went down the hatch, absolutely shitting myself.

 

It was around 6 in the evening and a few of the lads had clearly started getting in the fridge, the curtain to the mess square was shut and I could hear much banter and joking going on within. I felt utterly alone and terrified, suddenly I was in a strange place surrounded by people I didn't know. At Collingwood, I was a bit of an old salt because I'd been there for ages, now I was the sprog again.

That first hour or so onboard was ten times worse than my first day at Raleigh, at least there we were all sprogs together. I unpacked my bag and waited to be invited in the mess square, after what seemed like hours a lad came out to go for a piss and enquired if I was the new lad. Clearly I was so I replied in the affirmative, suddenly a huge roar of 'EASY!' roared from the mess and I realised I had been the victim of my first ever gash bite (Wah to you pongos).

The lads brought me in and I was introduced to everyone. The names instantly passed over my head but I remember feeling a bit more at home. A beer was thrust into my hand and the Leading Hand of the Mess (LHOM) explained that as a junior (the only one onboard infact) he would allow me to drink but if I stepped over the line or got in trouble he'd throw me overboard at night. I had no reason to doubt his sincerity. After a few tins, we all traipsed ashore to a small bar in East Cove where they served Pringles and out of date tins of Fosters.

The next few weeks in the Falklands were fairly dull and cold. Mostly we pissed up at MPA or in Port Stanley, we went go karting on the airfield and we did a few battlefield tours. Occasionally we would have to break the ice off the doors on the ship it was so cold. I made some friends from the mess and we generally had a good laugh. I recall one particular incident where a local gave us a lift to Stanley, en route he stopped at his and showed us his collection of guns and weaponry that he had collected after the war, I could see scorched holes in the ground where he had obviously been letting off grenades and stuff. He invited us back to shoot some of his guns at a later date, we never did take him up on the offer.

Finally we sailed for Rio and I would spend my first day at sea. I'd been on cross channel ferries before and did my sailing exped but I'd never really spent more than a few hours on a ship at sea. Immediately I was sick, I hated it and I thought that perhaps I'd made a terrible mistake in joining up. I can only describe it as being like the worst hangover ever but without the headache. I felt disorientated and tired all the time and couldn't bring myself to eat anything. After two or three days I was in a pretty bad way until one morning I woke up and the sickness had just gone. It disappeared completely and I have not suffered from it since, even in seriously rough weather.

During the first few days, we had a safeguard incident in the middle of the night and we had to muster in the JRs dining room. It turned out a Chilean fishing boat was sinking and we had to go and rescue them. In the cold they would be dead in literally minutes. I was impressed that everyone got together and knew what to do, except me of course, I was a sprog and had no fucking idea what was going on. I was handed some paper and a pen and told to take the names and ages of the survivors as they were brought onboard. The excitement I felt at being given a fairly important job and being involved was soon shattered as we were all stood down. The RAF SAR team (the fuckers with the welcome to hell banner) had got to them first and we would not be required. 5 hours of fucking around in the middle of the night and missed rack time for nothing.

A few days later some great news arrived, we were to have an unexpected stop in Montevideo. Having watched the battle of the river plate I knew all about Montyvid and felt really chuffed to be going. We only had Cinderella leave but it was better than nothing. I made the most of my few hours ashore by eating a steak the size of toilet seat, buying a cowboy hat and banging two whores, both of whom took it up the ricker, a first for me.

In true Cinderella leave style, a few lads overdid it and one of my mess mates had to be sent home after badly injuring himself while attempting to climb the dockyard fence, another lad gobbed off at some locals and got battered. I wouldn't have minded but the cunt had borrowed my jacket and he returned it covered in blood and snot. The rest of us returned onboard suitably refreshed and ready to sail to Rio.

I couldn't wait.

 

A few days later we rocked up in Rio and I thought it was awesome. I don't remember much about it but the Florida bar was our local, with whores everywhere and a big screen playing hardcore porn. The Copacabana was everything you'd imagine and we met a mental local who took us to a footy match at the Maracana Stadium in a battered VW bus and bought us maccy ds. I remember a lad called Spud trapped a stunning bird who drove him over 1000 miles to our next port in Fortaleza after he managed to blag some leave. I assume his DO took pity on him and realised that he would never ever get a chance with a bird like that again, she really was fit. I think we had four days or so there plus a night in Fortaleza, then we set off for a long stint of drug busting.

We closed up in defence watches, 6 hours on, 6 hours off, I managed to blag the Forenoon/First (7am until 1pm - 7pm until 1am) this seemed preferable to me as it wasn't too different to my normal sleep pattern anyway. As the watches blended together and we all transformed into zombies, we were joined by a group of US Coast Guard guys, who lived down our mess. They were exactly how yank soldiers and marines are portrayed in films, gungho to the max, built like brick shithouses and thick as fuck. On the whole they were nice guys but they couldn't drink and managed to piss most of us off after a few days. For some reason they all chewed tobacco and would spit it into beer cans which they then left lying around the mess. They were the butt of many jokes, easys and gash bites and I think they thoroughly hated their stay. It all came to blows one day when one of them explained that he was into wrestling (ie that grappling shit) on asking if any of us wrestled, a large lad called Keith, explained that he did, the yank challenged him to a match. Unfortunately for the young yanky Keith's style of wrestling was based more on what he had seen on WWF than ivy league college wrestling. Keith bounced the poor cnut around the mess giving him the people's elbow and holding him down while the rest of us bounced our cocks on his head and rubbed our sweaty hoops on his face. For some reason his oppos took offence to this and our relationship with the yanks soured.

After weeks of boredom in defence watches we finally got some action. We stopped a dodgy looking boat and found around 4 million quids worth of ganja on it. This was seriously exciting and exactly the sort of shit I envisaged when I joined up, gunfights on the high seas, helicopters and fake Oakley sunglasses all round.

I was tasked with guarding the prisoners for a bit and stood there watching them as they were cuffed to a ring bolt on the deck. A pair of French Martiniquans, they were about my age and I felt pretty sorry for them, clearly they were at the very bottom of a very large food chain but would in all likelihood spend the rest of their lives in prison because of it, while the guys at the top got away. I'd heard that many of these guys were just fisherman who had been forced into the drug trade through threats of violence. As I stood there with my SA80 and my Frank Spencer beret, I realised how lucky I was to have been born in a decent country with job prospects and a good education system.

After handing the drugs and prisoners over in Martinique, we set off to Barbados, a highlight of the trip for me because my grandparents live there. I was the centre of some media attention because of my link with the island and a gash phot of me, unshaven and in my ovies was plastered all over the Bajan papers and news. News is slow in Barbados and they wrote a follow up story a few weeks later which included a made up interview with me and complete lies about what I did on the ship. I had gone from being a sprog dabber/WE to a 'Marine Officer Engineer' in charge of missiles. It gave my grandparents a laugh anyway.

I took a few days leave and chilled at their house catching up with family, it was good to get away from the ship, but I had trouble sleeping in a large bed. I would wake up at night thinking I was back onboard and it would take a while to work out what the fuck was going on. I went out with the lads a few times and as a 'local' I was expected to show everyone where to go out, we ended up in Harbour Lights and one evening an English public school cricket team decided to kick off at a few lads from the ship. I don't know how many lads are in a cricket team, but there are 287 lads on a stumpy 42, most of whom were in Harbour Lights that night, needless to say the cricket toffs got a good shoeing.

 

We left Barbados and headed off for some more drug busting. This time we were searching for a cargo vessel called the Northern Star or something or other. We had some pretty sound intel that it was carrying a massive haul of Columbian chang. Our helo spent the best part of two weeks flying about looking for the fucker and my hat really goes off to the Wafus on the rare occasion that they actually did any work.

We finally found it and two boarding parties (ours and the yankees) began securing it. It was pretty awesome to be honest, stopping this massive ship that we were convinced was carrying the biggest haul of chang known to man. We expected the crew to be armed and to offer resistance, so every gun on the upper deck was manned and I had a jimpy on the bridge wing. My young mind had visions of heroics with me blowing up the ship with carefully aimed bursts. Unfortunately my Die Hard moment didn't come. In fact no one's did.

Our boarding party searched the ship for days, a team of stokers even went across and cut open bulkheads and decks but we found nothing except for a few small arms. The ship had evidently been kitted out for something though as it had hidden storage compartments in the fuel tanks. Unfortunately we had caught it before it made the pick up and we had to let them go. We watched as they sailed away and we went to St Lucia to drown our sorrows.

St Lucia was lovely, a quiet island, the sort of place people go on honeymoon. There was a KFC just outside the dockyard, where I somehow managed to walk out with about £100 more change than I should have, a combination of the bird behind the counter being thick and most places in St Lucia accepting 3 different currencies.

Obviously, we found the whore bar straight away where I got a three way nosh with two Wafus from my mess. One of them spaffed on the other's leg which was pretty funny, so funny infact that I couldn't continue and had to retire early. We bumped into the same bird the following evening, plying he trade at the Sandals resort. I seem to remember everyone getting pretty smashed while we were there and I recall eating an absolutely rank chicken liver and sea urchin kebab. A karaoke bar features somewhere in my memories and I seem to recall a lad called Alf impressing a load of yank tourists with his pretty good rendition of a Robbie Williams tune. St Lucia came and went without much incident and we headed off for yet more drug patrols.

Back into defence watches we went and the monotonous boredom of sea set in. We played stupid word games on watch to pass the time and would count down the seconds until the end of our watches. This time I had drawn the Morning/Afternoon watch (1am until 7am - 1pm until 7pm) which was a lot worse, not least because you have lunch for breakfast when you get up for your afternoon watch. I could never get used to eating roast dinner when I'd just got out of bed.

After stopping virtually every small boat in the area, we finally got lucky and stopped a sailing yacht with a middle aged Austrian couple onboard. They'd decided to supplement their pension by doing a one off coke run in their boat. We recovered £58 million worth in the end but they had thrown loads more overboard, at the time it was the biggest drugs bust in history.

Finally it was time to go home and after quick stops in Puerto Rico (more whoring, Bacardi 151 and American chicks) and The Azores (It's a catholic country and we were there on Sunday, nuff said) we headed back to Pompey, first dropping off the advance party who would take leave early to cover the duty watch while we went on leave.

The first leave lads took great pleasure in winding us up about the fact that they were going home two weeks before the rest of us. They graffitied the ship with 'FLIB' (First Leave Is Best) and fucked off to get flights back. We finally arrived in Pompey the night before we were due and anchored off Southsea, it was torture and you could hear the slags coming out of Jo's. Knowing that we were so close to home yet so far. It didn't stop us celebrating though. Channel night was epic, we got absolutely cunted and even the Skipper came down the mess for a tin. We stuck a smaller lad to the deckhead with black maskers and played human kerplunk, taking a strip of tape off with each turn. If your strip caused him to fall to the ground, you were the next one to be stuck up. I still have the carpet burn scar on my nose from when I headbutted the deck as a I fell.

The next morning we raised anchor, donned our number 1s and sailed into Pompey. As we passed round tower, I could see loads of people waving at us, some of whom had 'welcome home' and 'congratulations' banners because of our bust. As we neared the jetty, with a few celebratory blasts of the ship's horn, I spotted my family on the jetty, mum, stepdad, two sisters, uncle and grandfather had all come down to watch the ship come in. Leave was granted pretty much straight away and we all fucked off ashore but not before plastering the entire ship with 'SLIB' (Second Leave Is Best) Graffiti for the benefit of the advance leave party who had now finished their leave and were about to settle into two nice weeks of duties.

On returning home after my first deployment, I didn't feel like I'd changed much. Clearly I had though, my parents noticed that I had grown up, I noticed that my mates, many of whom were just starting their first year of A levels, were generally doing the same shit, but I had somehow moved on from that. I found that I had no trouble talking to or impressing girls any more, I made the most of this by banging as many of them as I could during leave, including my mate's sister who I had fancied for years.

Next chapter Far East deployment.

 

So the Newcastle had just come home and I had just finished a tasty few weeks on leave. On returning to the ship, I found that the fire brigade had gone on strike and we were all going to be dicked to do their job. To be honest, I thought this was brilliant, I'd always fancied being a fireman and thought it would be a laugh. Names were drawn and I wasn't on the list. While everyone else deployed to a temporary fire station, I stayed onboard with a skeleton crew and did endless sets of WE rounds, alongside in Pompey for 6 weeks. After a while I got the hang of it and realised you could sign off 4 hours worth of rounds in a oner and then get your head down. Luckily I was never caught.

With most of my mates tearing up Guildford in Green Godesses, I was bored as fuck. I did manage to save a bit of cash though as I wasn't pissing up every night. One weekend I rode my moped to Pompey from my mum's house, this took me a whole day due to the bike being limited to 30mph. Having the bike meant I could expore more of the area and I came to the conclusion that Pompey really is a dump. I had a few temporary girlfriends and things were fairly uneventful for the next few months.

Eventually Op Fresco finished, the lads came back and I fucked off back to Collingwood for a year's worth of courses. I was in a room with some of my old oppos from Raleigh and much shenanigans were had. It was at this point that I was reunited with my mate Scouse Dave.

Scouse Dave is actually called Rob but for clarity, we shall refer to him as Scouse Dave. Scouse Dave should never have joined the forces and is really quite clever, he is now in charge of a fairly important part of Trident on a big submarine somewhere. Unfortunatley the burden of intellect means Scouse Dave gets bored exceedingly quickly and must resort to extreme measures in order to stop him from losing the plot.

After basic training, Scouse Dave and I found ourselves sharing a room together in phase 2 training. Being poorly paid 16 year old apprentices, we were always skint and would cobble together the last of our pennies to buy value cider from the Asda opposite the base. One evening near closing time, Asda had some roasted chickens going cheap at the reduced counter, so we bought a few of those with our cider and proceeded to get hammered.

Being underage sprogs, our cabin was subject to checks by the duty Senior Rate, in order to make sure we were behaving and not drinking 3 litre bottles of Blackthorn. This unfortunate situation meant that we had to get pissed elsewhere, sometimes in the park opposite the base, but more often than, not behind our block. On this occasion Scouse Dave decided it would be a novel idea to find a new place to drink, somewhere different, somewhere with a view.

The NAAFI at Collingwood is a large building with an escape ladder leading to the roof. Scouse Dave persuaded me that it would be ''fookin boss'' to climb the ladder and get pissed on the NAAFI roof while eating our roast chickens. Now as I mentioned before, Scouse Dave became bored quickly, at first he kept his boredom at bay by playing a simple game which involved gobbing chewed up chicken on people's heads below. This kept him entertained for a short while as people looked in the air saying things like ''fucking pigeons'' thinking they had been shat on. After scoring a few direct hits on some officers Scouse Dave decided to up the game a little and started throwing bigger pieces of chicken off the roof. Amazingly no one clocked where the chicken was coming from until the Reggie patrol (MPs to you pongos) drove past in their white transit. Sensing an opportunity not to be missed, Scouse Dave stood up and drop kicked a whole roast chicken into the air, it sailed gracefully off the roof and landed perfectly onto the roof of the van with a massive bang, exploding in the process and leaving a fucking epic chicken explosion all over it.

The reggies, jumped out of the van running about the place in a state of confusion and mild panic, completely unable to work out where the mystery flying chicken had come from. Now at this stage, most people would count themselves lucky that they had not been caught thus far and wind the game in, but not Scouse Dave, Oh no.

We still had a few chickens so Scouse Dave decided to subject the reggie van to a full on chicken broadside, with amazing accuracy, he toe punted about 6 roast chickens at the van while the reggies ran around trying to work out why roast chickens were falling out of the sky. It was dark so I can only assume that they couldn't see the direction they were coming from.

Eventually the drove off with their blue lights on, fuck knows how they hadn't realised where we were hiding. After that Scouse Dave decided he'd had enough fun for one evening and we went back to our block.

''That were fookin boss eh Ravers lah?''

''Yeah cheers mate, always fancied a stint in Colchester for launching chickens at coppers you cunt.''

 

Well done.

My only problem is that I can't get your avatar out of my head so I hear the whole story in a nasal/mong voice!

I'll get over it - keep 'em coming.

 

Due to the increasing number of drunken incidents with Scouse Dave, including some naked moped riding around the base and a broken window, I was labelled as a problem child and moved into a single man cabin, far away from my oppos. To be honest, this didn't help matters at all.

I was the only person on the top floor of the old abandoned Senior Rate's block (Vivian). I spent much of the time acting the tit, using fire extinguishers to propel myself down the corridors on my skateboard and generally vandalising the place. As I was on a drinking ban from my DO, I used most of my cash to buy random shit. As my cabin was well and truly off the rounds route, I filled it up with skateboards, guitars, a BMX and a desktop PC. It looked like student digs and I went a bit feral in those few months alone in Vivian block. After a while, other people started to move in, I got my shit in one sock and things began to return to normal.

After a year of what seemed like constant maths exams and shite duties at Collingwood, I went back to Raleigh for a seamanship course. It was pretty standard stuff and I felt like a god among the trainees, regailing them with my salty sea dits and depositing my sperm in a few baby wrens for good measure. A highlight was spending a few days on a small yacht and sailing around Plymouth getting pissed. After Raleigh I went to Dryad for some warfare courses, ops room stuff mainly. Amazingly I came top of my class, despite being adrift for one of the exams due to drunkeness. Due to my good exam scores they let me slap in for whatever ship I wanted (again). This time I chose Exeter as I knew a few lads onboard and it was rumoured to be doing a 9 month Far East trip the following year.

By now I'd passed my driving test and bought a car that was far to good for someone my age. It was a red Lancia Montecarlo and it looked like a mini Ferrari. I pulled up to the gangway of the Exeter feeling much more confident than when I joined the Newcastle. I joined the mess, 3P this time and got straight into the swing of things. Knowing a couple of old faces off the Newcastle helped things along.

When I got down the mess, the lads were well into a mighty piss up, so I cracked straight on and shot a few tins of John Smiths. This involved shaking the tin to the point of bursting, piercing the bottom of it with a marlin spike and drinking out of the hole, while your mate blew into the top forcing the beer out of the can at immense speed.

This immediately caused me to projectile vomit into the middle of the mess square. For a second there was a pause and people looked at me in absolute horror and disgust, then there was a cheer and I was immediately accepted into the fold.

The next day we sailed to Guz for BOST.

 

Give us another one Ravers.

 

I recall little about BOST except for the fact that it was shit. Early starts, tons of cleaning and very few weekenders.

When tied up in Guz we did get the opportunity to go out on the smash and it was a nice change from Pompey. Invariably we'd end up in the Avondale or the Keyham, both of which had topless bar maids with questionable looks. After one drunken evening a half eaten kebab was left in one of the flats on 2 Deck. It got picked up on rounds by a FOSTY and by way of punishment the Jimmy (2ic of the ship) banned the consumption of any big eats onboard.

For the next two weeks, every night all the takeaways in Plymouth would turn up on the gangway with an unwanted feast for the XO. I ordered him cheesy chips.

Eventually he cracked and allowed us to order big eats if we promised not to make a mess. Unfortunately by then, no takeaway would deliver to HMS Exeter anymore because of all the gash orders.

Eventually we finished BOST, my favourite bit was the Disaster Ex (DISTEX) were they have actors pretending to be disaster victims. I got spewed on by one who had dysentery (the spew was actually soup but it still makes me gag to think about it.)

We returned to Pompey for a cheeky bit of leave before setting off on an epic 9 month Far East trip.

My mum and sisters came down to see us off, it was a shitty day and it pissed with rain. As we sailed past round tower I could see them waving along with loads of other families. We waived back, it was pretty dusty in Pompey that day and I might have had something in my eye.

Within minutes of leaving Pompey, the powers that be decided to bang in a cheeky MOBEX, so we all had to get back on the upper deck and launch he seaboat. In hindsight this was probably a good thing and it took our minds off the fact that we'd all just left our families behind.

The next 4 days were uneventful as we transited the bay of Biscay en route to Gib. When we arrived we had two days to give it large, getting smashed in the Donkeys Flip Flop and doing all the other shit one does in Gib, Monkey shoot Rock Race, tunnel tour, chicken on a fist etc.

A few days after that we hit Cyprus. I thought it was a bit of a dump, we'd arrived in the non touristy season which meant the place was pretty much deserted. I remember getting hammered in an Irish bar and developing an infatuation with one of the wren chefs onboard. I'd only ever seen her in her manky chefs whites before and had never really noticed her. The combo of a couple of weeks away from home and seeing her in a bikini on the beach, provided me with enough material to see out the entire deployment hunched over in the aft heads, spilling my seed in her honour. I never did trap her though.

We also went to a titty bar and got a shoeing from some Russian bouncers. I stole a BMX to get back to the ship and was chased by some feral dogs.

Next stop Suez.

 

It only took a few hours to get to the entrance to the canal, we were supposed to stop in Haifa but a last minute change to the program meant we were seen off for a run ashore.

We anchored off overnight and watched as the first of many drop outs was transferred off the ship by helo. One of the junior officers had lost the plot and was threatening to top himself, it was clear to all that he just wanted to go home and was being a drama queen.

Anyway good riddance.

The next morning the looky looky men in their gash boats came alongside to pedal their wares, some purchased woodies, I watched in hysterics as my oppo tried to buy one of the boat men's sons. We even had the little wretch on the quarterdeck while my mate looked at the kid's teeth and haggled with the bloke.

Needless to say we didn't buy an 11 year old Egyptian kid that day.

Instead I bought a Tommy Cooper fez of such epically shit quality it fell apart almost immediately.

After that it was straight into defence watches and we started transiting the canal with all guns crews closed up and upper deck sentries. We were on full alert and I was so bored I really hoped I'd get to shoot someone. It was also fucking sweltering and we were all wearing Body Armour.

At one point we passed a 23 coming the other way, clearly terrorists only attack stealy 42s because the lads on the 23 were not closed up and appeared to be having a flight deck BBQ.

Wanker signs and middle fingers were exchanged and that was that.

We passed a building that was shaped like an AK47 and I tried to get a few phots.

And that's about all I remember until we got to Chennai a few weeks later. I was a bridge watch keeper and I know the ship didn't deviate from the same track for about two weeks as we crossed the Indian Ocean really slowly. It was dull as fuck. I think we did hands to bathe but that may have come later.

 

Ravers,

Why don't you tidy things up into a couple of chapters and send them plus a synopsis to a some publishers?

It's only going to cost you a couple of stamps and you might just get a few bob for putting your misdeeds into book form.

Wordsmith