My Life In The RN by Richard(Dickie) Drew

 

This is the story of my life in the Royal Navy,  Bob Burton and I have decided to serialise it, I thoroughly enjoyed most of my time in The Royal Navy, and I hope you enjoy reading about it, therefore I would like to thank my Mother and Father for stopping me from continuing my secondary education and marching me down to the Labour Exchange, where there was Nothing For Me, so, while on the half mile walk back home, I thought I may as well join the Navy. So, off I went to the RN careers office in Exeter then later to Plymouth for the medical then to.…………………..

 

HMS RALEIGH 1970

The 28th September 1970, a day I will never forget when I signed on the dotted line! At HMS Raleigh, Torpoint, Cornwall, after the relatively short journey(compared to others) from Exmouth in Devon. I made a lot of friends here, however I can’t remember most of thier names, for some reason they called me Popeye or Smiler, probably because I was always laughing and joking around, and maybe my 2 dimples(the ones on my face). The nickname Smiler stuck with me for three years.

 

The day before ‘joining up’ my Mother had sent me to the barbers shop in Exmouth, it did not matter, all the recruits had to go and get a standard Naval ‘short back and sides’ haircut.

 

                                                The First Photograph

Plumb-Wingate-Unk-English-Unk-Morris?-McKinall?-Terry Dunn-Unk-Unk

 

Homer-Unk-Drew-Flint-Unk-Davis

 

That first afternoon, we were issued with our kit, the chap in the queue behind me did not know his sizes, so I said: well you’re a little bit bigger than me mate, when I call out my sizes just shout the next size up, so it went: TROUSERS? My reply was 32, his was 33,  SHIRT? Mine 38, his 39,   SHOES? Mine 8, his 9.  CAP? Mine six & seven eights, His: Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve,Thirteen!!!

 

Learning how to look after, wash and iron and fold my kit seemed easy for me, I was of a large family, one of eight and we had always looked after our own clothes from a very early age! But, in my twenty four and a quarter years in the RN, I must admit, I never did get the hang of spitting and polishing boots and shoes, mine always just came up ‘nice’ not ever like a mirror. But I never did once ask someone else to do it for me!

 

Bernie Flint you may remember him from Opportunity Knocks, the TV  talent show, hosted by Hughie Greene, joined up with me and not forgetting Trevor English. Bernie was always singing and playing his guitar, he left the Navy after a short while, and went on to be the longest running winner of Opportunity Knocks. There was a young man(well older than me, which wasn’t hard, because I think I was the youngest recruit), he had a beard, and wore sandals on arrival so we nicknamed him Jesus.

 

Trevor, although a little older, took a similar career path to me.

 

Tea was the first meal I had in the Navy, it was a loaf of bread on the table to be shared of course, with a bowl of jam and some butter, not very posh but we were all starving. Needless to say, the cuisine improved from there on.

 

I will never forget the assault course at Raleigh, I could not crawl across that rope thingy across the ravine, and I hated the pipe full of water that we had to crawl through,  but I loved the though, having done a bit during my childhood on and around the river Exe estuary. But did not enjoy having NO money, we were never paid enough for the amount of hard work we did Ha!

 

I will also never forget after being a naughty sailor for something, (Me naughty! NEVER) being sent running around the parade ground for what seemed like forever, with a Sub Machine Gun(SMG) at High Port Arms(virtually horizontal at chest height)!

 

They measured me to be 5 feet and 6 inches tall on the day I joined, and within a year I had shot up to over 6 foot! It must have been the change in diet, or maybe it was my parents genes had finally kicked in! But even to this day I am smaller than my four brothers.

 

We were trained and tested on marching, fitness, seamanship, Damage Control & Firefighting, Maths and English and more.

 

Prior to the end of the three month long course, I had to decide which Seaman Sub branch I would prefer to take, my first choice was  Torpedo & Anti Submarine(TAS), second choice was Radar Plotting(RP) and my third choice was Gunnery, Why I chose in that order I do not know.

 

I left HMS Raleigh on the 22nd January 1971, after successfully qualifying as a Junior Seaman 1st Class(JS1), from my initial ranking of JS2. As the bus turned right out of HMS Raleigh’s main gates, I looked back thinking, I wonder if I will ever see that place again, and although I passed along the main road once or twice when I was on holiday some years later, I never did re-enter HMS Raleigh. The bus took us to Plymouth station where I caught the train to Portsmouth Harbour, to join HMS Vernon for my Part Two Training which was to be TAS.  This was the first time I had to somehow carry a sailors kit bag, which seemed bigger than me! Along with a pussers case, and a grip with a few civvies(plain clothing) in, we had been allowed to bring  these back from Christmas(Chrimbo) leave.

Talking of civvies and going back to my time at Raleigh, my brother Chris was also serving and his ship HMS Achilles visited Plymouth(GUS), and he took me for a drink in the January, I carried my civvies ashore in a plastic bag and got changed on a hill over looking the dockyard, went happily into Plymouth and left my uniform in a bush, and, YES! The uniform was still there, to my amazement on my return later that night,. That day I was asked to leave the Two Trees Public house, because I did not look 18 years of age! Ha Ha! Chris! What were you ever thinking of taking an underage boy into a public drinking house.

 

Next Part Will Come Soon

 

Dickie Drew