The Freedom Years

One of the most intense times of my Naval Career was the day I was 'volunteered' by my Divisional Officer to take part in the annual 'Exercise' involving the elite SBS and Royal Marines, plus local emergency services and police. It was one of those times where you did all you could to get out of camp before it started or else you were stuck there, having to carry a gas mask around with you while doing things like fighting pretend fires, evacuating from pretend bombs and running messages around for Officers in charge. If, like me and my colleague Alison, you had to take part, you were allocated a task. Ours was to go to a small store room half way up the cliffs of Portland, within the Naval Base, with our Burberry Mac and Respirator (Gas Mask) and wait for instructions. We went and waited. After a few minutes we heard shouting and people running up the road. Two men in black, wearing balaclava's and carrying guns came around the corner, shouted "Get Your Hand...

When I joined the Navy I joined up as an Air Engineering Mechanic (AEM). This was due to 'apparently' having a high score in the technical section of my aptitude test. My original choice was to be a driver or photographer. I was unable to do photography from initial training as it was one of those categories that you had to 're-cat' to after serving a few years. For the first six years of my service I trained as an AEM, worked on air stations and generally did a good job. I say 'good' because I certainly wasn't a natural at solving technical problems and being a tractor driver meant I spent a lot of time doing other things. I did what I was asked and to the best of my ability - although my wire locking was pretty high quality! Around the five year mark I started to think about changing my job. I was working at HMS Daedalus in the training school and knew a couple of Wrens who worked as Education and Training Support Assistants. Their job was to design...

In the armed forces you meet lots of people. You have to get on with everyone as best you can and work as a well oiled machine. It would be rare for someone to join up with a friend from home, so when you join you are on your own - just like everyone else so you make friends pretty quick. Within a couple of days at HMS Dauntless I had made several friends. By the end of the five weeks basic training I left with three very good friends. Six months later when I'd completed my engineering training I had two very special friends, who remained so for many years until we all left the Navy, married and went our own ways. Recently I 'found' one of them again. Not that I'd lost her but we just hadn't been in touch for a long while. We chatted for a couple of hours on the phone, emailed and texted, remembering all the times we had spent together, good and bad. This was Mo. I'm still looking for Pam - the third member. Pam was older than us by 4 years, although she...

The Fleet Air Arm of the 1980's used yellow tractors to carry out a variety of jobs on air bases, such as moving aircraft around, collecting parts and stores and towing the 'Houchin' used to start the aircraft to save the internal battery. Because there was a lot of responsibility when towing around large lumps of metal costing huge sums of money not everyone was able to do this job. On each squadron there would be several tractor drivers, at least one per watch. I was on my first squadron - 771 Search and Rescue at RNAS Culdrose when I was told I had to report to the Aircraft Handling section for tractor training. At the time I didn't drive a car, although I had done some driving with my Dad just before joining up so it was a little scary coming to terms with dual gears and big bouncy tyres. I spent a few days practicing driving in different conditions, round bollards and at different speeds before starting to use the towing arm which was then attached to an old Wes...