The Freedom Years

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...

During Basic Engineering Training at HMS Daedalus, Lee on the Solent, Hampshire (Nov 1981) we were required to go on 'Exped' to Bathesda in North Wales. It was all part of the team building/endurance and character building hoops we had to jump through. Had I known about this earlier I could have postponed joining up so that MY 'exped' fell in one of the warmer months of the year. However, November was possibly better than January so hey ho. Our class went off along with a class of 'Tiffs' on a rickety Pussers Bus. We didn't know any of the 'Tiffs' (Artificers) so had plenty of time to get the usual banter going and make new friends. There were just two of us Wrens, my best fried Pam and I and we suffered the sexist jokes in good humour, insisting that no way would we be doing all the cooking and cleaning! Our home for the week was a 'cosy' little stone cottage. By 'cosy' I mean it had a roof, four walls and a fireplace. Downsta...

Sometime in November we would be asked for volunteers to work over the Christmas leave period - known as Christmas Retard. Obviously being a Royal Naval establishment they couldn't just shut it down and send everyone home so someone had to stay behind. Draw the short straw maybe? I always volunteered for retard duty because as I saw it, you got two holidays. While everyone else was at home enjoying themselves (and it was almost everyone) those of us left behind would be doing rounds and odd jobs, but basically having an easy time compared to normal duty. There were two watches, port and starboard one was on while the other was off. So if you worked it out well with a few mates you could have a pretty good time over Christmas, spending a lot of it in a local pub or camp bar. Once the rest of the camp came back, we would be allowed to go off on our holiday - so a win win situation really. One year in particular while at HMS Daedalus, I remember walking around the training blocks...

Back in July 1985 while working at HMS Daedalus Practical Aircraft Training Section (PATS) I was given the opportunity to do something that was extremely unusual for a Wren in those days. I was asked to travel up to Newcastle to escort the Fairey Swordfish that we had in our hangar as a display for all sorts of occasions like Air Day and Trafalgar Day. The Swordfish had been the first aircraft to fly from an aircraft carrier and they wanted to have ours plus a Sea Harrier on display on the flight deck of the soon to be HMS Ark Royal built by Swan Hunter in Wallsend. The ship was to spend five days at sea doing sea trials on her way down to be handed over to the Navy in Portsmouth. The fact that it wasn't actually a commissioned ship meant that we were allowed to sail on her. So Shirley and I set off by train to Newcastle to have some sea time. We were met at the station by a tilly (mini bus) and taken to a guest house in Whitley Bay (which is still there by the way) where we we...

I've never been one to let the fact that I don't know anyone or what to expect hold me back. One of the perks of being an only child I suppose, you have no choice but to go out there alone and my parents certainly weren't the mollycoddling type. So being on a bus full of total strangers from all corners of the UK didn't bother me much. I was the kid who went off and found an adoptive family to hang around with when on holiday rather than play on my own. These girls became my adoptive family on June 1st 1981 as we drove through HMS Dauntless main gate. Dreary. That's what it looked like to me. In desperate need of modernisation. At the time I was unaware that come the end of 1981 the camp would be decommissioned and basic training would be moved to Plymouth alongside the lads. I have searched for a photo of the camp online but can't find one anywhere that shows just how much it resembled a wartime camp. Around twelve single story wooden huts in 'H' shapes...