Having enjoyed a couple of weeks leave, I was moved around, to a couple of different ships, but I was also looking for someone to share my life with, I was getting older, and when on board ship, and the mail arrived on board, I was lucky if I got one letter in a fortnight, usually from mother, telling me how my sister was growing, and that everything was well at home. In the Navy, every month we would get a paper delivered to the messes, it was called The Navy News, it's still going strong, I do see it in Smiths and other paper shops. Anyway, inside the back page was a small set of adds, from girls looking for sailor to write to, and I saw this one girl who I kind of thought would do for me, we started to correspond with each other, and I found out her name was Elizabeth, she lived in Leamington Spa with her mother and father, an only child and was very happy to write to me. After some time, we agreed to meet, but the meeting did not go down too well, she took me home to meet mum and dad, and I more or less got the third degree, the mother was, to say the least very ala snoot, father was a little better, and I took to him quicker than her, in fact, to be honest, I never liked her, she was overbearing and a bit of a bully not only to her husband, but her daughter as well, so to be honest, I started to date Elizabeth, we would meet up at weekends, and would write to each other a couple of times a week, which was good. I in the meantime had passed my exams for Leading Seaman and was sent to my next ship, H.M.S.Leopard, I was still young, in fact, I learned a few years down the line, that I was the youngest Leading Seaman in the R.N. all bar ten minutes, someone had been rated up ten minutes before me. I joined my new ship as a Christmas Tree Killick, a hook on my arm, but no badges to go with it, in other words, Leading Seaman Palmer had not even done four years in the Royal Navy, and he was now telling others how to live and run there lives, and when you are living in a mess with up to 30 guys, and you're in charge, life is hard. Once onboard, I was put on watchkeeping duties, this means looking after the gangway in harbour, and steering the ship at sea, which I loved, in fact, I loved being a watchkeeper, 24 hours on duty, and 24 hours off, you always knew where you were 24/7 life was good, I also had some very good senior Able Seamen in the mess, who did what they could to help me keep discipline, by when I gave them an order, they carried it out without question so that the younger guys in the mess realised that they had to do the same, so in my mess, life was very good and we all got along. The other job they gave me on board was in the gunnery director, I was put in the aimers seat, the director consisted of three people, the director officer, he was in total charge, the aimer who looked through a binocular site and trained the director left and right, and the layer, who trained the director up and down, his jobe came into its own when looking at aircraft, he had to follow each aircraft across the sky, once the director had the so called target, the director officer would say something like. "Director on." he would then press a trigger, and the guns would train onto the target that the director was trained on, then the guns would fire. The problem was, the director aimer, yours truly, was a bit, as they say, gun shy, every time the gun fired, I would close my eyes, which meant we could lose the target. After a lot of discussions and a meeting with the Jimmy, it was decided that Leading Seaman Palmer was not best placed in the director, and a new position be found for him, so It was decided that I would be 275 site operator, this was a very special pair of binoculars in a housing above the bridge, and with the help of two 274 sites either side of the back of the bridge the idea was to look for aircraft or enemy shipping. If the 274 sites picked it up, he had a trigger, that was connected to the 275 site so that then moved to the target, once the 275 site had identified the target, he pressed his trigger and the director did the rest, once the guns started to fire, it didn't matter if your's truly closed his eyes, the job had been done. Next to the 274 sites, we had three inch rockets, they were set into there launchers, three facing slightly aft, three facing slightly forward, and two facing away from the ship. With my crew of four and myself, the aim was to be able to load these rockets in less than three minutes, both sides, and with a lot of practice and planning we eventually got it down to one minute fifty, the gunnery officer was over the moon, and even though we did try, we were never able to beat that time.
H.M.S. Leopard was sent to the Far East, we were away from England for nine months, but no one worried, we were doing a job, and enjoying it. We had a fantastic Jimmy on board, however, the skipper was a different kettle of fish, he would spend his time either in his cabin, or on the bridge, and when it came to the crew, as long as the ship was clean and ship shape, he didn't care a jot. In the Navy we had what was called a make and mend, in the old navy, this was a time set aside to make and mend clothes, I am talking Nelson's navy, the modern navy, it was a time to either get your head down for an hour or two, play cards in the mess, or if you had a hobby, then get on and do that. Not, however, on the Leopard, if there was a so called make and mend, it was a case of paint ship, clean the brass work, or something else, this captain felt, that sailors should not be idle. The Jimmy would do his very best to make life easy for the crew, he would go around the ship saying things like ok lads take ten, have a cup of tea, then he would come into the mess and tell us to sit tight, then ask the Leading Hands to grab a couple of the duty guys to put stuff away before the workday finished, we soon caught on to his game, and it worked very well, and we loved him for looking after us in this way.
One day, we were at sea, we were doing a big exercise with other ships in the Far East, we had an Admiral on board, and he was watching how the ship worked, one afternoon, a few of us, all Leading hands were sat on the upper deck when the Admiral came and made to talk to us, but he was accompanied by the skippers snitch, a young midshipman who was there to listen and take back what was said to the skipper and by whom and of coarse we all were aware, that once the Admiral had departed, the sailor who had spoken out would have been dealt with very severely. So when the Admiral came to talk to us we all clammed up, though I did say to the guys with me, and to the Admiral who was sat listening. "Trouble we have on this ship sir, the bulkheads are so thin, you can hear a pin drop in the paint shop, and it can be heard in the stoker's mess." as I was saying it, I was looking at the Midshipman, the Admiral caught on straight away and asked the Midshipman to leave, to go to his cabin and would be called for when needed. And that was a direct order. The midshipman with head bowed slouched away, giving us time to let the Admiral really know what was going on onboard, within ten minutes he had the full story, and he didn't seem best pleased. He asked us how we could prove our comments, and we all said, get the ship ready to do a tow, and see how the crew react.
A tow is where you help a ship in distress and try and tow it into the nearest port., they get some of there anchor cable ready, then the towing ship sends over a line and the towing ship pulls in the line that is attached to ropes, every rope thicker than the last, in the end, you pull over the anchor cable and attach it to a quick release hook on the stern if your own ship. So the crew of the Leopard did the tow, and normally when pulling in heavy ropes, the ship's company will chant, or in some cases sing a song to get the job done, Not on the Leopard, the pull was done in complete silence, the Admiral was on the deckhouse watching, the Jimmy was doing his best to chivvy the lads along, but they were so used to work being something not enjoyed any more, they did it in there sleep. The Admiral demanded to know where the captain was and was told he was on the bridge, he then sent the Jimmy to the bridge to take over and the captain to get down onto the upper deck, with the captain and the Admiral together, the captain said, just the once. "Come on lads, step it down." but it did no good, the damage was already done, this captain was not liked by the crew, and anything he had to say, went over the heads of those who had to listen. Back in Singapore, we were sent to Hong Kong for a spot of rest and relaxation, the skipper had been told to let the crew have as much time off as possible, and if he tried to stop leave, It would be known and it would be dealt with. The skipper was just as bad, even there he did his best to restrict leave to each watch, making out that the ship had to be spotless before shore leave was granted, by the time the two weeks were over, the whole crew were glad to be at sea again, we sailed back to Singapore, where we stored ship, took on fuel and then headed back to the U.K via Mombassa. We were at anchor, and I had the afternoon watch, as always I checked the log and saw nothing untoward, so did the duty, at around four in the afternoon, I saw this boat coming out to the ship, it stopped at the gangway ladder and this woman and man stepped onto the ladder and walked up, as the woman stepped over onto the deck, the beach wrap she was wearing opened, and what I saw was a body to die for, the man with her introduced himself as Commander King, while all this was going on the officer of the day came to the gangway and took both people away.
The following morning, lower deck was cleared and the ships company had to muster on the forecastle the man I had met the day before was now with the Jimmy, he then stood on the captain looking at us all, then the Jimmy spoke. "Ships company ho, ships company about turn." we all turned to face the ships bow. "Ships company about turn, stand at ease." then the chief engineer started the captain, which slowly turned, once it had stopped so that the new skipper was facing his new crew it stopped and he with the Jimmy's help stepped down, then he spoke. "I am your new Commanding Officer, My name is King, now I have seen round you, some I may say need hair cuts, you have seen round me, I am new to this, having been sat behind a desk for the last three years, but I know, looking at you men, I feel I can trust you to help me make this ship work, and work well, Those that saw me yesterday with my girlfriend, can." he smiled. " keep your hands off, she is spoken for and she loves me, well so she says, we plan to get married when the ship gets back to England, and with your help, I hope we can get back in one piece. One last thing, for those mot on duty today, leave starts at midday. We stayed in Mombassa for about three weeks, the last week there we were tied up alongside the depot ship H.M.S Triumph, she providing food and stores. On the day we had to sail, everyone on board was nervous, this skipper had been behind a desk for years, how was he when it came to ships, and we soon found out, as we made to leave Triumph, we slid along side her, taking out guardrails and removing paint, nothing we couldn't fix ourselves, and happy that under a captain that we were beginning to take to were happy to let it be forgotten, anyway we were heading back to England.
During this nine month stint, Liz and I had been writing to each other regularly, and things were getting serious between us, ok she was not the best looking girl on the block, but I was happy, I had someone to write too, and someone to come home to, and that sort of made up for looks, thought the lads on board looked on her as the beached whale, and that became her nick name in the mess. Once back in England, I told Liz that I had two weeks leave, and I wanted to come and see her, he mother agreed reluctantly to let me stay at there home, but we were warned, any hank panky and I would be asked to leave, so Liz and I spent a lot of time at the local cinema where she let my fingers wander, and we spent a lot of time in the local park, at night in a sort of seating area enclosed on three sides and open on the fourth, the seats went right around, and liz and I would sit to one side so that we could not be seen from the outside. We only made love the once before we were married, as she said, we need to see if everything fits, she told me she was not a vergin, and yet she was, some young fly boy had as she said broken her in with his finger, there was blood everywhere, which took a lot of explaining to her mother, who had to wash her underpants, so when we made love, it was to really let her know she was a woman, and I did take precations, A sailor is always ready. We almost got caught, by mother, they had gone out to visit family, and got home, just as we were getting dressed, when mother came upstairs and walked into the bedroom, I was laid on the bed and Liz was sat next to me, we were talking about getting engaged, but mother wanted to know why her daughters cheeks were so red. The following day, I took father into the garden with our cups of morning coffee and asked for his daughters hand in marriage, and he shook my hand and said. Of coarse my boy." That afternoon, we went into Leamington Spa and chose a ring, and I said to Liz, "Once this ring is on your finger, you are spoken for." she allowed me to place the ring on her finger, and kissed me.
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