Rum, Sodomy & the Lash: 50 Years Since Joining the Mob
I'm taking a temporary personal turn for this post. Bear with me! Back to Blake &c soon: 50 years ago this week, I set off from my home in Coventry, headed for the station, to join the Royal Navy.
50 years ago this week, I set off from my home in Coventry, headed for the train station, to join the Royal Navy. My schoolmate, John Murphy, came with me to the station to see me off, but none of my family came. My mother had run off a few days earlier, taking all the other children with her, leaving me with my deranged and violent stepfather. It was a pleasure to get away from him, that being my main reason for joining. I was 16.
I caught the train to Plymouth, then a Navy Tilly wagon to HMS Fisgard, where I began my training as an Artificer Apprentice, eventually specialising as an avionics engineer (aircraft radio, radar, doppler systems, sonar, etc.) in the Fleet Air Arm. In Naval parlance, a ‘WAFU Tiff Pinkie’.
Eight years later, in 1982, the Navy expelled me on security grounds (“we are not saying that you are a security risk, but we believe that one day, you might be.” Contrary to any rumours you have heard, they have some observant staff in the RN Special Investigations Branch.) I think it was because I had organised ratings to go to Anti-Nazi League demos, which is technically mutiny, though I don’t know for sure. I was given an ‘honourable discharge’, which means they couldn’t pin anything on me.
Here I am, in the photo, with my class of Air Electronics apprentices, second from the left on top.
The symbols on the board Al and Mike are holding are: A = artificer, 75 = 1975, 3 = third, September, entry of the year, R = radio, radar, etc., engineer.
Of my comrades, Stephen Meadows (top left), from Hull, became an international drug smuggler, running a small fleet of boats going from South America into the US. He was caught, spent years in a Latin American jail, before eventually being returned to the UK to serve out the rest of his sentence. Al Cowling (bottom, second from the left), from Peterborough, taught me how and why to fight racism and homophobia, but died very young of cancer of the spine. Mike Oaksford, from Hatfield (bottom, second from the right), was a fellow political refusenik and was also expelled from the military on security grounds (he sold his car to another matelôt, who found a copy of Mao’s little red book under the passenger seat and ratted him out). He went to do a psychology degree at Durham and ended up as the head of department at Birkbeck, specialising in Bayesian logic, before retiring recently.
The others there were legit, and served out their time (20+ years). Paul Stobie (top, right) was a teddy boy when I knew him (hence the greased DA on his head), but ended up as the Captain of his own RN ship iirc. The rest were (top to bottom, l-r) Tim Watkin, Paul Souter and Jock Douglas.
The Navy taught me many things, though few of them were learned in the many leadership courses and training sessions I did.
In summary: two communists, a teddy boy, an international drugs smuggler and a martyr - not bad for a class of eight.
Later, as a civilian, I go to debate the former head of NATO armed forces, General Sir Anthony Heritage Farrar-Hockley, GBE, KCB, DSO & Bar, MC, on military matters. He was better decorated.
I still don’t salute the flag much.
12 years down the line and Mr Cowling is sporting a fine Beatles Mop Top
That's a fantastic clip.