Choice's, Choice's.

Type 21 Frigate

I joined my next class of trainees and continued through my training at Collingwood, it wasn’t long before I had finished this phase of my training and looking forward to joining my first ship.
The navy at the time was in a transition period and all the new ships being built were much smaller and they were powered and driven by gas turbines this was the class 21 frigate. One day as part of my training we had an away day trip to the Dockyard at Portsmouth we had the opportunity to have a look around one, HMS Active she was very modern and I thought “yes this would do me very nicely thank you, unfortunately picking where you wanted to go was not quite that easy.
It was only a few days later that we were all instructed on how to fill in a Drafting Preference Card, not so simple. This was provided we were told, to provide the navy with the information that they could use to ensure that sailors were, as much as could be possibly guaranteed a choice in there own future. The form was simple enough!
“What naval port do you want? What type of ship do you want? However the form then became like a bookies slip, give your preference in order of preference, is the port more important than the ship? Give your type of ship preference; if your preference of ship is deploying to a foreign port is this more important? The form was well presented and on completion, you had provided enough information for them to put you were they liked! It made you feel that you had been given the choice.
I waited with baited breath to find what square hole they were going to put this round peg in.
Eventually the day came when we were all given our sealed envelopes. There had been lots of hype about the outcome of our Christmas lists and many were expecting to get there dream, that was, to be drafted to the ship they wanted and the port they wanted. I had asked for the new type 21 frigate running from Portsmouth, they gave me Portsmouth which was fine, and they gave me HMS Glamorgan a county Class Destroyer.

HMS GLAMORGAN

I was ignorant of what type of ship she was so I thought that will do me I suppose. Others got there dream but some trainees got the equivalent of a car ferry running from Largs, there was some tears.