Tuesday 29 April 2008

"Brown Hatter's overalls"





That night ... by Telzey

My first night aboard was eventful, embarrassing really, having arrived in my mess deck "3P", the letter denotes how far aft you are on the ship and the number is the deck level down from the upper deck. The mess was relatively comfortable but compact, there were men sat in the mess square drinking and playing cards. I was welcomed in as a new member and told this was the greenies mess, I was shown to my bunk and told that I would have to live out of my Kit bag for a while as there was no lockers available.
Naval tradition ensured that everyone was in bed by a certain time, “lights out” or “Pipe down” after which only watch keepers would be found wandering the ship. When that time came I opened my kitbag and pulled out my Pyjamas, my mum had insisted I take them, they had been my fathers, "made of good Irish linen and almost brand new",! she had said.





My first mistake, pyjamas were alien to me anyway so I think it was the thought of walking to my bed in my underpants in front of strangers, but then again it wasn't as if it was the first time since I had joined the navy. I entered the mess square and approached my bunk, the ambient noise of sailors talking stopped and I became aware of the sound of a running ventilation fan next to where I was going to be sleeping. I turned to get into my bed when the mess erupted in laughter. “Brown hatters overalls and Oh my god what are they sending to sea now a days” were among many other jovial abusive remarks that I had to incur

I learnt a good life lesson that night and never ever wore "brown hatters overalls again. ”Thanks mum”, no wonder they were almost brand new. “ Thanks Dad”, you must have known what would happen.

I had the middle bunk, of three high, sixty people sleeping in an area not much bigger than an average living room. The ship had several such messes , usually each different branch ie: electrical ratings would share a mess along side electrical ratings. Stokers would share with stokers and so on. The higher ranked ratings would get better accommodation and officers would sleep in the wardroom annex. This was up in the superstructure of the ship. The ship was outfitted for a flag rank officer and his accommodation was sumptuous in comparison to the rest, he even had a small annex for his own bath.












HMS Glamorgan was a fine ship and my first job on her was "a lamp tramp” I spent all day every day changing light bulbs. However when we sailed for the first time I had other duties to perform.

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