A Night at the Opera.

It was 1975, Queen were at No1 with the vinyl single Bohemia Rhapsody, President Ford was trying to regain public respect after “tricky dickey’s” Vietnam nightmare and his demise in the Watergate cover-ups. The Cold War was being hyphenated by SALT agreements and Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister to the disbelief of the Labour Party.
Smellys of the year were Old spice, Charlie and Brute, Curley perms were the in hair fashion for men and just imagine how sleazy they looked in the, in fashion, garish, lounge suits.

Der-dum, der-dum, der-dum-dum-dum-dum, make a guess at the movie of the year? Television had a manic hotelier demonstrating how not to run a hotel, “Fawlty towers”. And in even lighter entertainment, a man with a cigar was making children's dreams come true. Yes! “Jim L’ fix it”.
“Bob Marley and the Wailers” raised the profile of the devoted Rastafarian and paved the way for a reggae explosion in Britain. The Beatles officially dissolved their partnership in 1975.
Children’s toy of the year was, “The basic Lego Set”.

I joined HMS Collingwood for professional training; this was going to be my “bread and butter” for the rest of my naval career, no different to going to college really but with the added interest of being paid and learning how to kill a man in unarmed combat.
Duties were more often and even more tedious, picking up litter in given area’s, standing on street corners and noting which classes were misbehaving while marching and the best one was the fire duty.
When you were fire duty you got to sleep rough in a designated building, go to the front of the dinner queue and if required run what in effect could have been anything up to a mile with a tin hat pushing a heavy trailer full of axes buckets and spades and hose reels.
There were some other duties, which all included cleaning or carrying out ceremonials, like raising and lowering the flags and opening and shutting gates but none were sought after. The further through the training, the less duties you got unless you had been found guilty of certain misdemeanours and in these cases you got shit loads of duties, one of which was getting caught trying to get your leg over on the camp, I hasten to add there was a WREN division at Collingwood, this was one misdemeanour that was popular but the Camp Captains daughters were definitely off limits.

Training began with the absolute basics, ohms law and all the other physics associated with the movement of atoms and collection of charges. I never did physics at school so it was all new and I found it all interesting.

AC followed DC theory, then motors, generators and switchgear, class work was interesting and the instructors even more so. Some instructors were young and keen others old knowlegable and humerous the mix was good.

We marched between school and every other instruction and in the usual manner voices would come from hidden places and windows "take charge of that class, class leader, get in step, bring that class to halt report to me."

Nothing different to HMS Raleigh but now we had to worry about misdemeanours!

The Bumpton Fire Department was alive and kicking.

Admiral Lord Collingwood

HMS Royal Sovereign

HMS Collingwood was calling, and part two of my initial training, this is where I found out I was going to be called a greenie! Nothing to do with my night of passion at Kinghorn, no, greenie was the old and colourful name given to Electrical Engineers because they were recognised by a thin green line on their sleeve. This was the tradition with other branches of the navy as well, only the medical branch carried on the tradition in today’s navy, but for some reason they were never called redies.

HMS Collingwood is coveted in naval tradition, the fourth and last in a long line of ships named after Admiral Lord Collingwood; he had a long and distinguished career in the Napoleonic period of naval history and was second in command to Nelson at Trafalgar, flying his flag in HMS Royal Sovereign he was the first to engage the enemy fleet during the battle. Nelson and Collingwood were great friends throughout their careers.

After Trafalgar he was in charge of a massive fleet in the Mediterranean, blockading both the Spanish and French fleets and slowly draining Napoleon’s resources and his ability to wage war.

The camp had a history as well:

HMS Collingwood was built as a new entry training establishment for "hostilities only' ratings of the Seaman Branch. It was built on wet and boggy corn land in the 1940’s.

HMS COLLINGWOOD was under the Command of a Commodore; training began a week later commisioning, with batches of about 1000 trainees joining every 3 weeks for a 10-week course. In 1946 the Electrical branch was formed and HMS COLLINGWOOD took over from HMS VERNON and other establishments for the training of officers and ratings, except those of the Fleet Air Arm, in the maintenance of all electrical and radio equipment in the Fleet.
Subsequently, the Branch assumed additional responsibility for weapons and became known as the Weapon and Radio Branch and later, the Weapon and Electrical Engineering Branch. In 1979, as a result of the restructuring of the whole Engineering Branch, it became the Weapon Engineering Sub-Branch, passing Electrical Generation and Distribution to the Marine Engineering Sub-Branch.
In 1963 a programme was put in hand to replace, over a period of 25 years, all the original huts with new buildings and modern facilities. Tall 60's-style Junior Ratings' Accommodation Blocks were opened by HRH The Princess Margaret in 1966.

Where do I come in, In 1975, after my first leave. My official title was now Junior Electrical Mechanic Second Class, they couldn’t go any lower than that, but I was pleased to know I now had a place on the career ladder.HMS Collingwood had the biggest parade ground in Europe and even though I was now entering the professional part of my training, I was later to find out that I was going to do a few miles marching around it.

The Hound of the Baskerville

The evening was enjoyable several beers a Chinky then home to bed, I never seen my parents until the next day, it was as if I had never been away. I was reminded several times about my use of expletives by my dad, and told to turn my music down and stop banging doors by my mum.
My Dad said he understood that it was hard to get out of the habit of barrack room talking.
Weegies say fuck without pausing for breath, they say it in between every second word and it is generally followed by shit or some other expletive. I think people swear to create a masculine identity, I also believe expletives carry connotations of lower classes and lower economic standing. So it was understandable that after nearly four months with the "Tourette Syndrome Clan", that I had found a new way of describing everything. They would probably describe Fifers in exactly the same way!
I had a fortnight, lots of money and I just wanted to party, the only problem I had was that most of my friends were unemployed, fixed up or skint, there was an apathy setting in on them which surprised me. I noticed they bought drinks singularly and they lasted long after the fizz had gone. Even still, conversation was lively and humorous; we talked about most things, we put the world to rights and of course argued about footy.
Most of my leave was spent sitting in front of the telly at home with my Dad working shifts and My Mum at the Pub. Family social interaction was non-existent.
Friday night came round quickly, and it was off to Kinghorn for a few bevies in the Ship tavern and later to the Cuinzie Neuk to listen to a live band. I ended the night getting a lumber, well It was to help my friend Alan Hunter out.
There was two girls, Weegies of course! Alan begged me to go with the ugly one, just so he could get his leg over, of course I obliged, we set off for the caravan sight, via the back door of the COOP bakery I always need to eat after a few drinks and after all it was late and I needed something to occupy myself on the long walk to the caravan sight with the hound of the Baskervills, It was going to be energy sapping.
No need to go into details but I ended up more than energy sapped and Hunter begged me to tell our friends that he was a real stud.
I got home just in time for breakfast, my Mum was very annoyed that I had stayed out all night. She didn’t believe I had been playing football and I suppose the love bites were a bit of a give away.
Nothing else really happened on that leave, other than the Hound of Baskerville came looking for her knickers that I had taken as a trophy, it was an embarrassing scene, I told her it must have been Hunter because he was that way inclined.
I have never seen him again since that night.

THE HOUND

Eight stone of kit bag

The journey back to Scotland and Burntisland was longer than the journey down; the train seemed to stop everywhere! I was returning to what I was expecting to be a great welcome home, after all I had been away for months.
I was full of banter with the people I was meeting on the journey, I wanted everyone to know what I was, what I had experienced, what I was going to do.
The journey passed quite quickly, I suppose, helped along by a few tins of beer, well maybe more than a few.
On arriving home the smell in the air seemed different, and the wind was blowing, there was no one to meet me but I didn’t expect there to be really, it would have been nice all the same.
The time taken from the station to the house would have been covered in record time, but I was hindered by my Pussers green suitcase and eight stone of kitbag, to anyone watching it must have looked amusing.
I arrived to an empty house and an empty high street, my parents were both working, it was now early evening and I knew that the local “Palace de dance” would open around eight o’ Clock, I was desperate to meet up with my old school friends.

I dressed appropriately for a Saturday evening on the town.
The night club hadn’t changed in forty years and the original bouncers were still at the door, I was well known in the town and having a mother as a bar maid in a local pub was as good as a golden handshake to get in.
On this occasion, however, sods law, I was stopped, the bouncer, who I knew well, didn’t recognise me, the naval skinhead haircut didn’t help, it was near the point of no admission when I reminded him who my mother was and he remembered me and with a cuff round the back of the head I was in.
I set about looking for my friends, most of whom had left school at sixteen just like me.
They were all there in the various groups some were glad to see me, I got the usual comments, in what was lovely to hear, spoken in a fife slang, “your talking Weegie, have you been away then, how much do you get paid”.
It was nice to be home, I never stopped blethering, and by the end of the evening I felt that I had dusted out the foreign language and had reverted to being a Fifer.