Northern Soul for beginers

Baggy Breeks and slippy shoes.

The chance encounter with the amaizing dance skills of Bungy Williams was to change my attitude to going clubbing and I suppose ultimately to my self esteem.

I watched Bungy dance around the mess, he played the music really loud, I really should have told him to turn it down, but I was enjoying it myself.

When the weekend came around Bungy was duty so I was in the mess on my own, the others had all gone off weekend. I put Bungy,s boogie box on and played his Soul music, I felt stupid but I was determined to try and dance, it felt so awkward and I knew in myself it must have looked ridiculous.

On Sunday Bungy returned after handing over his duty, I was still in my cabin when he returned, he asked me If I had played his music, I felt like a child being caught with his fingers in the biscuit tin.

I came clean and told him I had been trying to dance but I had given up as I obviously had no talent. We had a good laugh about it, he said he would teach me if I really wanted to learn, I was quite shy at the situation however I was up for it.

So it began, I started dancing in my stocking feet this was to help me glide across the floor

the next stage was the arm movements, followed by the changes in direction. Composure and style was missing, balance non existent. The next stage was with shoes on, this was difficult at first but Bungy put talc on the floor and then I was away. Bambi on Ice, All this and we hadn't even put the music on.

Next step was to find rhythm and the Fred Astaire attitude that would give me the confidence to dance in public.

It was about this stage that Bungy told me I would have to get new clothes and shoes, well I saw what he wore and there was no way!

I took his advice and decided to get a new" going dancing wardrobe" seeing I didn't have one that wasn't hard. Most of my clothes, like everybody else was bought on tick at Bernards Naval tailors, not always the most up to date and hip fashions.

Bungy came with me into town and I got rigged out, I drew the line at the sequence see through top but I got the baggy trousers and the shoes with no soles, the trousers had reflective thread around the pockets of which there was several all totally useless because they were sewn up. I settled for just a normal T shirt at Bungys disgust.

Next time the bop was on in the camp, I felt shit scared but I had decided I was going to do it, I had never had much success asking girls to dance, being looked up and down and the inevitable "no thanks" was enough to put the dampers on most peoples night out.

Fortunately with this type of dancing interaction with the opposite sex is irrelevant. The music and the dancing were are all that was important.

Well here I was in a far off land, work finished most nights about five but obviously there were evenings when I was duty, this involved just fire rounds at first, i.e.: walking around making sure nothing was going to burn, well lets face it we couldn’t sink in a dry dock.

Sleeping was in the accommodation building were all we had for comfort was a metal bed and a mattress. There was a ruined pool table and a television.
Food was cooked in the accommodation block, were the cooks had never had any master chef
classes, but managed to feed us reasonably well.

Most evening I played squash or went out for a three mile run about Chatham. The highlight of the week was the Pembroke hop, all the local talent would turn up and parade there handbags around the dance floor until they got stuck in a small circle not unlike cowboys and their wagons.

I was mainly an onlooker, and in the early days I would watch intently at the mating stomp of the prowling matelots. They also circled eyeing up and down these young girls and of course some not so young who were all labelled with the unfortunate tag “f troop”, most were hardened boppers some were there just up for free drink and a shag, however there was a just a few who had the misplaced feelings that they would find love.

This ritual lasted for at least an hour and probably about four or five drinks, the more talented and seasoned Casanovas would move in and take the pick of the bunch leaving the scraps for the hyenas that had already had to much to drink or those poor sailors, the usual dregs, who were inflicted with language disorders or leprosy.                                                                                        

I had no experience in this game and usually left early having had to much to drink and having failed in being understood as I slobbered my strange Fife lilt over some poor unsuspecting Kentish babe.

Back at the mess, I walked in on Willy dancing to some very loud Motown music.
He wasn’t perturbed at my entrance and carried on dancing; I could just see his open eyes above his smiling teeth. I was amazed at how he moved across the floor and moved to the music, I remember thinking, now here is a master at his art.

Percy the smuggler

             So much to see,and so much to find

                               SSN HMs/m Courageous in dry dock

 My first visit to Valiant was more than a surprise, the submarine was on blocks sitting on the dock bottom, there was umbillical cables and hoses all along her full length, there were safety nets hanging at the very top as if to provide some level of confidence. The interior of the boat was void of nearly all its fittings, pumps and piping were removed, the decks all covered in plywood. electrical panels missing and cable ends terminating in a snakes wedding.

There were no toilets and only temporary lighting, being caught short was a real danger, thus during my long hours of learning systems and valves, I soon aquired the ability to climb ladders in a single bound, and I also mastered the art of anal retention, unfortunatly I have since lost that skill.

I new she was in refit but never new at what stage, I was soon introduced to a chief who provided me with my next training pack, this was called my part three, it was on completion of this training that I would be presented with my coveted dolphins. The dolphins had to be earned and I found that there were several other new members of the ships company who were at the same stage in there training. This was a god send as the burden of the training was better shared and provided a good situation to find new friends.       

I soon got to know the other members of the ships company, all with their own idiosyncrasies, this made life in those early days very colourful, and not a day went passed without some hysterical situation occurring, to many to remember!

 Valiant was due out of refit the following year, the lack of urgency was a by-product of that knowledge, as the months passed the atmosphere would soon transfer to a feverish state, trying to reach unrealistic milestones getting ready to go back to sea.                                              

The ministry of defence police were on guard at the base gates and they enjoyed nothing more than stopping Jack and searching for illegal contraband i.e: fags. One day they got more than they were looking for when they stopped a sailor off the submarine, they asked him if he had anything in his bag, he replied, he had a snake! The policeman thinking he was trying to smuggle took his bag and put his hand in, yes there was a snake and yes it bit him.

The sailor was asked not to bring his snake in again; he was not prosecuted because he had clearly made it known of the contents of his bag.

The snake was called Percy, when he died he was buried in a snooker cue box, with full naval honours and a good wake to send him on his way.

Valiant had been taken into refit early. An emergency on board had  caused flooding in a very sensitive place; she had made an emergency surface in the middle of a Russian naval exercise, well there's a strange thing.

The Yanks were on hand to provide the necessary assistance to enable less of an international incident than could have happened or would have been exagerated by today’s press.

The dockyard workforce always seemed to be standing around talking, but it was amazing the speed that the engineers managed to put the boat back together, "Meccano" at its most extreme. I soon was able to visually touch things that previously I had to just imagined.