Not much happened there. You go for work parties - tidying up around the barracks, or go do some painting on the reserve fleet in Devonport - that's the ships that are in mothballs.
While in Guzz (the nickname for Devonport) I got a quiet number at Trevol Rifle Range. We lived there and it was a real quiet life - except when someone was shooting off rifles (which wasn't very often). In the afternoon if there wasn't much happening, we used to have a game of cricket. The time there was too short.
I really only have one tale to tell from this time:
After my "holiday" at Trevol was over, I went back to barracks. They were huts, not stone buildings, and they were close to the playing fields, as I remember. There were about 30 of us in each hut - complete with all the mod-cons except really good heat. Our heating source was a pot-bellied stove in the middle of the hut.
We had this one kid, 19 or 20-years-old who always used to get up before anyone else. We could never figure out why, but something didn't feel quite right. No one seemed to remember him actually ever going for a shower - and we all showered every day. So one day, I just went over to his bed when he wasn't there and pulled back the bed cover. I almost wished I hadn't. The blanket and mattress underneath were FILTHY! I can never forget it. So when this kid came back to the hut, he was confronted by three or four guys who told him what they thought of him and threatened him with scrubbing by a hard broom, or be reported - he could take his choice. He chose to be reported. A couple of RPOs (Regulating Petty Officers) took him away with them. The story that got back to us eventually that they made him shower, put him in cells for a couple of days, he saw the Captain, and that was the end of his Naval career.
We could never figure him out. Sailors are pretty clean bunch, as a rule. Working on the old maxim of cleanliness being next to Godliness (and we weren't going to go to heaven), we had to do the next best thing. On board a ship you had to contend with various smells: paint, diesel oil, smoke from cigarettes, people...and if you didn't shower, you would have no real "close" friends. So this habit of showering carried over to the shore establishments.
While in Guzz (the nickname for Devonport) I got a quiet number at Trevol Rifle Range. We lived there and it was a real quiet life - except when someone was shooting off rifles (which wasn't very often). In the afternoon if there wasn't much happening, we used to have a game of cricket. The time there was too short.
I really only have one tale to tell from this time:
After my "holiday" at Trevol was over, I went back to barracks. They were huts, not stone buildings, and they were close to the playing fields, as I remember. There were about 30 of us in each hut - complete with all the mod-cons except really good heat. Our heating source was a pot-bellied stove in the middle of the hut.
We had this one kid, 19 or 20-years-old who always used to get up before anyone else. We could never figure out why, but something didn't feel quite right. No one seemed to remember him actually ever going for a shower - and we all showered every day. So one day, I just went over to his bed when he wasn't there and pulled back the bed cover. I almost wished I hadn't. The blanket and mattress underneath were FILTHY! I can never forget it. So when this kid came back to the hut, he was confronted by three or four guys who told him what they thought of him and threatened him with scrubbing by a hard broom, or be reported - he could take his choice. He chose to be reported. A couple of RPOs (Regulating Petty Officers) took him away with them. The story that got back to us eventually that they made him shower, put him in cells for a couple of days, he saw the Captain, and that was the end of his Naval career.
We could never figure him out. Sailors are pretty clean bunch, as a rule. Working on the old maxim of cleanliness being next to Godliness (and we weren't going to go to heaven), we had to do the next best thing. On board a ship you had to contend with various smells: paint, diesel oil, smoke from cigarettes, people...and if you didn't shower, you would have no real "close" friends. So this habit of showering carried over to the shore establishments.
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