Don't Worry Sir, It's Only Pain

By Richard Alexander

My book is about five years of my life, serving in the Royal Navy between 1965 and 1970 and travelling the world. 

It is full of travel experiences, often outlandish and funny stories, humour and wry observations of life in the Navy and in general.

It is designed for a universal rather than a military audience and is intended to

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Alexander
• Release date: Nov 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781805412618

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Copyright © 2023 by Richard Alexander

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

Introduction: In Dreams

When I reached the tender age of 17, I began to think about what I would do as a man after sixth form. My school had very narrow career options to advise upon, and if it was not teaching, the priesthood or going to university, the school had little else to offer.

None of these things really appealed, but I went through a stage of seeking a placement in automobile engineering with Jaguar and was accepted. However, this meant three years at university before becoming hands-on. Friends suggested a career in banking or the police, but neither really excited me.

In the North of England in those days, many people only had a basic education and left school to work in the woollen mills, coal mines or factories in the locality. I had worked in a mill as a student in my summer holidays, and even after eight weeks, the repetitive work drove me crazy. People without much education had to go down this path, then they usually met a girl, started dating, got her pregnant and ended up in a rented house with children for the rest of their days. I knew this was not for me.

Sitting in the school classroom, bored stiff with lectures in pure maths or physics, I used to look out of the window and dream about what was over the next hill and the one after that. I simply knew I had to escape to a new life away from my current surroundings.

I had a sudden thought that I would join the Navy to see the world, as the song goes, so that’s exactly what I did.

Dedication

We are the Pilgrims, master, we shall go

Always a little further it may be

Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow

Across that angry or that glimmering sea

We travel not for trafficking alone,

By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned,

For lust of knowing what should not be known,

We take the Golden road to Samarkand

—James Elroy Flecker

So we’ll go no more a roving,

For the sword outwears its sheath

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

—Lord Byron

Contents

1.To a New Life

2.The College and Early Activities

3.Where Do Recruits Come From?

4.Training Outside College

5.The Dartmouth Training Squadron

6.HMS Wasperton – Fishery Protection

7.HMS Hermes – Aircraft Carrier

8.HMS Maryton – Westabout Singapore to Portsmouth

9.HMS Wilkieston – Singapore and Hong Kong

10.HMS Wilkieston – Singapore to Fiji Eastabout

11.HMS Wilkieston – Fiji to Portsmouth Eastabout

12.Gibraltar

13.Ton Class Minesweeper – Data Sheet

14.The Royal Navy Field Gun Competition

Landmarks

Cover

1

To a New Life

It was late September 1965, and my new life was about to begin. After three days of selection trials in Portsmouth, I had been accepted into the Britannia Royal Naval College for Officer Training in the Royal Navy. To be honest, I didn’t know a great deal about the Navy other than having read some books about Nelson and other early maritime explorers such as Captain Cook. But I knew it would offer me travel and adventure if nothing else, and that really appealed. I also knew that 40% of successful candidates for the Naval College would fail to complete the first year and pass out successfully; I just hoped I would not be one of them.

My new life started on a bright September morning which somehow contrived to make the drab town of Dewsbury, the place of my birth, look vaguely presentable. I was the eldest child and the first to leave home, smartly dressed with a fresh haircut and my bag packed. Dad shook my hand and wished me well in a manly but slightly dewy-eyed way. My mother was weeping uncontrollably as only mothers can, clutching her pinafore and thinking she may never see me again. She had every right to think that because my father was in the Navy during the Second World War, and his landing craft was blown up on the beach at Anzio when he was elsewhere. It was assumed he was missing in action and presumed dead, so the dreaded telegram found its way to the next of kin. In the fog and confusion of war, three weeks later, he arrived home and knocked on the door only to find the family thought he was a ghost!

The wrench of departure is always sad but inevitable, out of the door into the taxi, last farewells, look straight ahead and think positive.

I took the local train to Leeds, looking out at all the grimy old Victorian mills with their drab, dirty stonework, dark slate roofs and the twenty or so mill chimneys belching out smoke and pollution. Little Victorian terraced houses ran alongside the railway with their scruffy little backyards full of junk. I thought there had to be a better life and a better place to live, and I was determined to find it.

I boarded the fast train to London from the old Victorian Leeds station and settled down to watch the world go by. Wakefield and Doncaster, with their coalmines and spoil heaps, gave way to Sheffield with its steel industry, blast furnaces and cooling towers. Eventually, all this industry gave way to a gentler landscape, softer and more agricultural, with winding rivers and canals in the vicinity of Newark and Peterborough.

After a couple of hours, the train rolled into the suburbs of London. It terminated in Kings Cross, whereupon I negotiated the London underground to find my way to Paddington station, heading west. The Naval College was situated in Dartmouth, Devon, around 270 miles from my home in the north.

The train rumbled on through the leafy suburbs of outer London and into the beautiful countryside. People had nice houses, well-tended gardens and often apple and other fruit trees. There was an air of prosperity and riches, such a contrast with the grimy north. It seemed to me that far more government money was spent in the south of the country as opposed to the north.

There appeared to be quite a few other young men on the train who looked as if they were heading for the same destination but were lost in their own thoughts.

In the late afternoon, the train rolled into Kingswear station, and the town of Dartmouth could be seen across the river. The Naval College stood on the top of the hill, looking imposing and magnificent.

On arrival, we were greeted outside the station by a group of very smart and fit-looking Royal Marines who bundled us and our luggage into the back of a three-tonne truck and deposited us outside the college. From now on, everything was done at the double: shared cabins were allocated, kit and uniforms issued, and the next day’s programme, commencing at 0530, was outlined.

Yes, I had certainly joined the military!!

2

The College and Early Activities

The Naval College is a strikingly beautiful building situated atop a hill overlooking Dartmouth, the Dart Estuary and the sea beyond. I shared a cabin with a fellow cadet at the front of the building and never tired of this magnificent view. Externally, a parade ground fronted the building, and extensive annexes and teaching areas were set in delightful grounds. Access to the river and the boats was via the Sandquay steps, all 320 of them!

The inside