Seawater in the veins

I knew from a very early age that my ancestors for centuries past had connections with the sea.  My father and his father both served their time for pension in the Royal Navy and although earlier generations were not, as far as I was aware, Navy men, I always assumed that they were fishermen.  On my mother's side, her father was a shipwright who worked in the naval dockyard at Chatham but who had also served his time afloat as a ship's carpenter.  His predecessors included Naval officers, dockyard mateys - and the captain of the Isle of Wight ferry.  So it was hardly surprising that,as children, my brother and I considered we had seawater in our veins.

I have always lived within a spit and a jot of salt water.  Not always within sight of the sea, but always pretty close.  I have never measured the distance from our house at Gillingham to the River Medway - not the sea exactly, but tidal and salt - but it must have been less than three miles.  When I was at school in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight I could sit up in bed in the dormitory and look out over the town to the sea.  One of my most vivid memories of the time is seeing a three-masted sailing ship - a tall ship - sailing across the path of the moon.  At Hove we could, if we twisted our necks sufficiently, catch a glimpse of a tiny triangle of sea and here again we were no more than three miles inland.  After I married, the Old Bat and I lived in a flat just a quarter of a mile from the sea.  And now, although once again our house has no sea view, we are no more than three miles distant and can see the sea after walking just a very few minutes.  And so my ambition was to become an officer in the Royal Navy, preferably a navigator.  But it was not to be as my health was not up to it.  Somehow, thought, my brother blagged his way past the selection board and served a short-term (ie five year) commission in the Navy.

Living in Hove, I was not too far away from the headquarters of the Sussex division of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and I eventually joined.  I ended up by being attached to an outfit known as the JSIU - Joint Services Interrogation Unit.  The JSIU had two roles to play: preparing to interrogate prisoners in any future war and training our own forces in anti-interrogation tactics in case they were captured.  Most of the members of the unit - the interrogators - were officers in the RAFVR and were fluent in either German or Russian.  I hasten to add that I was not an interrogator, merely a collator of intelligence gained from the interrogations. The unit was very relaxed as far as formalities were concerned.  No-one wore uniform so there was no saluting and there was no distinction made between the officers and the lower deck (or other ranks, as the Army and RAF would say).

We would undertake about three weekend exercises over the course of a year.  These would involve troops such as the SAS and the Paras being dropped off in a wild area in an escape and evasion exercise while other infantry units were occupied in capturing them.  The prisoners would be brought to a field interrogation centre set up in a disused Army camp and it was here that the members of the JSIU would come into their own.  We would be booked into hotels or guest houses in a convenient town and would be bussed to and fro the eight-hour shifts we worked, starting with the midnight to 8.00am on Saturday and ending at 8.00am on the Sunday.  This way I visited places such as Plymouth, Hereford, Scarborough, Castle Barnard and Catterick.

Many of the techniques used in the interrogation centres have since been banned, although we never did stoop so low as water-boarding.  Prisoners were made to stand on their toes leaning with their fingertips against a wall for considerable periods, hooded the while, and the music room was especially nasty.  This was completely dark and the sound of Big Ben would be played backwards continuously for up to half an hour at a time.

But the highlight of the year was the cocktail party.  This was always held at the hall of one of the London guilds such as Goldsmiths' Hall.  There was only one drink served - a champagne brandy cocktail.  The memory became distinctly hazy after a few of those!

I'm sorry to say that the salt in my blood has become somewhat diluted, but I did try, and I did actually get to sea twice with the real Navy!

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Appropriately enough, I am listening to a CD of the Band of HM Royal Marines, Naval Home Command, Portsmouth, playing the marches of Kenneth Alford, including the famous Colonel Bogey.

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Back in Stanmer Park, this clump of trees always attracts me, winter and summer alike.