Under Pressure. Richard Humphreys
sea whose bark was worse than his bite, and he used the word ‘boning’ a lot. At first I thought he must have been a butcher in a previous life, but it soon became clear he was talking about the opposite sex – he could have given Roy Chubby Brown a run for his money. And then one day Jenkins vanished from our course and wasn’t seen again. I never discovered what happened – maybe the Navy found out he was a sexual deviant and had him put in rehab or a straitjacket. He was replaced by another officer, CPO Williams, on what was to be his last posting before he retired. Supportive and occasionally encouraging, he was confident enough to let other training departments do the shouting.
Basic military training is pretty consistent across the armed forces: 11 weeks of ‘militarisation’ to instil a sense of discipline, teamwork and organisation, with a focus on weapons training, firefighting, swimming and damage control. You’ve got to be fit, as there are obstacle courses, long runs and gym sessions, including gymnastics and rope-climbing. Although I absolutely hated gymnastics, the one sport I’d been hopeless at while at school, being quite unable to reverse-somersault over the pommel-horse, I was brilliant at rope-climbing; I could get up a rope in around six to seven seconds, which took some doing.
Part of our training involved a trip to Dartmoor, a long weekend in the middle of nowhere with a compass, food and tent, trying to get to various rendezvous points within a certain amount of time. As ever when I ventured outdoors, the heavens opened with monsoonal fury, and we spent most of the weekend soaking wet, cold and hungry. One guy got pneumonia and ended up in hospital for a month. Most of the weekend, John – probably my closest mate in the squad – and I kept seeing what we believed were shadowy figures, which flicked in and out of our peripheral vision. Everyone thought we were going loopy through lack of sleep and hunger, hallucinating even. We were later told that members of the SAS had been shadowing our movements all weekend for training purposes.
I soon picked up the fundamentals of life in the Navy, including ceremonial duties and basic drill – yes, lots of drill, far too much. I still don’t know why there was so much of it. Its purpose was to instil pride and discipline in the group, but I never saw the point. It seemed a relic of a bygone age, resonant of empire and the need to keep the plebs in place. Getting screamed at by a gunnery warrant officer was a particular favourite, especially when there was close eye-to-eye contact; no matter what I or the rest of the squad did, it was important to keep a straight face as the guy’s blood vessels reached bursting point with the rounds of expletives he hurled in our direction. Partly detached from the whole experience, I was usually overcome by the smell of Kouros emanating from his every pore.
Other than advanced seamanship, firefighting, navigation and basic weapons training – comprising pistol shooting, self-loading rifle (SLR) and general-purpose machine gun (GPMG), which consisted of hitting a stationary target from 25 yards with a machine gun firing God knows how many rounds a minute – the one element of basic training I remember was this pointless shouting and hollering by the instructing staff, which often bordered on bullying and abuse. I could deal with the insults and swearing (‘You fucking spunk bubble!’ being my personal favourite), along with the questioning of my manhood and parentage, but I wondered how this would improve me as a person and sailor? To me, the idea that abuse is good for the individual and team ethic, and that subordinates – even in a military environment – should be taught through fear and humiliation, is just wrong. All it served to accomplish with me was strengthening my sense of self, while making the training staff appear like wild-eyed testosterone monsters. Why an experienced NCO would squander all the knowledge he’d toiled for over a long and successful career by hurling inane obscenities at a group of young men, and in some cases boys, I never understood.
I’m not sure what the Navy is like nowadays, but in my day it verged on the nonsensical. I’d spent time at boarding school, where the bullying was at least as bad as you got in the armed forces, so I’d dealt with this kind of treatment before. I knew you had to let it wash over you and not engage with the teaching staff. If you did, they’d exploit each and every one of your weaknesses, and devote themselves to making your life a misery.
I used to be up for hours every evening, washing and ironing; it felt more like a dry cleaner’s than military training. And the ironing was ridiculous – creases here, creases there, creases fucking everywhere, creases sharp enough to cut a loaf of bread. I’d spend an eternity perfecting the use of the steam cycle, and if I was required to wear ceremonial dress the next day I might as well forget about getting any sleep. Polishing shoes was another major ball-ache – up all hours, using a naked flame to heat the polish, then applying it with cotton wool, then, Bob’s your father’s brother, shoes so gleaming you could use their reflection to shave in. Again, I’m not sure how all this was preparing me for a career under the waves, but hey-ho, that’s basic military training; you are scum, the lowest of the low, a number. Nothing more, nothing less.
Summer 1985 and I’m passing out. Proud as punch in my full Royal Navy guard uniform, armed with a self-loading rifle, shoulders back, chest out, begging my father to get the camera working.
The extreme demands made on us were a shock to many. Some of my group had suffered enough by the end of Week 5, as their bedding and locker were launched out of the window onto the parade square for the umpteenth time, their kit and shoes deemed insufficiently clean. Their punishment? Cleaning the toilets with a toothbrush. Utter sadism. After 11 gruelling weeks I passed the course, and Mum and Dad came to see me pass out. There was an official video made of the day, and as the camera panned around the parade square before the arrival of the First Sea Lord, the VIP for the day, it caught my parents arguing intensely about the workings of the new camera they’d bought for the occasion. I presume they got it working in the end as I still have a couple of photos that I’ve shown my children, who never believed I actually went to sea or indeed was ever in the Royal Navy at all.
What did I learn from basic military training? Not much, to be honest. Everyone talked about it being good for developing team skills, but I wasn’t so sure. It seemed more like 11 weeks of self-preservation by any means. I learnt how to iron and I became an expert shoe-shiner. If all else failed I could keep my kit nice and neat; ‘Humphreys kept a good locker’ would be a fitting summary of my time there.
The most rewarding aspect of basic training was that I was taught how to sail at sea. I spent a long weekend on Plymouth Sound on a boat learning the basic skills of seamanship and how not to endanger myself or other crew-members. I loved it so much that in the time between my leaving submarine school and joining the Polaris fleet – some three to four weeks – I used to sail two retired admirals from Portsmouth round to Southampton, a distance of about 12 miles, where they’d lunch at the yacht club while I’d get a fry-up at the local café. They’d talk about the scourge of communism, Labour leader Neil Kinnock being a Russian spy, and bringing back the death penalty and the birch as I sailed them home to Gosport. They’d head off to their houses and I’d pootle around the boat, have a gin and a smoke, then return to base. Heady days.
The aim of Part 2 of the Navy training course at HMS Dolphin, in Gosport, was to instil the highest standards of professionalism demanded by the Submarine Service. I travelled from Plymouth across to the Navy’s other major historical port city, Portsmouth. From here it was a hop on a ferry over to Gosport, the home of HMS Dolphin and indeed the Submarine Service since 1904. Dominating the skyline was the submarine escape tank. It sent shivers down my spine just thinking about how I’d cope with that infamous aspect of the training. I was also required to demonstrate an intimate understanding of the different engineering, weapon and safety systems that run the submarine and keep the crew safe.
This seemed a long way away from cleaning toilet bowls with a toothbrush, ironing shirts and buffing shoes. Fortunately, the days of kit musters, long runs and drill were long gone. It was classroom-based, head down in books-type learning, absorbing the basic principles of nuclear and diesel propulsion. There were various exams after each stage: hydraulic systems, auxiliary vent and blow, electrical systems, the workings of a nuclear reactor, torpedoes and ballistic missiles, CO2 absorption units,