Reminiscences - A lifetime on Zulu

A lifetime ago, it seems now. And, reviewing the distance travelled, the places visited, and the experiences gained over that draft of two and a half years, it seems like it was a lifetime onboard.

I joined HMS Zulu, my first seagoing RN ship, in April 1967 while she was undergoing refit in Rosyth. This was in the days when the Royal Navy was much larger than at present and their ships travelled the world, calling in at many ports. Different, nowadays, I know…

 

 

We sailed for Portsmouth on 29 April, 1967. We then went to Portland for a week’s trials, visited Amsterdam, my first foreign port call, though I had been abroad with a school trip on MS Dunera, visiting Vigo, Lisbon and Jersey. Then we went to Greenock, Glasgow, Douglas in the Isle of Man, Liverpool, Llandudno, Swansea, and back to Portsmouth on 10 June. Yes, we got about in those days. It wasn’t just plain sailing, of course; between destinations we’d be undergoing training, Action Stations and all manner of drills. [Action Stations, drills, Work Up all deserve separate blogs, believe me.] And of course we worked weekends and the weather wasn’t always docile as we crossed oceans and seas.

The ship had a ship’s magazine, roughly 8 sheets of foolscap, printed from Gestetner skins with contributions from the crew. The magazine was called Warrior and I inherited it from my predecessor, though I wasn’t the editor, (the Captain’s secretary, a sub Lieutenant was the editor); I was just the sub-editor and typist then…

 

 

This was the masthead I designed; published every Saturday at sea. [Perhaps some snippets will crop up in this blog in later months…] There was recreation time, naturally, Sundays if not on duty. And there were film nights – Zulu was on permanent loan to the ship and we viewed it often. [You can read about this film here]

A whole day at Portsmouth and then we went to Rotterdam for four days, Portsmouth, Bangor in Northern Ireland – we became the ‘ship at the bottom of the street’.

 

'Ship at the bottom of the street', Bangor, NI - from the Spectator newspaper

 

Thence to Hartlepool, Rosyth, Portsmouth, Portland in February 1968 until 3 April – Work Up, during which time we were worked hard. There followed Rosyth, Bootle, Cardiff, Portland, Penzance, Greenock, Campbeltown, Greenock, Fairlie, and Rosyth.

The advantage with being on a ship was that wherever you travelled, all your gear, everything travelled with you – unlike the mobile units of the Army or Air Force.

Sailing from Rosyth, we arrived in Gibraltar on 8 July 1968; my first visit, though not my last, here. Approaching the Rock from the sea is captivating, a beautiful even romantic sight.

Two days later we arrived in Malta. Little did I know how much this famous island would figure in my later life! That was just for a day’s sojourn, however. Then we were off to Izmir, Turkey and stayed for two days. While we were in the Mediterranean, monitoring the Soviet warships, among other things, Malta became our base of operations, so we kept popping in and out, staying for the one day, mostly. Naturally, as we had onboard duties, there was no question of going ashore on every occasion. These stays were scheduled for stores, new personnel and fuelling, among other things.

 
We visited Elba, one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s homes-in-exile; a beautiful island, then Kavalla, Greece, with its gorgeous unspoiled beach, and after a final stopover at Malta, on to Gibraltar, arriving 5 September. As this was a slightly longer stay, I joined some shipmates on an MFV across to Tangier, taking in the sights, including the suk and camel-riding! We sailed from Gibraltar four days’ later, arriving in Portland for a couple of days, then on to Den Helder for an official visit, and back up to Rosyth for three weeks, to allow personnel to get some leave in.
 
Then it was back to Portland on 21 October, Gibraltar for a day, Malta for four days; here, I toured the island using the local bus system. Then on to Naples; sadly, Vesuvius was clouded over but Pompeii was so memorable, even to this day, and of course since then more excavation has occurred.

Pompeii - Vesuvius in background...

There followed a brief official 4-day visit to Nice, where I attended a church service (that was all I was permitted ashore since I was growing a beard and it wasn’t quite presentable).
 
We docked in Portsmouth 4 December for a day, then went to Rosyth for a lay-off and seasonal leave break (ship maintenance), though of course personnel had to be there on duty over the period.

A new year and new ports of call. Portsmouth for four days or so, then on to St Helena (felt as though we were following Boney – visited his attractive villa, (where the wallpaper purportedly poisoned him), then on to Durban (apartheid still much in evidence, a visit of mixed feelings, beautiful country, and saw Zulus too), then on the Beira Patrol blockading Ian Smith’s regime, stopping off at Mombasa for seven days in March, then we sailed for Mahé in the Seychelles, an idyllic island, though only there for two days, followed by a three week stay at Bahrain where we met up with the RAF personnel stationed there, enjoying their bar facilities and swimming pool (I almost got roped in to go for the Guinness Book of Records for typing).  After this, it was Muscat, Bahrain, and across the ocean to Karachi.

 
The ship stayed in Karachi for five days and for the long weekend I and a handful of other chosen few were selected to fly up to Islamabad as guests of the diplomatic corps serving there. We ended up being driven along the Khyber Pass to the border with Afghanistan – a fair portion of that is narrated in Under the Queen’s Colours - see here

After Karachi, back to Bahrain, Dubai, Doha, Colombo, Ceylon [now Sri Lanka] (another beautiful island). We left Colombo on 21 August and four days later we arrived at Singapore, where we stayed at the dockyard for almost a month while the ship underwent maintenance and local leave was taken. Exotic smells, food and weather – clockwork rain, no less!

Thence on to Yokohama for a week and to Hong Kong for two weeks, then Singapore. I flew back to UK from Singapore (my draft completed, already scheduled to join HMS Dolphin (Flag Officer Submarines) in Gosport; I was tasked with taking the masters of our ship’s commission book to the Portsmouth printers, having been a sub-editor on this project. (The ship went on to Durban, then Portsmouth and arrived in Rosyth 21 December.)

A memorable and in many ways remarkable two-and-a-half years.

 

It’s all history now - Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

Doubtless, Nelson is turning in his grave, along with many other great naval men, as a result of the craven decision to effectively close down all shipbuilding in Portsmouth, England. For the information of any global readers, I’ll paraphrase the news. Defence giant BAE Systems announced it was cutting 1,775 jobs. That’s 1,110 from Portsmouth will be laid off; another 835 jobs will be lost at yards in Goven and Scotstoun on the Clyde in Glasgow, at Rosyth in Fife and at the firm’s Filton office near Bristol. BAE bosses apparently told the Portsmouth workers that they could apply for voluntary redundancy, retrain or be redeployed to Govan – this last seems most odd, since Govan is taking a personnel cut as well. Needless to say, those directly affected, and indeed most observers and pundits smell a rat, and it isn’t a rum rat. Though it may be a rum do.

I’ve got every sympathy for anyone made redundant. It happened to me three times in the 1990s. Indeed, there may be sound commercial reasons for reducing the workforce at BAE Systems, to make it leaner – though some commentators have been heard to wonder how lean their fat cats are on the weighing machine… BAE’s proposed tie-up with European aerospace giant EADS collapsed in October 2012, so BAE has had to refocus outside UK. Their negotiations with Saudi Arabia are not going anywhere fast either, apparently. So, because the highly paid individuals who drive desks and posh cars can’t get their ducks in a row, the chop has to descend on the grafters. Usual story. The writing’s been on the wall for some time – but, hey, no problem, let’s break it to them gently, just before Christmas.

One redundancy I suffered, I returned from the Christmas break to be told I was no longer required, they were cutting back staff. They’d known I was destined to go before the holiday, but decided not to spoil my Christmas. That was good of them, in retrospect.

The elephant in the room, of course, regarding this latest decision is the imminent referendum next year – will Scotland vote to stay in the UK or vote to leave. (Nobody has given the English the opportunity to vote, which seems most odd, too). Most suspect that retaining the shipbuilding capacity in Scotland was a sop to the Scots. We’ll see.

Painting of Mary Rose by Geoff Hunt

 

It’s the 210^th anniversary of Trafalgar in 2015. What dismal celebrations they will be – as compared with the Trafalgar 200 commemoration. Then there was weekly family-based entertainment, including a giant jigsaw based on Admiral Lord Nelson; knot demonstrations; shanty singing; circus performers; eccentric street theatre such as Monkey Madness and Morris Men riding Harley Davidsons! (Maybe not much singing now…) Other highlights at the time included Victorian Navy Days on board HMS Warrior with gun drills, guards of honour, piping party, idlers and Victorian messing all authentically re-created. 

The dockyard will still offer maintenance to Royal Navy vessels, and stores and equipment replenishment will occur, as before. The feeling is that the place will be a shadow of its former self, though there are promises of £100m investment to extend the dockyard for its expanded ship servicing role. Whether that happens or not, another slice of Great Britain has been whittled away, probably for political expediency.

 
Even so, there’s plenty of history still to enjoy in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard – Henry VIII’s Mary Rose, HMS Victory – the oldest commissioned ship, HMS Warrior, and the Royal Naval Museum. Housed in the RN Museum is a forty-two feet long panorama painted in 1930 by famous maritime artist W L Wyllie: Panorama of the Battle of Trafalgar. It’s free to enter Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and visit the shops, art gallery, cafes and restaurants. Tickets are only required to visit the attractions.

HMS Warrior

There’s also the Trafalgar Sail – the largest, single artefact from the Battle of Trafalgar, the ninety cannon-ball holes that pock mark the sail pay chilling testimony to the ferocity of the battle on the day. Many a British ship was bloody but unbowed at the end; Portsmouth suffered its own blitz in WWII and has fought back before; I hope it will do so again, and not be consigned to history.

Footnotes:

The national archives have listed all the British sailors who served in the British fleet during the battle; you can find out here - http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/trafalgarancestors/

The historic dockyard website:

 http://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/

HMS Victory, Portsmouth

 

HMS Victory website:

http://www.hms-victory.com/

 

A list of Mortons who served in Trafalgar - from National Archives         

Name	Age at Trafalgar	Born at	Rate	Ship at Trafalgar	Joined from
John Morton (Moreton)			Private, Marine	HMS Bellerophon	Plymouth HQ
John Morton	24	London, mother Margaret)	Ordinary Seaman	HMS Defiance	HMS Indefatigable
John Morton	32	North Shields, Northumberland	Coxswain	HMS Temeraire
Thomas Morton			Private, Marine	HMS Temeraire	HMS Goliath
William Morton	38	Fleatham, Northumberland	Able Seaman	HMS Victory (Post Trafalgar, joined HMS Ocean and deserted 1806 at Gravesend)	HMS Penelope

Interesting that at least two came from Northumberland, which was my home county (until the politicians messed up the boundaries some years back).