WARNING
PLEASE BE AWARE!!
That commencing in the last week of December 2020 this site is being disassembled and transferred to the https://www.commsmuseum.co.uk/ specifically to the TAB "SNIPPETS". I have well over 1600 web pages to transfer and do not want to over write each page with this message.
Some but only a tiny few pages will remain on the www.godfreydykes.info site. The vast majority will return a "Not found on this server" so be warned.
Reason, I am approaching my 83rd birthday this year and need to protect my site for posterity. The Comms Museum and Library will have full copyright and the licence to publish my work which started as a hobby in late 1999. Most importantly, as an accredited Naval Museum they will be in a better position to protect my work in the years ahead from the scourge of the internet namely PLAGIARISM.
For many long years Ganges files were published on this web site but an assessment shows that 76 informative and interesting stories have either never been or infrequently visited so they are NOW DELETED and will not be transferred. In fairness to the visiting public most of these stories did not have the words Ganges or Shotley in their URL [although all did have the words Royal Navy/Naval, Boys Training, Harwich/Falmouth Harbour's etc, and explicitly, by reading the search engine's descriptive text underneath the URL it is apparent that the story is about those two titles [Ganges and Shotley] at the very least!
Like so many men who trained at Ganges I have several alma maters and the rationale of giving all my websites to the RN 'Comms Museum and Library is that mine are in order of importance to me No1 being my branch -communications, No 2 my service in submarines and lastly in the Boys School at HMS Ganges. Ganges trained more communicators than any other branch and moreover each communicator spent longer in Shotley than any other trainee because of the demands and skills required of buntings and sparkers.
Finally, over the years I have received several BZ's from various authorities, written in glowing terms, some national and three international for the profound historic content of my web pages, but never a contact or a mention of that in-depth history from Ganges itself, either from individuals, the Association or the Museum. That, as much as anything has been the deciding factor in giving my work and copyright [including the Ganges stories] to HMS Collingwood. The gift includes manuals, my library complete, my photographic collection, video's and artefact.
At the beginning of the transfer my site was humongous consisting of 11 GB of disk space, 52481 files and 1390 folders.
Thank you.
Now scroll on down to open the reducing site options.
Farewell.
The Email
for this site?
There isn't one, regrettably!
Now an octogenarian with cancer I can no longer cope with the
sheer number of contacts wishing me to answer questions largely
about naval matters and people, chiefly loved ones who have
served their country and are no more. I do sincerely and
unreservedly apologise. I beg you not to abandon visiting
my site for it is rich in naval stories. Defending myself from
unkind criticism about this withdrawal, may I say that in the
past five years I have accepted and answered no fewer that 501
requests for assistance all of which have been answered in full,
to the entire satisfaction of the enquirer.
I don't do any form
of social media
And finally before you begin to
explore remember that as you get older, even with tip-top
spec's, your eyes grow dimmer and it is not always easy to read
text which spoils your viewing experience. No! don't have new
lenses, just change the size of the text which is good for every
web site and all other on-line viewing. Go to START [bottom left
of screen] and in there choose SETTINGS. In settings choose
SYSTEM and then DISPLAY. Half way down that page you will see a
script which says "Scale and Layout - Change the size of
text". Simply click on the associated arrow and increase the
setting from 100 to 125. That's it, so now just leave the page
and get on with the site viewing.
Mine host and his good lady who
spent over twenty years as a naval wife, during my thirty year
career.
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