Table of Contents for Bits and Pieces     

1. SPECIAL EVENTS IN HMS MERCURY
2. SMOKING COULD DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH BUT JOHN PLAYER AND SONS MADE IT LOOK ATTRACTIVE FOR SAILORS!
3. RESEARCHING per se AND ESPECIALLY NAVAL RESEARCH 1205 - 1992
4. THE 1956 SUEZ WAR - A COMMUNICATIONS OVERVIEW
5. ADEN WITHDRAWAL NOVEMBER 1967
6. NOT LIKE INVERGORDON  - BUT A MUTINY FOR ALL THAT! 
7. DOES SIZE REALLY MATTER? THE TALLEST BUILDINGS AND THE LARGEST SHIPS IN THE WORLD COMPARED TOGETHER
   
   

1.     SECTION ONE - CHARLES AND DIANA   [SECTION 2 BELOW: DROXFORD ROAD KNICKER PATROL]

In July 1981, just after his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer, HRH The Prince of Wales, visited HMS Mercury.  His visit, arriving in a helicopter of the Queens Flight, which he himself piloted, was to have been private.  However, much to everyone's SHEER delight, he sat the helicopter down on the broadwalk adjacent to the wardroom's rose garden, and guess what?  Yes, he had brought Diana with him.  Mercury was on a great high anyway, but to bring his future wife really was 'icing on the top of the cake'.

Although the day went well and was a qualified success, one thing puzzled me, and does to this very day, over twenty two years later .  It had long been tradition in the Royal Navy, that when a senior officer or a VIP visited the ship/established, the Captain would trawl the ships company to find out if any of its members had previously served with the visitor. Those that  had,  would be re-introduced either in a group, or individually when being inspected or during a walk-round at their place of work/duty.  On this occasion, for some inexplicable reason it didn't happen, this, despite that Mercury had several officers and men who had served with the Prince.  I was one of them, having been with HRH in a classroom, at sea in HMS Jupiter and at Lord Mountbatten's funeral. 

The Prince and Lady Di, as she was affectionally known in the early days, had several functions to attend that day, and one of them was a visit to the Warrant Officers Mess to meet an invited audience of senior ratings and their wives.  Beryl and I attended that event which was conducted in a large square room in which the Prince walked clockwise and Lady Di anticlockwise, talking with members of the mess as they passed.  The Mess President was Leslie Murrell MBE and he was the host attending upon the Prince introducing personnel and answering the Prince's questions. Leslie had had the honour of being in charge of the coffin bearers at Lord Mountbatten's funeral when laying him to rest in his grave within Romsey Abbey, at a ceremony attended by the whole of the Royal family.  The events of those years were still very tender for us all, and in particular, for the Prince who had lost a great Uncle.  I think that Leslie too, had been a little upset about the breaking of tradition on ex-ship introductions, and as the Prince came nearer to my position, Leslie leaned over to the Prince and forewarned him of my presence.  In great anticipation I awaited his presence, and whilst still a few walking paces away, the Prince uttered in a raised voice "Mr Dykes, how nice to see you again."  Whilst I was concentrating on the Prince and his questions about my service career and my on coming retirement, I was very conscious that Leslie was happy now [as I was] that we had, after all, got to meet HRH personally:  the Prince knew that, we knew that, and all around, including the officers who had broke with tradition, knew that.  HRH chatted to me and to Beryl for some time and remembered me well [how could he not?] from our previous service together.  I was extremely proud and very grateful to Leslie who had 'engineered' the meet!  Lady Di, coming her way around, also spoke with us for some minutes.  On returning home that day, Beryl wrote down the conversations to record for posterity.

Here is the visit programme. 

SECTION TWO - HMS MERCURY DROXFORD ROAD KNICKER PATROL!!!!

I have just tweaked the plan of Mercury [last picture above] - see tweaked picture below -  to add in a few details of the 'old days' at Leydene.  My tweaking goes back to the late 1950's and adds [or complicates whatever your view] to this plan which omits the SCU buildings [behind the drill shed] possibly for security reasons. It is interesting to note that when I did my petty officers course in the late 1950's, south camp, i.e., all below the main Droxford Road, was almost barren having just the following buildings of substance: Mountbatten Block/Bungalow/Old Garage block with training classrooms and the Main House.  Over to the right of the picture where the 'new garage block' is was South Camp training area, a collection of Nissan huts stretching from Droxford Road to where I have put "civilian bits", to the Church, and down into the area between Droxford Road and Main Drive Road heading towards the Main Gate Sentry Post.  Even in 1969 when I did my Radio Communications Instructor [RCI] course, we were instructed in Automatic Telegraphy [AT] in a Nissan hut adjacent to the 'old' Sentry Box, which by that time had been pulled down. Nissan huts were very basic and so were the amenities within - seats, tables etc. They were products of utility manifest in the shortages caused by the second world war which touched our daily lives in almost every way.  They were unheated but had a stove and chimney.  The policy of whether they were lit or not was left to each Section [cryptography, organisation, wireless telegraphy procedure, AT etc] and their instructors.  However, I can remember being detailed to light them and to fetch and thereafter maintain, a stock of fuel [coke] but it was a great [and dirty] effort for little reward.  Mercury seemed to attract cold weather and the stoves were inefficient and virtually useless - they achieved their maximum heat output just as instructions were finishing.  Fortunately, our messes were in the newer blocks sited along the Crescent Road and they were centrally heated.  In harsh winters, we used to race back to our mess just to get warm.  Incidentally, as I have stated below, Crescent Road blocks have been used to accommodate all types of personnel over the years, with, at one time, seniors rates, albeit for a short period.   They were essentially messes for ships company male junior rates, and the New Entry trainees lived in blocks where the supply block is now. That same little area housed the camps post office.  The post mistress, an elderly civilian lady, was an oracle and knew everybody in the Clanfield/East Meon areas, including all the admirals and captains.  It was well known in the camp that there were certain people who you didn't upset, service and non-service, and she was one of them.  The plan of the camp below, for ease of reference only, assumes that the top of the picture in north.  The plan is complete to its northern, western and southerly borders [except for the captain's house and its supporting sites [it had its own sewage farm], but is incomplete to the east.  The land area where I have marked "Old OOW" became narrower and narrower the further east one travelled, until it virtually disappeared and the Droxford Road met the Main Drive Road, at which point, the main gate to HMS Mercury was sited.  Just across the road from the Main Gate and to the right, was the Hyden Wood complex .  In this area there was a large sports pitch area which was boxed-in by the Droxford Road, the Hambledon Road [to the famous cricketing pub the Bat and Ball] and the main road running between Clanfield and East Meon.  Behind it, and neatly tucked-in underneath a clump of trees, was Hyden Wood married quarters, the MQ's for senior officers.  Other officers lived in MQ's distant from the camp, and the nearby village of Lovedean provided MQ's for ratings.  However, towards the end of my career in 1983, the vast majority of officers and senior ratings where living ashore in their own homes in local areas, thereby, taking the pressure off our MQ's Officer, dear old Arthur Shreeves, an erstwhile communicator.  Before I finish, I want you to look at Dreadnought Block, which was the 'modern' area for training sparkers whilst North Camp was the 'less modern'.  To build it, they knocked down a WRNS junior rates block which ran parallel with Droxford Road, and which together with the Bungalow to its immediate south [WRNS senior rates], and a live-in floor on which  WRNS stewards [junior and senior rates] plus WRNS sick bay staff lived to the 'deep' south in the Main House/wardroom mess, formed Mercury's WRNS quarters. These were ships company WRNS [cooks, stewards, writers, drivers etc] and not communicators, who lived in the village of Soberton [Soberton Towers].  They were bused to and from Mercury each working day, a round trip of about 10 miles.  After Soberton Block commissioned, all WRNS came to live in Mercury or if already in Mercury were re-messed; the Bungalow was decommissioned and reassigned, and Soberton Towers was shut down, sadly for the proprietor of The Pinky, the pet name for the pub across the road from the Towers, who for many years, had profited from the many matelots who had come-a-courting!  It was a long walk between Mercury and Soberton, and I have to admit that I did it more than once. Now I am not a man given to be crude especially in print, but I want you to remember [those of you who are my age] and to believe [if you are younger] that young ladies of those far off days didn't do what [I am told] young ladies of today do so willingly, and therefore a walk to and from Soberton from East Meon [approximately 10 miles] got you a necking session, or, at best, a grope of the upper body only.  How we have all grown up since?  Click here to see a map and distance of the treck  .  Anyway, back to the reason I started to mention  all this, namely what stood where Dreadnought block was erected.  The WRNS junior rates mess was so close to Droxford Road, that when their windows were open, a person innocently walking in the road, could not but fail to see inside the building.  This became a source or annoyance to some of the girls, but to others, it became a tease.  On more than one occasion, the windows of their drying room, bedecked with knickers and bra's, were opened to their maximum, the hinges straining against the wall of the building.  Whilst Droxford Road was always a public road and regularly used by vehicles transiting between the local villages, it was equally used by sailors marching across it [north camp to south camp] or along it [south/north camps to messes] where "eyes left or right", depending upon direction of travel was ordered when adjacent to the drying room windows.  Pedestrian traffic increased many fold along this road where other routes around the establishment were quicker, easier and certainly less boring than Droxford Road, not to mention less dangerous because of the road traffic.  Men from the accommodation blocks in Crescent Road, especially from the nearest blocks like Kempenfelt etc., took 'recreational' walks along the road from roughly where I have shown OOW [at road side of the Admin Block]  to the beginning of Mountbatten block, failing in their duty to walk on the side of the road facing the oncoming traffic, slowing their pace, and increasing the zoom function of their eyes, to stare upon those scanty panties on passing the windows.  Clearly they couldn't be so audacious and overtly stop to have a better than average view: or could they?

As time went by, the authorities started to clamp down on this behaviour, where it could be argued that the girls, or some of them, were the protagonists, egging the men on with the big tease.  The windows were still opened, but were mechanically restricted to about 45°, and the hedging plant planted between the grass verge and the side of the building proper, was allowed to grow.  All was now under control, though the men's minds were not necessarily so, and the road returned to its former role as a boring non entity.  Then one night, a sailor, or a group of sailors, decided to revisit the now slightly open windows of the proverbial drying room, to reach in and to take as many pieces of lingerie as time would allow, and then make off with them as trophies.  Whilst the plan was probably conceived with fun in mind, its execution put the fear of God into the minds of the WRNS because if a hand could come through a window into a common area, surely one could come through into a bedroom,  bathroom or other private area, and any where in their block, even away from the road side.  The idea of having personal clothing paraded as spoils of war was also non too pleasing, and joking apart, did much to offend our fellow female sailors, damaging their morale.  Something had to be done once and for all.  As so many pranks do back-fire, so too, did this one. The authorities decided that there would be a DROXFORD ROAD PATROL, and set about creating an unpopular extra duty watch task which would see a sailor patrolling part of the road outside instructional times Monday to Friday, and during Saturday and Sunday, and in all weathers.  That patrol was maintained right up to the girls being re-housed in their new mess, Soberton Block, and it became known as KNICKER PATROL throughout the camp.  Why Soberton Block changed things remains a query.  I do remember quite vividly the effect of having Soberton Block on the men, many of whom were in my division.  It did their morale a power of good.  Mercury was a 'normal' place during the working week because it had lots of young females going about their business be it under training or in support services. But at teatimes and for the whole of each weekend, they disappeared, visibly affecting the men's attitude to the camp.  Without a car, they were very restricted.  Men liked the former but hated the latter. The former, whilst they couldn't touch, was natural and pleasing: the latter was unnatural, unpleasant and made them want more than ever, to touch!  Me and my type were what the men called "good kids" because we were at home with our families. So, having girls around twenty four hours a day, touch or not touch, pleased the men and Mercury 'came to life'.

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THE STORY BEHIND JOHN PLAYER AND SONS AND THE ROYAL NAVY - WELL AT LEAST FROM 1956!  WHY 1956??

Question.  Did you signed one of these? This page comes from my paybook of 1960 which is a replacement paybook marked "fair wear and tear re-issue".  Clearly, I did.  In my tool box I have five tins [for screws etc] marked tobacco for personal use, do not etc etc, the contents therein being roll your own duty free issue. We used to smoke 'blue liners' when based ashore, and 'HM Ships Only' proprietary cigarettes when based afloat - mind you its nearly 40 years ago since a touched one.  Whilst the first two sources of baccy were largely unknown [they used to say that the contents of the blue liners were the sweepings from the deck after a days working making proprietary cigarettes] proprietary brands covered the whole spectrum of cigarette manufacturers both in tins [for self rolling and pipe] and in cardboard packets.  One of the biggest proprietary companies was [and is] the John Player and Sons company, and I remember my dear father who looked forward to me coming home on leave bearing gifts, and particularly his favourite Capstan full strength [without filter tips], which today, would be classified as 'darn right dangerous', puffing away on 40 a day. I really should have known better! What follows is the John Player and Sons version of their association with the Navy, loosely, or otherwise.

John Player & Sons Logo.

The Player's Sailor

Contrary to popular belief, the sailor's head does not represent any particular individual, but was simply an artist's conception for an advertising design and later used for the trade mark in 1891. Contrast that with this HMS CHEVIOT where the sailor's head was of a known serving sailor.

Originally the sailor had only one stripe on his collar. Later two stripes were introduced and these remain to the present day. The correct number is three. But as the design was registered with only two, legal advice was sought, and it was decided that no alterations should be made.

The Origin of 'Navy Cut'

For more than a hundred years before 1953, seamen in the Royal Navy were allowed to buy tobacco leaf duty-free. They formed this into a roll and pressed it by coiling a thin rope tightly round it. When they wanted a smoke, they unwound the rope a turn and sliced off a pipeful or pressing plug.

Pressing and slicing is still the basic process used for Player's Navy Cut Pipe Tobacco today.

The Three-Decker is HMS Britannia

When Queen Voctoria came to the throne in 1837, HMS Britannia was one of the biggest ships of the line. She was a wooden three-decker, carried 120 guns, could sail 9 knots in a fair wind and in fact was not very different from Nelson's ships of the line.

HMS Britannia, HMS Hero (on the right of the sailors head) and the sailor himself were formed into the current Player's Trade Mark in 1891 {see the picture in the main logo above}..

The Player's Sailor's Ship

Is referred to in his cap-ribbon. She was HMS Hero. Cruiser. Built 1885. Two ten-inch guns. Two six-inch guns. Twelve small quick-firing guns. Follow the sailors nose and you'll see her. [That is Player's version - here is another from a different web site "The battleship HMS Hero was launched 27th October 1885, she differed from HMS Conqueror only in that all four of her 6 inch guns were mounted on the superstructure. At the end of Hero's career it was used as a target from November 1907 and was finally sunk off the Kentish Knock on 18th February 1908."

A Curious Error on the Sailor's Cap-Ribbon

If you look, you'll see that the ship's name 'Hero' on the sailors cap-ribbon appears without the letters HMS. The reason for the omission is that they were forgotten in the original drawing, and since the Trade Mark was registered without the letters, it was never possible to add them.

As a matter of interest, there have been three ships in the Royal Navy named Hero. 

This picture, regrettably of poor quality, shows some of the advertising captions used by John Player featuring sailors and the Navy. Note particularly the sailor with his back to us and the caption saying "turn your back on all but players".

In 1980, the Captain of HMS Excellent Captain R K S Bethell OBE FBIM Royal Navy,  published a booklet to commemorate 150 years of his establishment from 1830.  In it he put the Royal Navy's side of the story, and supported it with this picture .  He went on to say and *. 

 Amen.

*This is the Nottingham referred to, D91, having a piggy-back-ride back to Portsmouth from Australian waters

How are these for prices? e.g., Duty Paid In decorated tins of 50 = 2s 3d [11¼p] : On HM Ships = 1s 6d [7½p]

From an auctioneers magazine.  Recognise him? He's the friendly, weather-beaten sailor who has been the logo on millions of packets of Player's Navy Cut cigarettes since 1927. This oil painting by Arthur McCormick (1860-1943) is estimated to fetch £7,000-£10,000 in Bonhams' maritime sale in New Bond Street on Thursday 15 August 2004 (11am and 6pm, lot 450 of 454 lots). It was the basis for one of the most successful and enduring advertising images of all time.

On the cigarette packets, framed within a life belt, the sailor is gazing out to sea and has 'Hero' on his cap, not the 'Invincible' of the painting. HMS Invincible, one of the fast, much-vaunted battlecruisers of the post-Dreadnought era, was sunk at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, with heavy loss of life - a fact that Imperial Tobacco chose not to point out to customers used to equating tobacco and the glamour of the Navy.

The sailor has travelled more in the past year than at any time during his decades in the WD & HO Wills collection of tobacco memorabilia. Imperial Tobacco dispersed the collection this year, to auction houses and museums in Bristol and Nottingham. McCormick's painting is a museum piece if ever there was one, but it was consigned to the Bristol auction rooms in May, where a canny private collector bought it for £3,335 against an estimate of £2,000-£3,000. And thence to Bonhams, where, three months later, the trophy is expected to top £10,000.

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3. RESEARCHING THE ROYAL NAVY [or indeed any subject on earth!]

I have used, and continue to use research tools, merely out of interest, and for the pure enjoyment of getting information.  The proverbial reference library is very hard to beat, but more and more, information technology is taking over, and I find it exciting.  Naturally, I got to wonder whether or not the information Technology [IT] tools available from your own computer, were common knowledge, so just in case they are not, I have added this little cameo hoping that some of you will get started to delve into data bases, especially those run and owned by the government.

The subject which encompasses this data is the PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE, the PRO, and in this country, they  and the British Library, must be the ultimate data bases.

Their web site is easy to find http://www.pro.gov.uk/catalogues/procat.htm, and by and large, easy to use - practice makes perfect!  At the PRO they run an enormous CATALOGUE which is fittingly called PROCAT. Once inside their website, just look for PROCAT and you are half way there.

The best way I can describe a research task to you, is to mention something you already know a little bit about - I am sure that there are many things you know a great deal about as well.

The NAVY per se, and in our case, the Communications Branch erring towards W.T., things, is my subject.

ALL Records of the Admiralty are under a CATALOGUE called A D M .= Records of the Admiralty, Naval Forces, Royal Marines, Coastguards and related bodies from 1205 until 1992.  Those dates in themselves are pretty impressive don't you think?  Once there, you simply open and shut the required file by clicking on the crosses or minus signs.

Inside the ADM catalogue, you will find divisions  covering all aspects of Naval life. Below is the current list.

Within these divisions are sub divisions which break-down each division above, into useable parts.  Below is the sub division of the first named division above, namely of the Records of the Navy Board and the Board of Admiralty from 1563 until 1985.

Below shows one what is in the first named sub division above, and so on.

Now, whereas all the divisions and sub division affect all of us in the navy, I just want to show you what is inside the division called "Records of research Establishment", which you will observe is the division fourth up from the bottom of the top table.  Here it is below, known as the 200 series.

Now look at the fourth entry down from the top. Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment and predecessors Records, and again I show it below.

This is where the mechanics of the W/T branch were decided.  Note the entry, second up from bottom, Admiralty Signal School, or, as it was known H.M. Signal School. There are other titles here which will be familiar to you, like Radio Communications for example.  But Admiralty or H.M. Signal School, which was in Portsmouth.......is that, or was that, the same as the Signal School which was too vulnerable in Portsmouth because of German bombing and which re-located to Leydene near Petersfield  [HMS MERCURY] in the early years of the second world war, and is now in Fareham [HMS COLLINGWOOD] ?  Look below to the break-down of the Admiralty Signal School and to its content.

This is all that is in the Signal School sub divisional report.  However, it clearly states the ASDIC 'SECTION' so one assumes that there were other sections.  There were indeed, but everything that happened there was of an experimental nature and had very little to do with training operators for the Royal Navy Communications Branch.  It covered RADIO and RADAR experiments, trials and testings where operators where required, but the FIRST CALLED, Signal School was very different from the Signal School we all knew, and of course, know now. Moreover, it was not the School of Signals which re-located to HMS Mercury. Look at this pad and ink stamp mark It reads Confidential Book Officer H.M. Signal School Portsmouth ! It is dated 14 Jun 1946.

If we now look at Radio Communications in the table immediately before the one above, we see the following:-

which holds little interest to the vast majority of our readers, but then again, look at the dates.  In time, when the 30 year rule has passed, all that you ever knew in the W/T branch will be available on tables such as these.

Look back above to the table before the penultimate table, and to  Admiralty Signals Establishment, and things in here look a little more interesting:-

and, if you look here, things are beginning to look very familiar.  This is the break-down of the ASRE Communications Division Technical Notes up above:-

It is a wonderful day out and I have spent several days researching various interests. What follows next is just to whet your appetite; to encourage you to write that book or novel, or to motivate you into going and seeing first hand the wonderful historical documents our nation has kept, and continues to keep for all posterity. I have picked out some interesting files, but remember one man's interest's are another man's indifference. The simple table below shows you the 'magic number' you need to know and roughly what the file contains in historical terms.