I suppose at this time in my dripping wet oilskin and sou’wester I should pull up a bollard and throw some salt over my shoulder, and tell you a tale of daring do in the style of CS Forester’s Hornblower perhaps? Sorry, looking back now fifty odd years later it was more a combination of 'Carry on Jack,' with a touch of 'Left hand down a bit.'

Now back to the story, and from the start this time.

I arrived one wet April morning between two ages. Blissfully ignorant of the Old and the start of the New Navy. Some would say it was a critical time for the Andrew, driven now by new technology and reducing budgets. In a way it should have been an exciting time. What actually happened was muddled thinking, confusion, bad ship design, poor leadership - a labour government who refused for 3 years to give the armed services a pay rise, all accumulating in a mass exodus of skilled ratings and of course increasing the weight at the top. Still a problem today, fifty-years later. However, at sixteen I was blissfully unaware of anything other than probably what the hell was I doing here, and wishing I had never joined. (Well, only for the first 9-years.)