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So I had climbed The Mast. I'd conquered my fear of heights (or so I thought, but many years later when I was crossing a bridge with my two-year-old son, he broke free of my hand and I realised that he could go through the fence into the canal far, far below - I grabbed his hair and stood frozen to the spot until a lady was kind enough to take my hand and lead us off). All the class had climbed it, all the recruitment, at least I don't remember anyone being thrown out for not doing it.

Basic training was all but done, it was time to march across to the Main Camp and begin our training in our chosen careers, in my case a Tactical Signalman. I had no idea what this entailed, what kind of training I would receive, what skills I would learn, except for those told to me by the Officer who interviewed me. Typing? I thought I could probably do that. Semaphore? I could do that too, I supposed. Morse code? I would have to see. Fleetwork? I had no idea what that was. I also didn't know that, as well as doing Sailor training, we would be required to go back into the schoolroom and do further educational training. What was the point of that? I wondered. I'd left school to come here, I'd done all that. I just wanted to be a Sailor and sail the seven seas, I didn't want to study to become a Doctor or a Vet or anything like that. I couldn't stand the thought of going back into school. Anyway, the day dawned when we all marched over the the Main Camp, all our worldly goods in a kit-bag on our shoulder, our civvy suitcases carried in our left hand, our round white hats perched on top of our heads and once in the Main Camp we were broken up into groups for each Division. As I mentioned, Fergy, Nash and me were in Grenville, almost the whole way down the Long Covered Way (as compared to the Short Covered Way!), on the left hand side. We wandered down there, after saying goodbye to the ones who weren't going with us, and we entered the Mess and found a bed, where we dumped our kit-bags before unpacking them and placing all our uniform in a locker, in the neatest possible manner. We began to introduce ourselves. Murph The Surph, Chris Cullen, DeRougetel (and others I'll remember when I find the photos and do some proper research!!). Down the right side of the mess were all the new Bunting Tossers, down the left all the new Radio Signalmen. We both had our own instructor, in the Tossers case, it was Chief Petty Officer Coverdale. (I discovered in 2007 that he was still alive, found his address and spoke to him. He remembered me as the one who swam. I cried. I had not seen him, or heard of him, since leaving GANGES in 1960 - I was so moved that I wrote some lyrics for a song, and Roger Bennett of Somerset put some music to it. It's called, obviously, Chief Petty Officer Coverdale). We met our new instructors, who would be with us until the bitter end and made ourselves familiar with other classmates and our surroundings. I seemed to be living my life in total excitement, going from one new place to another, doing one new thing then doing more of them, meeting more and more people. I hadn't given home, school, Mam, Dad, little brother, Elaine, Selwyn, or even the swimming club a thought, not for one second did I feel I had made a mistake by joining up. I knew I was going to enjoy every moment of my time, I even harboured notions of signing on again when I reached twenty-seven. I could see no grey or black in the skies ahead or above me, all I saw was unbroken blue.

Sign on again!! I must have been nuts!