My life in the Navy - Chapter one
HMS Ganges - This is the gate to the annex - Once in we did not leave for 4 weeks
I joined Ganges on 9th June 1969 to start my training for the Royal Navy. I caught a train from Newton Ablbot to London where I was met by a Petty Officer and escourted to a train that would deliver me to Ipswich. Outside of the station a bus was waiting to take me and 142 other new entrants to the camp. When we arrived we were taken to the Annex which was separate from the main camp. Before we were going to be allowed to mingle with the other trainees who had joined the month before we had a lot to learn.
Probably the most impressive thing about Ganges on arrival was the mast. The mast was erected in 1907 for boy entrant training purposes using the lower foremast (steel) from HMS Cordelia (1881) with other sections from the mizzen mast of HMS Agincourt (1865). The overall height is 143 feet 10 inches, with the button being 11¾ inches diameter and 3 inches thick.
Manning the mast was only done on very special occasions. During my 11 months at Ganges I can only remember it happening once. It was obligatory for every new trainee to climb the mast to the first platform. Only volunteers went any higher. We could see the mast from the Annex and anticipated the day when we would climb it. I do not like heights and therefore only climbed up as high as the first platform. This to me was high enough
When I went over to the main camp I was put in Rodney 43 mess. There were about 32 people in my mess and the picture shows how the mess looked all the time. Everything had to be in its correct place. We all spent a lot of time keeping it looking nice.
This forbidding structure is the Main Gate of Ganges, to enter meant that you had passed out of New Entry and were one of the old boys.
The Navy is obsessed with discipline and cleanliness and it shows in everything they do. One such obsession related to your kit. It needs to be remembered that on board a ship space is at a premium so there is no room for untidyness and because of the closeness of everyone hygiene was paramount.
On board ship everyman would have just one locker to keep all his clothes and shoes/boots etc and so in order to get you used to it that was all the space we had at Ganges. To get everything in it had to all be folded in a particular way. The picture to the right shows how that was done.
Our locker doors had to be left open at all times so that it could be seen that we were doing things right
In the bottom picture it shows a kit muster. We would have to do one of these every week and it would be inspected by the Divisional Officer. If he did not think it was done properly he would order you to lay it out again later, but not before creating a pile of your clothes to make it as hard as possible.
Ganges was hard but only until you got into the swing and stopped fighting against the system then it did not seem so bad.
I spent eleven months at Ganges learning how to be part of the Royal Navy. Looking back on it I have to say that I did enjoy most of my time there.
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