My First Trip with HMS Thames

1973 was the year of my first trip with the Royal Naval Reserve at 17 years old on the minesweeper HMS Thames, destined as I recall for Bordeaux, during which I fell in with an immensely good-hearted Londoner of about 27, an Ordinary Seaman like me who went on to become one of my best RNR friends. I heard from him only a few years ago by which time he'd become a Chief Petty Officer.
I also became friendly with one of the most unlikely pair of boon companions I ever encountered in the RNR, one half, a tough, wild but warm-hearted loner of about 23 who was rumoured as I recall to be a permanent year-long resident of HMS Thames, the other, an older man, possibly in his mid thirties, just as much of a lad as the first, but infinitely more refined and with a cut-glass accent and patrician manner to boot.
The younger rating, who was an Able Seaman if I remember aright, was fond of me and took me under his wing, telling me on one occasion something to the effect that I'd be turned into a rough 'n' tough sailor yet, even though we both knew that this was but the remotest possibility, given my justified reputation as a decorative but incompetent adolescent, wholly unsuited to naval life. But I was amusing to the ship's crew, especially after I'd been asked by an officer what I thought of minesweeping, and replied that I considered it a "gas"...or the time when the ship had been prepared for a major manoevre such as a jackstay transfer, and I was found wandering as if in a dream, only to announce that I was taking a stroll...
The crew spent its final night together in a club in what might have been Portsmouth, or Plymouth, wherein a transvestite performer sang cabaret style songs and told bawdy jokes while being remorselessly barracked by the jack tars. At one point, the cross dresser turned to me, or at least I think it was me and trilled something to the effect of: "Ooh, you look pretty, what's your name?", whereupon I could have sworn some of the sailors bellowed back "Skin", this having been the name by which I was known by a few of them.

Learn more about this author, Carl Halling.
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