The Last Minutes in Civvies
After the paperwork was completed, there was no immediate feeling of having become a sailor. We were still wearing the same civilian clothes in which we had arrived. Our kit had not yet been issued, we did not know where we were going and, apart from knowing that we were now at HMS Ganges, we had very little idea what happened next.
We were gathered together and taken onto the tarmac of the New Entry Divisional Parade Ground.
At the time, we did not know the importance of that piece of ground. To us, it was simply somewhere we had been sent. Later, we would learn that it was part of the daily life of HMS Ganges, a place where divisions formed up, instructions were given and recruits were introduced to the routines of naval training.
For the moment, it was simply where a group of fifteen-year-old boys found themselves waiting.
This was the first real opportunity we had to look around properly. Until then, everything had been movement and instruction. Travel, paperwork and uncertainty had occupied our attention. Now, standing together on the parade ground, we had a chance to take in the place where we would spend the next stage of our lives.
There were signs everywhere that this was not an ordinary school. At one end stood a pair of polished ceremonial cannons and a flagpole carrying the White Ensign. Opposite them was what appeared to be the Administration Block. Along the other two sides stood three large wooden buildings on each side. We did not yet know them as messdeck barracks. We only knew that they were large buildings which, we discovered later, would be our home for at least the first six weeks.
The surroundings were made less intimidating by the weather. It was a pleasant sunny day at Shotley. That may seem a small detail, but first impressions are often made from small details. The place itself was unfamiliar and the future uncertain, but at least we were not standing there in cold rain wondering what we had let ourselves in for.
On one side of the parade ground, three barbers were setting up in front of the messes where everyone could see them. Their presence gave a clear indication that civilian life was about to disappear very quickly.
The waiting did not last long.
Before we had much time to understand the layout of HMS Ganges, the next stage began. The barbers were ready, and the first groups were moved forward.
Until that moment, we had arrived as individuals. We had travelled from different homes and different parts of the country. We had our own clothes, our own hairstyles and our own identities. Standing together on the parade ground, we were still recognisably civilians.
That was about to change.
The parade ground was the place where we first saw HMS Ganges not as an idea, but as a working establishment. The buildings, the flag, the guns and the routines were no longer things we had imagined from a distance. They were now part of our daily surroundings.
There was no dramatic announcement that our old lives had ended. No single moment marked the change. We simply stood there, waiting for the next instruction, while the Royal Navy began the process of turning a collection of civilian boys into recruits.
Those few minutes on the parade ground were the last time we stood together exactly as we had arrived.
We were still in civvies.
Not for much longer.
Signing For Pusser Part 3 - Barber Bob
Annexe 105 - Primary source: RN-009
RN-E-144-02
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