22 Sep 1980

1980 was the year I left school - I wouldn't say I was an under achieving pupil; neither was I ever going to win awards for studying excellence. I started work on a part time basis at the local CO-OP store in Kidlington (5 miles north of Oxford) as a general dog's body. I quickly came to realise that this kind of work was not for me - and decided that before I became a victim of RSI from pulling the trigger on a price labeling gun I would broaden my horizons. I had been one of the first boys in my school (Gosford Hill Secondary) to fore go metal and woodwork lessons and take up Home Economics - in 3rd year I had attended a careers seminar where all 3 of the forces had been plying their respective trades; the seed had been sewn that day - I would become a cook in the Royal Navy. Some years earlier I had learnt how my granddad on my mother's side of the family had run away to join the Navy during the 1st World War and was told to come back when he had grown up - he was 13 at the time. 
And so it was that some 3 months after leaving school and having taken various skill/aptitude and medical fitness tests I entered full time military service (at the ripe old age of 16 yrs and 9 months) with the RN. On 22 Sep 1980 Life in a Blue One had begun in earnest. (As this Blog unfolds you will gain an understanding about this term plus many other words/terms/phrases that are Naval Jargon - a whole language of it's own commonly known as Jackspeak!!) - more to follow soon...

Intro

I was introduced to this web site by a current friend and colleague who had decided to Blog his exploits at work in Angola (as well as a short period of upheaval following his Naval career). Following a 26 year engagement (Sep 1980 to Sep 2006)of my own with the Royal Navy as a chef/caterer and more or less falling into a new job/career immediately I thought I would jump on the Blogging bandwagon. What follows are snippets/memories/tales of the sea and anything else I can remember from the day I walked through the gates at HMS Raleigh in Cornwall to the present day. I make no apologies for my punctuation/grammar/typos/spelling or for the random manner in which this mini autobiography is set out. Here goes...