Part of the Acorn Archive

Hearts of Oak

 

 

Charles Lewis

Royal Navy [1891-1905]

 

Training 1891-1894

Written in 1944

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“I first joined HMS IMPREGNABLE and then HMS CIRCE, from there I was sent down to Falmouth, Cornwall to do some training onboard HMS GANGES, another old wooden wall, then in 1892 I came back to Devonport to complete my training onboard the IMPREGNABLE, and the sailing brig NAUTILUS, and for a course in gunnery on HMS CALCUTTA which was attached to HMS CAMBRIDGE, the Gunnery School at that time. It was training with a vengeance, both the CALCUTTA and CAMBRIDGE were old wooden ships. One was continually racing up and down the rigging (no boots or socks on) making and taking in sail; By the time one finished training, one’s heart and back were nearly broke.

 

Now (1944) we are rationed with food, perhaps the food they served us out with then may interest you; breakfast 6am, ¼ pound dry bread, 1 pint cocoa, no milk; dinner noon 2 potatoes, piece of meat (mutton once a week), slice of dry bread (twice a week this would be made into a pie); Thursdays and Sundays we were served out with flour, suet and raisins which was made into plum duff. For tea we had ¼ pound dry bread and a pint of tea, no milk. If we were lucky we got a very nice thin slice of dry bread at 10am and another at 7pm, but often we just got three scanty meals a day. The rationing, at present, is gluttony compared to the meals served to us, and for growing lads too, for I was 14 ½ years old when I joined the Navy.

 

Our day commenced at 5am and finished at 9pm, for which we were paid sixpence per week, the remainder being kept by the government to pay for our uniform and bedding, for in those days we all had to pay for our uniform and bedding; why they did not charge us for food and lodgings I don’t know. The present day (1944) Navy get better pay, free uniform and four good meals a day.

 

From the training ship I was drafted to the revenue Cutter HMS HIND which was reminiscent of Captain Marryat’s days of privateering, our vessel was very small, Yawl rig, our job when I was aboard was to prevent foreigners and others running liquor to the fishing fleets, chiefly in the north Sea, for that purpose two cutters were based at Harwich on the east Coast of England, and would do week to week about at sea, and it didn’t matter whatever the weather was like you remained at sea until relieved, it was a hard life; another job was to cruise around the coast of England, Scotland, Wales & Ireland and keep a lookout for smugglers; another job was to shift Coastguards with their wives and families and their furniture to whatever Coastguard station they were appointed, some job that; once we shifted two CGs their wives children and furniture, one from Ramsgate the other from Margate to the west coast of Ireland after putting into Plymouth for fresh water and stores, it took us two weeks to get to our destination, Sligo Bay. O, didn’t it blow? I pitied them poor women and kids, they were nearly dead by the time we arrived; it was rotten accommodation aboard the boats, and if they didn’t bring their own food and bedding they would get none on board; they would be shut in a small cabin for the whole of the voyage; we shifted one Coastguard who was stationed in South Ireland, the distance by land was about ten miles, but it took us a week to do that distance by sea; I don’t think the woman and kids wanted to be shifted by boat again. Once we shifted a Coastguard from South Ireland to Douglas, Isle of Man, when we got to Douglas it was too rough to land, the Captain asked the man if he wanted to remain at sea or should he land him at Peel the lee side of the Island; the man replied that he could land him anywhere, so long as he got clear of the boat. During the night the windshifted and we had to run from Peel. Luckily for us we got clear as a lot of small craft and fishing boats were wrecked that night, for it blew like a hurricane; most of our sails were blown away, along with most of our bulwarks and hatches, smashed out two boats to pieces; we were in a sad state by the time we arrived in Queenstown, we looked a proper wreck. It took the dockyard people three months to put us right again.

 

 

Raymond Forward