Part of the
Acorn Archive
Hearts of Oak
Charles Lewis
Royal Navy [1891-1905]
Training 1891-1894
Written in 1944
“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