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My Royal Marines Career Was A Roller Coaster

I watched a documentary on BBC3 last night about alcoholism, and George Best’s son Callum Best talked about his childhood and his Dad. It was quite moving and I felt sorry for the lad. But old George just couldn’t stop himself.

My parents were alcoholics so I sort of understood what Callum was saying – once you’re hooked you just can’t get off the stuff, or very few people do and it tears families apart. My sister and I were taken into care and ended up in the best family in the world. Mum and dad Jacques brought us up to respect others, to share our love and consider others before ourselves. So in the end it turned out alright.

The Second World War was still very much on peoples’ minds when I was lad and there were still many boys about that could even remember WW1 too. Many had so many fresh memories of the horror of war but also of the companionship gained from those who lived on the edge together. I soon learned that the close friendships that mum and dad had were much due to these special bonds gained in the forces before, during and after WW2.

I hated school from the off though clever enough to go up a grade each year, it just did not hold anything for me. So due to the lack of jobs at the time, closing off the steel industry and the coal industry struggling, Sheffield council stated that any pupil due to leave school at 15 could leave early if an apprenticeship could be gained. I jumped on this and left school 3 months before my 15th birthday and started a new career in catering and shop management. At first it was brilliant but soon lost its shine as the tedium grew.

I had enough of this and at 15 applied to join the Royal Navy but my birth parents, who’d had no contact with me ever, decided that they did not want me to do this, and because I was in long term fostering they had the last word! Pure madness!

So I trudged through until I was 17 and then re-applied only to be told I could be accepted but couldn’t join until my 18th birthday because of the previous denials, so on the day after my 18th I got on the train to HMS Ganges and a whole new world opened up for me. On completion of my basic training I headed off to RNH Haslar for my medical training and then to RNH Plymouth to complete that training. Then to the dirge of the hospital wards, I applied for draft after draft but was told it would be possibly two years before I could get a sea draft.

This is what I had joined up for but was told no chance as then, and like now, the present labour government were cutting the surface fleet as fast as a lady down the docks could get her kit off. Eventually, after being at my bosses office every day for six months I was drafted on a temp to RNAS Yeovilton and the fleet air arm. This was much different but still did not offer the challenge that I craved and needed, so as the post came closer to ending, the gloom of the naval hospital grew larger and I was considering going back to civvi street.

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