HMS Ganges Days
HMS Ganges Days

Author: Peter Broadbent

Publisher: Andrews UK Limited

Published: 2012-06-08

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1909183016

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When Peter Broadbent entered HMS Ganges, the toughest training establishment for young recruits to the Royal Navy, he was a naive 15-year-old Yorkshire schoolboy, entranced with the idea of seeing the world, proud of his drainpipe trousers and DA hairstyle, and eager to meet girls. In other words, he was a ‘Nozzer' - a raw and unsuspecting recruit. When he emerged 386 days later it was as a prospective ‘Dabtoe', not quite a fully trained Seaman, but well on the way. This funny and vivid memoir accurately captures what it was like to climb the mast, have your kit trashed, learn to swear, develop a taste for Kye and Stickies, double around the parade-ground at dead of night in your pyjamas, endlessly run up and down Laundry Hill ... and to do it all and much more while being continually barracked by a demanding Petty Officer Instructor. Along the way, Peter relished learning the Navy lingo and how to sail. He consumed platefuls of Cheese Ush, won a boxing certificate, discovered a secret stash of Playboy magazines, smoked thousands of cigarettes, and convinced girls back home that his shorn hair was in fact the very latest fashion ‘down south’.

Ipswich Book of Days
Ipswich Book of Days

Author: Rachel Field

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2014-11-03

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 0750957786

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Taking you through the year day by day, The Ipswich Book of Days contains quirky, eccentric, amusing and important events and facts from different periods in the history of one of England’s oldest towns. Ideal for dipping into, this addictive little book will keep you entertained and informed.Featuring hundreds of snippets of information gleaned from the vaults of Ipswich’s archives and covering the social, criminal, political, religious, industrial, military and sporting history of the town, it will delight residents and visitors alike.

Band of Brothers
Band of Brothers

Author: David Phillipson

Publisher: History Press (SC)

Published: 2003-01-01

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 9780750931816

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Band of Brothers is a history of the boy seaman rating in the Royal Navy, beginning with its evolution from the eighteenth century 'Officer's Servant' through to its abolition in 1956. It tells of an astonishing Victorian Naval tradition which continued right into the modern age. HMS Ganges, a byword on the lower deck of the Royal Navy for strict discipline, was the hardest of the boy seaman training establishments, and was widely regarded as the archetype. The Royal Navy throughout those years was a supremely conservative and traditionalist institution, and particularly in its attitude to and treatment of lower deck people, the boys in particular. Drawing on his own detailed diaries, the author vividly recreates daily life ashore and afloat, in peace and war. Recruitment, food and clothing, training, discipline and punishment are all recorded, and supported by the personal accounts of boy seamen who went on to serve in the Royal Navy as men.

Report
Report

Author: Commonwealth Shipping Committee

Publisher:

Published: 1909

Total Pages: 902

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Waterford Harbour
Waterford Harbour

Author: Andrew Doherty

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2020-09-30

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 0750995947

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Waterford harbour has centuries of tradition based on its extensive fishery and maritime trade. Steeped in history, customs and an enviable spirit, it was there that Andrew Doherty was born and raised amongst a treasure chest of stories spun by the fishermen, sailors and their families. As an adult he began to research these accounts and, to his surprise, found many were based on fact. In this book, Doherty will take you on a fascinating journey along the harbour, introduce you to some of its most important sites and people, the area's history, and some of its most fantastic tales. Dreaded press gangs who raided whole communities for crew, the search for buried gold and a ship seized by pirates, the horror of a German bombing of the rural idyll during the Second World War – on every page of this incredible account you will learn something of the maritime community of Waterford Harbour.

Passion for the Park
Passion for the Park

Author: Stephen Wade

Publisher: Andrews UK Limited

Published: 2012-07-23

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1909183032

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Passion for the Park is a celebration of the ordinary lover of the beautiful game, the dedicated lads who turn out week after week in the hope of beating another works or pub team. In Park Football the kit is never washed, there is no spare ball, studs are never inspected, there are holes in the goal-netting, the referee is always looking the wrong way, and the only spectators are an old man and his dog. This funny and irreverent memoir charts the author's own undistinguished football career, playing for two Sunday League teams and idolising Don Revie's Leeds United, and his attempts to inspire steelworks apprentices with a love for English literature.

Rum Bum and Baccy
Rum Bum and Baccy

Author: Bernie Howard

Publisher: M-Y Books Limited

Published: 2015-08-08

Total Pages: 57

ISBN-13: 0755216504

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From being chased along a beach by a pack of wolves in Mombasa to being told to get lost by film star Jack Palance, Bernie Howard's mates loved hearing his stories about his time in the Navy so much that he decided to put them all in a book. Rum, Bum and Baccy is a collection of short stories about Bernie's life as a sailor in the Royal and Merchant navies in the 1960s and 1970s, beginning with his training at HMS Ganges in Ipswich as a 15-year-old in 1962. "Nobody in my family or anyone I knew had been in the Navy, but for some reason I just always wanted to go to sea," says Bernie, who ran the Cavendish Stores on Cavendish Road in Highams Park after he left the navy, from 1977 to 1983. "I wanted to travel, to see different parts of the world. It was the adventure of it, I suppose." As a schoolboy in Swaffham in Norfolk, Bernie and his classmates would be visited by prospective employers from the likes of the fishing fleet and the Merchant Navy, but when someone from the Royal Navy came, he was sold. Bernie stayed in the Royal Navy until 1971, when he joined the Merchant Navy, working for Shell, and sailing on some of the biggest super tankers in the world. "The comradeship was great in the Royal Navy," remembers Bernie, 67, who now lives in Peterborough, "but you lived in such tight conditions, there'd be 36 of us living in a very small room. In the Merchant Navy, you got your own cabin, you had your own toilet and shower, there were gymnasiums and television rooms on the ship – luxury compared to the Royal Navy! And the food was fantastic as well, some of the best food I've ever had.

The Mechanical Handler
The Mechanical Handler

Author: Billy Korth

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2013-08-08

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 1291505563

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

David (Bill) Korth joined the Royal Navy as a fifteen-year old boy seaman in 1964, opting for a career in the Fleet Air Arm. Over twenty-five years he served at air stations countrywide, and on most of the old aircraft carriers, namely HMS Ark Royal, HMS Eagle, HMS Hermes and HMS Bulwark. He also saw service, both ashore and afloat, with Naval Air Squadrons 800, 848, 846 and 899. He saw action in the Falklands and in Northern Ireland, and had many detachments to various Royal Fleet Auxiliary Ships.This volume of Billy's memoirs is a warm collection of stories and anecdotes which will be enjoyed by chockheads and non-chockheads alike.