Meet Snowy
In his own words:
Born 8am, August 8th 1953 at Carlton Lodge Nursing Home in Harrogate Yorkshire. Of interest I visited Carlton lodge at 8 am on my 70th birthday – it is still there, the exterior is unchanged, but it’s now a retirement home. Should I read something into that?
The first 11 years of my life, I lived at the Alexander Hotel, on the Stray, in Harrogate. A non-residential hotel / pub. It is also still there!
My schooling was at the West End Preparatory school (now very luxury flats) in preparation for Leeds Grammar boarding school – I still have my ‘steamer’ trunk that all ‘boarders’ had that would have contained all my worldly goods!
In around 1963 we moved to Derby for my father’s work, and in 1969, disillusioned by state schooling I joined the Navy at HMS Raleigh in Torpoint, East Cornwall on the 3rd November aged 16 years and 3 months.
Despite being the youngest in the class I passed out as top of the class and was sent to HMS Dryad in Portsmouth to become a Radar Plotter – yes, WA, a ‘Plotter’!
I joined my first ship as a junior seaman in 1970, in Gibraltar. HMS Dundas, a Type 14 anti-submarine frigate.
310 feet long, 30 foot wide and rolled like a pig on wet grass and the same age as me.
We operated off Portland 5 days a week training anti-submarine officers, (using WATU’s tactics), navigation officers and acted as a ‘target’ for trainee submarine officers. I was se-sick every day we were at sea, (so, incidentally was Nelson) until promotion to Ordinary seaman in 1971 taught me responsibility.
After returning to HMS Dryad for promotion training, I was sent to Portland, Dorset : HMS Osprey – a shore base – to FOST – Flag Officer Sea Training (commanded by Admiral Sir Peter Gretton in the early ‘60s) to work in the planning room. It was whilst at FOST I was promoted to Able Seaman
Next ship was HMS Blake – a 6” Gun, Through-Deck Helicopter Cruiser, in refit and dry dock and during this time I was promoted to Leading Seaman. Once we completed the refit I finally started to see the world from the Eastern sea-bord of the USA, to the far East. The observant of you will have noticed that I never went to sea as an able seaman!
Then, back to HMS Osprey and FOST OPS before joining HMS Phoebe – again in refit having been converted to carry Exocet missiles.
More trips to the USA and Europe, as far north as the Arctic circle, and almost as far South as the Falklands on the first (little known) time that the Argentinians rattled their sabers, and promotion to Petty Officer.
It was around this time that I put in a request to serve on the Antarctic Patrol ship, HMS Endurance, but due to her age (the same as me), retirement and government spending cuts beckoned her, and so I was refused
After that, Osprey again, but this time to the air-station as Petty Officer i/c the Air Operations room, and of course it was by now 1982 when the South Atlantic got rather busy.
I was not called upon to go South but spent every day in Ops listening to both the BBC radio, and the military broadcasts – it was a very sobering time.
Of course, as we all know, because of the government’s suddenly-realised importance of Endurance (The Red Plum), she was reprieved and guess whose name was at the top of the list for the job of Chief Bosun’s Mate?
However, before that I had to spend 6 months on Ascension Island, 60 miles north of the equator, in Naval Party 1222. Half of my time was spent doing navy ‘stuff’, half working on an incredible sub-tan.
Then to the Red Plum, and a couple of great things that made me happy.
Firstly, she was an ex-merchant ship – the Anita Dan – and so her fittings, accommodation etc. were – albeit old fashioned – civilian. Cabins with carpets and proper furnishings – oak, mahogany, windows -that opened!
And, as a Chief Bosun’s Mate I took on the title of ‘Buffer’.
No longer was I Petty office Snowball – I now had a role and title.
I spent three summer seasons in the ice, and it was the best time of my life – nothing was ‘routine’, every day was different and you never knew from one day to the next what would be required of you, so you were permanently having to think on your feet.
Eventually though (with a huge hole punched in her side by a ‘berg’) it was time for me to leave and return to HMS Raleigh – promotion to Chief Petty Officer and in charge of the Royal Naval School of Seamanship.
Interestingly my title was Assistant Seamanship Admin Design Officer – ASADO. I feel it’s lucky we did not have e-mail then – I think and address of ‘A.Sado.com’ would have introduced me to some rather odd characters!
I retired in August of 1993.
Worked for Safeway supermarkets for a while as the Admin Manager- but working in retail was not for me – I needed like-minded professional people around me, and so returned to sea as a Cruise ship Security officer, and later as a Destination Services Manager. And that is when and where I met my wife
However, 9/11 kicked the bottom out of international travel and the cruise industry. People, especially Americans, were no longer willing to travel, and so I went back ashore as an Excursions Sales Manager for Thomson Holidays.
As a couple we worked in Madeira – she as the Resort Manager, me as her Admin Manager, and were planning to live their permanently, however the company decided they need her in Lanzarote, but they already had an Admin Manager there, so our dreams of island life collapsed and I returned to the UK, still with Thomson Holidays, in their Duty Office, and latterly as the Risk Control Manager for the ‘world of TUI’.
Redundancy, thankfully, eventually came my way and I lived the life of a retired, kept man for a year or two until boredom set in, and so it was off to Chester Zoo.
Life was OK, but petty issues and an unprofessional management set-up finished it for me, and so I resigned.
Shortly after that I saw a sign saying the Roman Legion was recruiting, and so after a couple of weeks research, along I went.
It was pretty obvious after 20 minutes or so that pounding the streets of Chester in a leather frock was not really for me (and was certainly what my wife wanted to see when shopping on a Saturday morning) but, had I heard of Western Approaches?
No, I had not
But the rest is history………………….