Revielle

Revielle, or a get your backside out of bed early morning call played on a "Bosun's Call" over the tannoy system, is the Royal Navy's way of getting Jack up in the morning.  My first reaction to this was in modern SMS parlance was WTF?  It's still dark for Gods sake, why do I have to get up?  Just as the last word of this thought had entered my head the mess doors burst open, in marched a smart man in his late 20's I would imagine dressed in a naval uniform, even with my experience I could see he was important as far as I was concerned as his cap had a peak on it and there were anchors in gold on his arm.  "Collier is the name, Petty Officer Collier" he barked as he marched between the two rows of beds, "and for the next six weeks I'm your mom and dad"! 

He instructed us to get dhobied and line up 3 deep outside the mess in what was known as the short covered way .

We assembled as ordered, lining up in three equal(ish) rows, he then rearranged us according to height - tallest on the outside shortest in the middle - before marching us to the galley for breakfast.  On entering the dining room, we were serenaded by the mass whistling of a rendition of the Laurel and Hardy theme tune.

We dutifully grabbed our plates and trays and tucked into the finest cuisine Her Majesty's Naval Chefs could prepare.  Following this we once more lined up three deep (this was to become our normal way of walking as a class) and marched back to the mess.  Here we were instructed in all matters uniform, how to press this, where to sew that, by lunchtime we were expert in the theory; some were quite adept in the practical too.  By mid afternoon, I had stamped my name on my name tags, sewn them on my Nos 8's shirts as instructed and was almost finished sewing on my trade badges.  These were sewn on the upper right arm of the uniform, white one's with blue insignia on your 8's, black one's with red insignia on your No 2's.  At this point we had not been issued our Nos 1's or best uniform, you were issued with these later on in the course.  Once all my labels and badges had been sewn on I had to iron my uniform, trying to remember everything I was told I set about this with gusto; the only sewing now was my silk.  You were issued with a rectangular piece of material, shown how to fold it before finally sewing the two ends together forming a loop prior to pressing.  Things were going well, my 8's were pressed like a pro, the 5 horizontal creases in my Nos 2's looked sharp and were exactly pay book width apart, however, I must have been trying just a little too hard as when I came to do one of my silks; it melted.  In my haste to have a smart uniform with sharp creases I'd left the iron on it too long, and even under a handkerchief it melted.  Fortunately we had been issued two of these silks, I only made the mistake once.

After a short time in the mess under the short covered way which was reserved for the new recruits, we were moved to a mess inside the long covered way; this was general population where "experienced" ratings mingled with the new boys.  Now failing any back classing the most you would spend at Ganges was 6 weeks (Note 1), so as you can imagine, their experience was limited.  They may not have been massively experienced, but we found out on our first Friday in residence that they were a bit more confident.  Each Friday evening we would have officers rounds, this is where the duty officer would come round at 19:00 hrs and "inspect" the mess.  One of the ratings would meet the duty officer outside the mess and invite him in stating that "mess is ready for rounds sir", one NEVER said "mess is ready for inspection" as this would invite a deep and probing inspection of each nook and cranny.  

Anyway, back to the experienced ones.  On our first Friday we were all scrubbing the mess, the heads (toilets) shower and dhoby rooms, and when I say scrubbing I mean to within an inch of their lives.  At some point during this scrubbing regime, our mess was attacked by a neighbouring mess, water and gash (rubbish) was thrown all over the floors, beds were upturned and they left.  We stood open mouthed, what just happened?  Why did it happen?  Then the question, how long have we got left?  By the skin of our teeth we managed to get finished before the officer of the day came round, the 3 floors were still a little damp and it wasn't perfect, but we passed.

Passing rounds on a Friday evening had benefits, later weeks would allow us liberty to nearby Ipswich or across the water to Harwich.  This being our first week we were allowed to go to Ganges vary own "Bowling Alley", a four lane alley with a bar.  Inside here we could play ten pin bowling and consume copious amounts of soft drinks, the few who were of age could partake in alcoholic beverages should they so chose.  Inside was a mix of ratings, from the newest recruits (us) to the five weekers.  It was quickly noticed that some ratings had lanyards (white narrow rope part of a ratings uniform worn around the neck) draped around their waists?  A quick investigation revealed that should we pass our three week kit muster we too would be allowed to do this.  Something else caught my eye, there were some matelot's there with a different uniform to ours, foreign looking.  We asked someone with a lanyard round his waist, "they're Iranian Navy mate", apparently also stationed here at Ganges.  As our first night wore on we became acutely aware that these Iranians were more than friendly to each other, holding hands, arms round each other and some engaging in what can only be described as "face sucking"!   Thankfully they kept themselves to themselves.

Notes:

1. Prior to the training being reduced to 6 weeks, ratings would spend 12 months at Ganges doing their basic training, older ratings refer to those doing 6 weeks as 6 week wonders.