Week Three...

This week we had a ships visit to the assault ship HMS Albion, when we got to naval base at devonport in plymouth we made our way to the ship then we walked up the gangway and saluted as we stepped on to albion. i remember thinking this is huge! and where is the smoking area. We where split into our different groups the AET's went with the ships WAFU , the WS's where shown around by a duty dabber and so on. We had a look around the flight deck, hangar, junior rates mess , the ops room and the bridge. We went down to the aft of the ship below the flight deck where they had the landing craft and lots of Bootnecks looking busy ! We also learned that prince philip was on board at the same time ! It was very educational to learn about life at sea and to get a taste of being on the ship first hand instead of just being told about it.

We went to pier cellars this week and it was awesome! The first time the over 18s where allowed to drink ! we brought 3 tins each from the shore van but dudley stood on one of mine and it went everywhere , i nearly cried . We had games and then we went for a hike around rame head. It was a good walk and i was made group leader by my PO (big mistake) . I remember one of the other groups having to re climb the big hill with the altar on because they took their bergens off and left them on the grass then climbed it! the padre caught them and made them do it again. I was in front of the group and it was a scorching day we down a one way path on a cliffside but there were some horses there ( they make me nervous) they started trotting towards us so being group leader i had to defend my men so i wrestled it to the ground (the truth is i jumped in a bush and hid and was branded a girl for the rest of the trip by the staff !) Afterwards we had a barbeque and a sods opera where myself,scouse,paddy,lucas and reith did a day in the life of a trainee to the style of diddy dick and dom. It went down well and even the officers were laughing ! it was reiths 18th birthday so he had his beers and flaked out in the mess ha ha lightweight.

The next day we ran the assault course which was great and at the end we had to run/fall/crawl/swim our way through the jetty which was full of freezing water but it was great fun and a great feeling to complete it. At the end of the run we had to hoist the smallest man onto our shoulders and sing a song of our choice. For some reason we sang "ring of fire" .

The jacobs ladder was great fun the div staff were jumping up and down on each end while we were trying to cross with our materials to make a raft with! harder than it looked ! just as a special treat the chief and WO had us doing press up and sit ups in the muddy water below afterwards. Character building they call it !

It was a brilliant week and the team had all settled in and started bonding properly for the first time this week . I would love to do it again.

Ah well it was back to HMS Raleigh for the blister clinic.....

Week two...

This week was our first taste of drill and we would take part as the most junior class of a passing out parade on the friday afternoon. We got to sit in the crowd on the last passing out parade it was beautiful weather but after a while we just sat there squirting water at each other and flicking spiders around. (no discipline yet!) I will never forget the first time in my life i heard the Royal Marines band fire up , it sent shivers down my spine, now was the first time i was beginning to feel part of it all. The drill lessons where the first time we all had to work together as one element. We started off looking like idiots on the parade ground and tick-tocking around to the daleks blasting out hearts of oak. It must have been funny to watch us learning to march properly it just looked as if we where having a ski competition.

Fitness was next on the agenda and we had our first PT lesson at the gym and got ourselves used to the clubswingers (PT staff). i remember when we did circuits we would run around and do press ups for what seemed like an hour only to be told this was the warm up ! i was already breathing out of my arse and we hadn't even started ! I quickly learnt that if you do give it 100% then the PTIs are happy, there's no use going down that gym with a half-assed attitude otherwise you may as well leave the navy as they wont want you there. We needed to be all bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5:30 am everyday !

The beep test and shuttle runs where fun. Although the bleep test required a pass of a certain level (i think its about 10.8 but don't quote me on that i will find out) a lot of people where stopping on the bare minimum to pass the bleep test and weren't putting in all their effort. Press-ups where our reward .

I also learned that if you don't work as a team then life wont be easy at Raleigh, If one person screws up then you all pay for it so everyone soon starts working together.

Back at the mess we had all been assigned our cleaning stations working with the senior class in our division - fisgard 07s what a bunch of legends !

My cleaning station was out in the corridor outside the mess. Although people would leave boot polish marks all over the floor it wouldn't take long to clean and i was happy with my cleaning station - hoover the mats, scrub the deck, annoy the lads on duty in the heads, dust off the shelves, talk to silmon about home , wait for the pipe to tell us that the duty chief/PO would be coming around to inspect our handiwork, when he came around we had to report what we had done as ready for inspection for the duty staff to look at and check the standard was good enough. Cleaning stations was always a good laugh as well and i will always remember standing to attention in the corridor while chief stood in front of my oppo waiting for him to report - "Chef Dudley reporting the fire hose for evening rounds chief" ha ha i couldn't believe he actually fell for it ! the chief wasn't amused !

After cleaning stations was secured we all got stuck in to cleaning our shoes/boots , washing kit, ironing kit, drinking fizzy drinks in the rec room, smoking like chimneys (I'm in the process of giving up !). it was all a bit of a mad rush but you soon get into the swing of things and everything becomes routine.

On the Friday we made our debut on the parade ground on ceremonial divisions , watching all the families of the passing out class taking photos, crying, clapping and cheering i thought to myself "that's going to be you up there soon!" i couldn't wait !

We were all looking forward to week 3 now as we had a visit to pier cellars coming up and no more trips to the sick bay for vaccinations! ....

Week One

Lots of paperwork, presentations and haircuts this week ! the group where starting to get friendly and we even had our class photo taken on our first week . (i am on the end right hand side of the back row).

We learnt how to shape our berets using the hot/cold water dipping technique where you dip it in hot water then cold repeatedly then plonk it on your head and shape it quickly so it moulds to your head.

We undertook the pjft again in this week and the bar was raised for me a bit as a lot of the lads were good runners or a lot fitter than myself i had obviously not done enough physical training before i joined. i finished with a time of 11:23 which was my best time so far for the 2.4km run.

We learned how to iron and fold our kit navy style and how to polish our boots to a high standard. We where given a set of orange epaulets or "shit magnets" to wear during our time at Raleigh to let everyone know we were trainees . Although at this stage we stuck out like sore thumbs with our crap marching around the establishment. Our first drill lesson was in week two so that would sort us out. I found the military swim test quite easy as i enjoy swimming anyway, we had to put on overalls then tread water for 2 mins , swim 40 metres then exit the pool unassisted. We topped off week one with a quick visit to the NAAFI and then some deck sports on the Saturday to help with team building.

Tips : You really don't need to take huge suitcases and 30 pairs of pants like all of us did, it looked like we were moving house forever when we got off the coach. i would recommend a small-medium sized suitcase with only 3 sets of civvy clothes, one for shore leave, one for PO's dinner, one for general . You really do not need to bring half of the contents of your home with you as it gets locked away anyway. The afco lists , although thorough and helpful fell short to mention that i wouldn't need half the things on the joining up kit list as i later found out that a lot of the things on the list are issued to you on the first week.

Bring a decent iron, one that wont leak easily and don't spend your life savings on some space ship looking thing which irons your kit , wipes your arse and all sorts, just a decent iron will do the job. Boot polish such as kiwi or guardsman's will do the job and lots of cotton wool trust me it makes life a lot easier !

The PO's dinner takes place in the carbeille inn which is a pub down the road from Raleigh, we went with the fisgard divisional staff and had a nice carvery and had some beer vouchers given to the over 18s while the blazin squad had to stick to coke. i would recommend to just dress smart/ casual for the pub visit don't go dressed as a scranbag but at the same time don't go wearing a ballgown as you will look a right tit.

HMS Raleigh, it begins....

The big day was finally upon me and i woke up in the morning after a restless nights sleep feeling exhausted , worried, anxious the lot but i was also very excited to get stuck n at Raleigh. the day went very quickly and before i knew it i was saying goodbye to my girlfriend Sam and making my way to Plymouth train station where the RN coach was waiting for us. We got on the coach and crossed the torpoint ferry where about 6-8 of us sat in one of the sitting areas just slowly getting to know each other etc. finally we got off the other side of the ferry and waited for about 20 mins for the other coach from Raleigh to pick us up. We stood there having a tab or two and yapping away telling each other where we came from, our old jobs etc. it was a very sunny day and a few people where wearing suits and were complaining about the temperature , finally the coach arrived and we all set off to HMS Raleigh the coach was so quiet on the way it was a very lonely , short journey as everyone was in their own little world as we approached the main gates, seeing the armed guards and the statue of sir Walter Raleigh himself. We got off the coach and collected our bags . We then took them to the rec room in Ganges block (Fisgard division) where all the new entries meet on the first night. There where two tables with name badges on them, one table had green (starboard) badges on , the other had red (port). i found my badge which was green then looked around the room as i noticed the green/red divide in the room. i recognised a few people from my acquaint course there as well.

After a bit of chatter between our new entry we where in and out of the smoking area as often as possible to get as many tabs down us as possible as we didn't know when the next stand easy would be. Finally after a couple hours the chief petty officer came in and introduced herself and pointed to the whiteboard explaining to us that we where fisgard 12 entry port and starboard. This was quite lucky really as we were already in our own division and only had to take our civvy bags up to the next floor instead of walking around the base !

Next it was off for a late meal in traf galley and i remember saying to someone - "at least the food is good here" how wrong i was....

We went back to the mess deck which was on the 2nd floor of the block. my mess was lane mess and my bed was in the first gulch. We all started ruffling through the kit bags at the end of our beds and trying it on with big grins on our faces - the first time we had worn the official royal navy no.4 uniform .

Pipe down was at 22:30 and i never slept a wink .....