Jim Perks – The pride of the Perisher breakfast

The next day is the Perisher Breakfast, so that’s another event which is iconic in the submarine community. You know for over 100 years now with Perisher, there’s been a Perisher Breakfast and it is breakfast.

It’s a posh breakfast and it’s done, well in my day it was done in the morning, which for Bob and I was a bit of a problem as you can imagine ‘cos you’re straight into more champagne and … but we fought it through, you know we fought it through and we went over to Captain Sea Training’s house and in our best uniform, which I think is a really nice thing to do.

So, you’re all dressed up with the Boss, with the Captain Sea Training, with Teacher and some VIPs if you can get hold of the Captain of the submarine, or the Captain of the ships that had been involved then they come.

Some from the RAF, Nimrods, really, really nice and agin there’s lots of banter, lots of stories, lots of congratulations, lots of toasts, lots of drinking and then for us, Captain Sea Training had to go back to work and left his Bar open to us so we got stuck into that.

I think we finished about lunchtime and we decided we’d go back into the Mess and just have some more drinks, knowing that a lot of our mates … by this time it was Monday, they we’d actually see some of our other oppo’s and again the same thing happens.

You know the Bar is full and everyone says, “Oh, congratulations” and you’re in your best uniforms, they know you’ve just had Perisher Breakfast. It’s just wonderful.