Duration: 1 hour 20 minutes 10 Seconds
Simon: My name is Simon Perry and I’m here in Stubbington and I’m here for the Submariners Stories Oral History Project. Today we’re with …
Brian: Brian Wood.
Simon: Brian, thank you for letting us come into your house today and spending time with us on the Project. Can you tell us what date you were born and where you were born?
Brian: I was born on the 1946 in Barry in South Wales.
Simon: And what is the name of your mother and father?
Brian: My mother’s name was Lilias May Wood née Sears and my father’s name was Albert Joseph Wood.
Simon: And what did they do?
Brian: My dad owned a Butcher’s Shop, my mum used to work in a Grocery Shop and then she went to work in my dad’s Butcher’s Shop.
Simon: Ok.
Brian: So, I grew up sort of cleaning the brasses and scrubbing down the marble slabs for my pocket money, and I did that ‘till I was about 15 ½ years old.
Simon: Ok. And you went to school in Barry did you?
Brian: Yeah, Romilly Secondary School for Boys. It was an all-boy’s school. I didn’t enjoy school that much. I was very keen to leave so I didn’t do much school time for the last year. I used to spend lots of time in other places (laughs). Bit of a rebel at the time. As I say, I left school at 15 and joined the Navy at 15 ½ years old. My father wanted me to go in the Butcher’s Shop but I wanted to see a little bit of the world before I sort of committed my life to being a Butcher.
Simon: What made you aware that one, there’s a wider world outside Barry or that maybe the Navy would let you see that?
Brian: Well, Barry at the time was a very busy Docks. Barry itself has got the second highest tide in the world believe it or not, and there was lots of ships coming in and out. There was a few visits by Royal Naval ships and you’d see the chaps in uniform enjoying themselves, so it was a bit of a tossup before do I join this sort of … the Merchant Fleet or the Royal Navy. I thought well Merchant ships only go to one port and back again, I’ll join the Royal Navy and see a bit of the world. My dad wasn’t keen on it but I managed to persuade him that I would sign on for 12 years, which was 9 years Active and 3 years Reserve at the time, with a proviso that I’d come out and go in the Butcher’s Shop …
Simon: Afterwards.
Brian: … at that time. Didn’t quite work out that way, but there you go.
Simon: So, his reservation was that he wanted you in the Butcher’s Shop or he didn’t think the Navy would be right for you?
Brian: He was in the Army himself, and all my other sort of relatives were all Army people and they thought the Army would be the best place, but I would say I was a bit of a rebel at the time, so I decided to be the black sheep of the family and away I went.
Simon: And when you’d seen the Navy people in Port, when you say they were having a good time, saw them round the Bars or whatever round Town?
Brian: Yeah, I mean Barry at the time was a very busy Town, big Funfair and lots of beaches, lots of Night Clubs and lots of Pubs. Hardly anything there now, and I thought, umm, they seem to be having a good time, why not join up? So, there you go.
Simon: Was there a local Recruitment Office?
Brian: In Cardiff. I had to go to the Recruiting Office in Cardiff. Me and my friend actually went, but he failed the Exam, so off I went on my own.
Simon: What was the feeling of that like then? You know you’re 15 ½. I guess at 15 ½ you can conquer the world can’t you?
Brian: Oh yes, you’ve got sort of a vision that is sort (laughs) of not real, put it that way.
Simon: What was your vison then? What did you have?
Brian: Oh I just thought I’ll join, they’ll give me a uniform, I go on a ship and then off we’d go round visiting all these foreign Ports. My eyes opened when I joined HMS Ganges, dear me. They soon brought me down a little bit.
Simon: Ganges was where the 15 ½ year olds went for training?
Brian: Yeah, older people joined up at Raleigh or St Vincent in Gosport, but us youngsters were all sent to Ganges up in the east coast. It was more like a Borstal more than anything else, but no, it was … they soon sort you a bit of discipline, bit of self-pride, sort of knocked all your old habits that you’d developed up to 15 years old out of you. I quite enjoyed it when I look back but I was the fittest I’ve ever been that’s for sure.
5 minutes 20 seconds
Simon: Is it a sort of short sharp shock idea is it?
Brian: Oh yeah. You go into what they call the Annex first which is a little Establishment outside the main Establishment of Ganges. Then you’re there for a couple of weeks, they teach you marching, spit and polish boots so to look after your kit, and then they move across into the main Establishment and that’s when your training begins, and you really have to knuckle down. It’s like back to school and …
Simon: It’s classroom stuff.
Brian: Lots of people. Oh yeah, there’s classroom stuff, you did Maths, English, just to try and bring you up if you didn’t have those sort of … as I say I missed a lot of the later part of school so I had to some fairly quick learning. Lots of fitness stuff, lots of marching, lots of people shouting at you doing different routines and looking after your kit, doing kit musters, climbing masts. Lots of sport, which I loved. So, it was a bit hard at the time but you know, learning to obey people, do as you’re told like now, don’t question it, it’s done for a reason. And then you realise yeah it’s alright isn’t it, let’s knuckle down and get on with it.
Simon: How long did it take for the rebel you to figure out that then?
Brian: About 3 months I suppose. I must have knuckled down pretty quick because after 6 months I was promoted to a Leading Junior, so I was in charge of a Mess of about 40 kids. I was like the Leading Hand of the Mess, so I must have sort of seen the light and sort of knuckled down and yeah, I quite enjoyed it there.
Simon: So, how long were you in Ganges then?
Brian: I joined in the March ’62 and we were there until the end of January ’63, so it was quite a short period ‘cos they’d just altered the Course at the time ‘cos I joined up as a Junior Marine Engineer and Mechanic. Didn’t have a clue what it was but …
Simon: Oh that’s interesting. Where did you select that then? That path?
Brian: Well, that was sort of forced on me by the Recruitment Office I think in Cardiff because they ask you your hobbies, you do this exam and there was also things you had to identify and sort of ‘what would you use this for?’ and I used to make bikes at the time. Used to be down the old scrapheap and get bits and pieces. My sisters passed the 11+ and they got bikes for passing the 11+. I didn’t pass my 11+ so I didn’t get a bike, so I made my own. So, they thought well you like moving nuts and bolts and things like … “Oh yeah, love sawing bits and hammering and … ” “You need to be an Engineer.” I think they were short of Engineers at the time so …
Simon: They have a list of holes they’ve got to fill.
Brian: Yeah, as you find out later in life, they sort of persuade you down … they try and get an idea out of you, you know people who like writing and stuff, and Mathematics. “Oh, you could be a Writer” or “You can be this” or “You can be that” They’ve obviously got a list in front of them and they need so many people to go into this Branch, so obviously they were short of young Engineers at that time.
Simon: It’s quite funny to think that person sets so many people’s lives direction.
Brian: On a career, yeah.
Simon: So, after Ganges, what was that?
Brian: I joined Raleigh because all young guys then that were coming out of Ganges at 16 ½ and at that time they preferred youngsters to be more or less approaching 17 before they put you on a ship or whatever, so I went to Raleigh at the end of January ’63 thinking I’d be there for quite a while, enjoy the sights of Devonport or Plymouth, but they decided to put me on HMS Lowestoft the next month.
Simon: Wow!
Brian: So, off I went on a train with all my kit bag, my gas respirator, all my clothes, my little flat hat to catch a train up to Chatham and joined HMS Lowestoft in Chatham, early ’63. She was doing what they called Guinea Pig Maintenance, which is … they never went, that type of ship, a Class Frigate, did what they called Guinea Pig Maintenance. They didn’t have refits every couple of months, 8 months, 12 months they’d go in for a month or so and do a mini-Refit, put it that way, Guinea Pig Maintenance, and she was just coming out of Guinea Pig Maintenance. We sailed and we had to do a workup down in Portland and they put the ship through all its actions, put it that way, that was a nightmare. Then of we went to the Mediterranean, which is sort of ‘this is what I joined the Navy for’ so my first foreign Port of call was Gibraltar. The ship itself, HMS Lowestoft, was assigned to be the Malta Escort Squadron, 23rd Escort Squadron based in Malta, so once we’d called in at Gib to do refuelling and pick up all the stores and things, off we went to Malta. I thought, ‘this is great.’ Lovely sunny weather. Although I was down in the Engine Room, or the Boiler Room most of the time, but on my off time I was on the Upper Deck giving it some bronzy, bronzy time. And we were out there just under 2 years, and during that period we’d visited most of the countries around the coastline in the Mediterranean and exercising with all the different Navys. This was fun for me, you know. To France, east Naples, Genoa, Istanbul, Tel Aviv. I thought this was great.
11 minutes 50 seconds
Simon: I mean this was what you signed up for wasn’t it?
Brian: This is what I signed up for, although I still had a bit of rebel inside me and most of the Ports of call when we left I was under punishment, because being a Junior, which is someone who’s 18, you’re only allowed what they call ‘Cinderella Leave.’ You have to be back onboard by 11 o’clock, 2300. Being only two Juniors in the Stoker’s Mess at the time, is what they call the Marine Engineer and Mechanics they call them Stokers from the old days when it was the old coal fired boiler. You’d go ashore with all these three Badgemen and these older people and there’s no way I was back onboard at 2300, so every day I’d be … off we went, Captain’s Table next day. Go and help buff and paint the Upper Deck. I think I painted that Frigate twice on my own during that 2 years.
Simon: That was the punishment they gave out.
Brian: Yeah, stoppage … well, you get fined, stoppage of pay, 14 days stoppage of leave.
Simon: 14 days!
Brian: Yeah.
Simon: What you mean you’d lose 14 days holiday?
Brian: Well no, stoppage of leave meant you couldn’t go ashore, so if you were going into the next Port within that 14 days, you couldn’t go ashore. Of course, you had to muster all these times, it was all sort of discipline stuff. I still enjoyed my time on there, until we got back in early ’65, and this Draft Chit appeared onboard for me to go to HMS Dolphin. The Chief Stoker said, “What’s this?” He was laughing and he said, “It’s the best place for you. That the Submarine School.” I thought, “Oh dear no” ‘cos we’d been used to seeing these Submariners out in Malta and they were old, angry, all wizened and all horrible dirty uniforms and things and we used to avoid them, you know, ‘cos they had their Submariner’s Pubs and the Surface Fleet subs and I thought, “I don’t want to mix with that lot, they’re awful.” So, I was drafted to HMS Dolphin.
Simon: What was your feeling when you …?
Brian: I wasn’t too happy because I was enjoying myself on the Frigate you know, going all around the Mediterranean, sunning and all, and she was off on lots of other trips when we came back from the Mediterranean. But I joined Dolphin 2 and they asked me, “Who volunteered for submarines” because just prior to ’63, it was all volunteer force, the Submarine Force and you couldn’t join submarines until you were at least 17 ½ years old, but they’d just reduced that because they were now building up all the nuclear submarines. They were still building the last of the P&O Class submarines, and they were desperately short of manpower in submarines. And they sort of ask you when you join, who’s a volunteer, who’s a non-volunteer. I’m a non-volunteer. Because they used to try and identify people. Is he going to try and fail the Course to go back, which I found out again later. They’d keep their eye on you if you were a non-volunteer ‘cos you had to do the Medical, you had to do lots of exams and things like that. You had to do SETT training and people would try and fail a Medical because it was quite a strict Medical at the time, and anything to get out of joining the submarines. So, I put my hand up, “I’m a non-volunteer.” “No, you’re not. You volunteered for submarines at HMS Ganges.” I thought, “Oh God” ‘cos my Divisional Officer at HMS Ganges was a Submarine Skipper on a rest period, and I remember him talking to us, saying, “Submarines are the future, we’ve got now the Dreadnought, they’re building the Courageous, the Valliant, all these things, these missile submarines” he said. “That’s what you …” and he started spinning dits about submarines. I thought, “I’m having some of that.” I forgot all about that hadn’t I? He said, “You’re a volunteer.” My world dropped out. I wasn’t too happy. I finished the Submarine Part 2 Training in Dolphin 2 and then drafted down into the main Establishment of Dolphin at the time. There were two different …
16 minutes 43 seconds
Simon: That was just different parts of …
Brian: Parts of it. As you go into the Main Gate now, all them huts there … well, they’ve knocked some of them down ‘cos there’s a Car Park. They were all like Nissan Huts and that was Dolphin 2 and that’s where all the new intakes were put to sort of introduce you basically to submarine life. And then once you’d sort of done a bit of training there, you went down into the main Establishment to await a draft to a submarine to do the rest of your training. So, I moved down into the main Establishment in the June, and there were quite a few people there ‘cos once I got down in there, I saw lots of my old Mess mates from 48 Recruitment in Ganges were all saying, “You got us into this” and they’d been there months.
Simon: You need to have that conversation with everyone, it excited them.
Brian: And they’d been there a couple of months. I thought, ‘oh, that’s great, a bit of shore time” ‘cos I’d been at sea quite a lot until then, and I joined there and the next day the Chief Stoker of our Block called me down. He said, “Oh you’ve got a draft yet?” I said, “No, I can’t yet. There’s all these other blokes in front of me.” “You’ve been here …” Otus, down you go, so that was it. I was a very short time in Dolphin and I was put onboard Otus.
Simon: I guess they thought that you’d learnt what you needed.
Brian: Yeah, basically when you join a submarine, then you are basically, you don’t know anything. It’s a mass of pipes and gauges and God knows what. Although you did some training in the Submarine School as such, Dolphin 2, you knew the basics, the shape, and there was all these different systems, you didn’t really have a clue, but you have to do what’s called Part 3 Training. So, you have a Task Book and all the tasks of your own sort of speciality, like I was an Engineer, but you’d have to do a certain time in the Fore Ends with the Torpedo Man, Radar Shack in the Control Room, seeing how it worked in the Motor Room, so you had to pass all these tasks and you’d fill out your Task Book which could take quite a while, and then you’d do an oral exam at the end of it and then you were awarded your Dolphins if you passed and then you became like a full member of the crew. Although there’s no real passengers onboard a submarine, so you still had tasks to do even though you were still learning. You still had to do various jobs, most of them shitty jobs (laughs) but there you go.
Simon: How did you find the Part 3 then? Was that ok?
Brian: Because I was sort of maybe mechanically minded, I was streamed into the right Branch I think. When I was on the Frigate, I did all the Boiler Room Watch Keeping, all the positions in the Engine Room. The Chief Stoker saw something in me and he put me as a ‘Tanky’ which is in charge of the all the fresh water, all the fluids, oil and FFO, and I was used to finding out how systems and I was keen on finding what every valve was and how everything operated, so I found doing my Part 3 training reasonably easy, put it that way. It wasn’t hard because I was already used to like a systems sort of person in my mind, and I wanted to know how engines worked, bang, suck, blow and all the rest of it. So, the Part 3 training is quite difficult in a way because it was long hours. You still had to keep Watches, I was Watch Keeping in the Engine Room and the Control Room and then when you were off Watch, you start doing your Part 3 training, so it was 17 hours days when you were doing that. And I was lucky because when we sailed, we went on what we call a ‘sneaky’ in them days so you were sailing around trying to be undetected in places where you might not should have been, and we were a 14 weeks at sea, and by the time we come back, I’d passed my Part 3. A lot of people will take up to 4,5,6 months to do their Part 3, some even longer, but because I couldn’t do anything else, you were stuck onboard a submarine underneath the water for 14 weeks. Learn everything you could and I started to enjoy it. I thought, “Oh, this is the life for me.”
21 minutes 31 seconds
Simon: What was the transformation there then? It was because you got to know everything and everyone onboard do you think?
Brian: Yeah, and the discipline was slightly different. I mean on the surface ships at the time, I never spoke to an Officer except when I was under punishment or being weighed off at table or something like that. The Chiefs were all Gods as such. You didn’t question anything. On a submarine it was more relaxed. At the time you used to wear what you call ‘Pirate Rig’ ‘cos you didn’t have lockers to put all your uniforms in, you just too to sea the basics. Jeans, T Shirt and stuff like that. All these people walking round in funny stuff, calling them by their first names and I sort of enjoyed that more than the surface ship. The surface ship was all sort of a bit too disciplined, put it that way for my frame of mind. And I thought these are a good bunch of lads, you know, and you could talk to the Chiefs. Gawd dear, I’d never talked to a Chief before, let alone an Officer, you know and you earned respect. If you were keen, did your job , didn’t do anything stupid, and I found that quite pleasant. You were accepted, put it that way. On the surface ship I was just a number.
Simon: Do you think that’s what they meant when the bloke said, “That’s the right place for you” he understood that it was too rigid for you on the Surface Fleet?
Brian: Yeah, the old Chief Stoker on the Lowestoft, he was a good guy. He tried to keep me out of trouble as much as he could. At one stage in Malta, he put me as motor boat crew which I was Engineer on a motor boat because that was 24 on, 24 off and I had what they called a ‘Brown Card’ so I didn’t have to be back onboard at 2300, and it was unusual for a young Stoker to be … it was a prime job as Motorman’s crew just to try and keep me out of trouble, ‘cos he put me on sort of all these special duties things. He looked after me in a way but obviously he couldn’t keep me out all the trouble, so when he said, “This will suit you, this is the best job for you” he could see me … I don’t think I would have stayed in the Navy if I’d stayed on the Surface Fleet as long as I did. I was enjoying it but … and when you join submarines, a load of sort of will dropped out of me. You had an option. If you were a … you had to complete 5 years in submarines and you would get the option at that stage to return to the Surface Fleet, if you didn’t like submarines, or submarine life didn’t suit you, they could send you back after 5 years, put it that way. So, that was always in the back of my mind, although I didn’t want to join submarines. 5 years, yeah, that won’t take long.
Simon: But you thought after doing your Part 3 …
Brian: Yeah, I mean it was a really good submarine, a brilliant submarine. I had 4 submarines in all. I went to sea on lots of others doing various things, but I was lucky, it was a really good submarine. The crew were really good, looked after me. It was quite an International crew. We had Australians, Canadians, two Israelis.
Simon: Right. Training up?
25 minutes 4 seconds
Brian: No, they were part of the crew, ‘cos they were building submarines for the Canadian Navy at the time and the Australian Navy. They were building ‘O’ Class submarines for those. They would send these guys over; they would train up and they would become part of the British submarine’s crew until sort of their submarines were more or less completed build and then they’d go. So, a lot of these, we had a Dutchman on there as well. It was a really mixed crew and really good. Everybody gelled you know. I’d go ashore with the Sailors or the Seamen as it was. Being a Stoker on a Surface Fleet, you’d never mix with the Seamen or the Radio Operators. It was just you were Engineering Branch. On a submarine if anybody was ready to go ashore, ‘phut’ off you went because you were a crew, you were a team and Branches, alright there was always little bit of rivalry, but that was in fun. So, that sort of life then, that suited me.
Simon: So, when you did your Part 3 and completed that, one what was the feeling and two what was the process of you receiving your Dolphins?
Brian: Well we didn’t have Dolphins at the time ‘cos they didn’t come in ‘till 1971 and of course I’d passed the Part 3 just at the end of ’65, but they used to wear a little badge which was called a ‘sausage on a stick’ on the left sleeve. I only ever knew one bloke that ever sewed it on. It was a ridiculous thing, but you were accepted as Qualified Submariner so then you could get your submarine pay and everything else you see, which is a little bit extra.
Simon: So, was there a ceremony or anything or …?
Brian: Yeah, you go up for the Skipper if you’d … and he congratulated you and give you the old tot of rum and say, “Now you can go and draw your ‘sausage on a stick’ from the Stores.” Nobody ever did, and you were accepted then as part of the crew. It wasn’t a big deal then. It’s more of a big deal now ’cos you get the old Dolphins and they stick them in the tot of rum and you have to drink it and try and catch the Dolphins in your mouth, but not with that little gold badge that we had in them days.
Simon: Can I take you back to the first time you went onboard.
Brian: The submarine?
Simon: Yeah, you’d been Surface Fleet and then ok you’d been drafted to submarines.
Brian: A nightmare. ‘Cos when they drafted me from the Dolphin, the Stoker’s Block down to the Jetty to join the submarine, of course I took my kit bag, my gas mask, the whole thing on a trolley down to the Jetty, went down onto the submarine casing and said, “I’m joining.” You could see all my kit on the Jetty and then he piped up the Chief Stoker to come to the casing. “I’ve got this young lad thinks he’s joining the submarine with all his kit up here” and he said, “Oh dear.” The Chief Stoker came up and he says, “Right, ok, you’ll be living back aft, I’ll get the Killick up here” and he was a six foot six Australian. Cor, bloody hell, Andy Andrews, and he says, “Show this young lad back aft and where he’s going to put his kit, ‘cos see that trolley? That’s all his kit on the Jetty.”
Simon: Had you figured at this point that you’d got too much, or …?
Brian: Yeah, it was a big, huge kit bag and a green case, a holdall. “Right” he said, “Come with me” and he takes me down, he takes me and he says, “That’s going to be your bunk” and it was right back aft and there was a torpedo alongside it because they used to have torpedo back aft in them days, and he says, “This is your locker” and it was just a little stool like you’re sat on. Jesus wept. He said, “Do you think you’re going to get all your kit in there?” like. “Come with me” and he took me … ‘cos the submarine crews had Messes inboard and you had lockers and beds up inboard obviously, so I went back the inboard Mess then. “That’s your bunk, that’s your locker. We’re sailing in a couple of days. All you need to bring with you is your overalls, a set of eights. Don’t even bring your uniform ‘cos you’re not going anywhere. Don’t bring your flat hat ‘cos that’ll turn yellow.” So, I thought, Gawd, what life is this like?
Simon: So I mean literally it was just overalls.
Brian: Yeah, and if you’d got any old jeans or a T Shirts ‘cos you’d be wearing ‘Pirate Rig’ and I thought what’s he on about, ‘Pirate Rig.’ He said, “No, Pirate Rig is just any old civvies that you don’t mind destroying ‘cos you’re not going to do much washing onboard either.” He said, “Any old clothes that …” of course we’d just been allowed to wear civilians in the last couple of years, so I did have some civilians. They soon got wrecked. Yeah, so joining the submarine was quite a …
Simon: And actually going down inside for the first time, did that feel strange or what was your first impression?
30 minutes 25 seconds
Brian: No, I’d been onboard a submarine out in Malta. Tiptoe, she was in Malta Squadron, so I knew what it was like in a submarine. I didn’t suffer claustrophobia or anything like that so, no, it was no problem.
Simon: So, then you passed your Part 3, then what?
Brian: Well, then you’re assigned a particular job on the submarine. I was sort of Engine Room Watch Keeping, and in between that I used to go out that and do into the Control Room and up and raising the periscopes and what they called ‘operating the Trim Pump’ which is moving fluids around to keep the submarine in balance and sort of neutrally buoyant. So, did that for a while. Then because I was quite keen again, passed my Part 3 quite rapidly, they put me on Outside Mechanics Duties which was looking after all the systems, Engineering Systems outside of the Engine Room, which is all the fridges, air conditioning, hydraulics, ‘cos hydraulics go throughout the submarine. All the HP Air Systems, LP Air Systems, the full length of the submarine. All the Escape features and things like that ‘cos the Engineers were in charge of all the Escape apparatus each end of the submarine. So, then I was put as Outside Killick. I got promoted to Leading Hand then as well quite rapidly, and I enjoyed that because now I knew every nut and bolt of the submarine. So, I spent 6 years on Otus, doing various jobs but all sort of Engineering related. That suited me fine.
Simon: And how many … what are they called, Missions, or ..?
Brian: Patrols.
Simon: Patrols, ok. How many Patrols in that 6 years then?
Brian: Two long ones, one shortish one. Obviously you do other exercises with ships and things like that and you act as Target Boat for ships working up down in Portland and things like that. We were Gosport based so we’d go off and do exercises up in the North Sea with the Norwegian Navy, the Swedish Navy. Then we’d be off down the Bay of Biscay doing exercises down there and every now and again we’d disappear for a number of weeks and go somewhere where we shouldn’t be maybe, so we did two long ones up north and we did another longish one in the Mediterranean, when the Russians were bringing out a new type of ship and we waited outside the Dardanelles for her to come out and then followed her around for a while. I can talk about it now. A lot of it’s subject to the official secrets act, that was many years ago, but they know it’s done anyway these days. Just finding out, getting all the photographs we took of it, all the noises that she generates and stuff, so we followed her around for quite a while.
Simon: That way you get a sort of signature of what the boat sounds like and then you …
Brian: Nearly every ship that’s out and around … but every ship has got a signature. The noise of the machinery, the general noise the ship makes in itself, the cavitation that propellors make.
Simon: What’s it called?
Brian: The cavitation, the noise that the propellors make as they’re rotating. And every ship has really got a different signature, so when you’re on a submarine, you can listen, oh, that’s a Merchant vessel, or that’s a fishing boat or that … and then obviously they can’t have every single ship’s signature so they can’t say oh that’s a fishing vessel so and so but you can do it with a lot of Warships, and they can say, “Ah, that’s so and so,” or “that’s a Frigate, that’s a Destroyer, that’s a Cruiser, that’s an Aircraft Carrier” ‘cos they all make, they all have a signature which relates to that platform. So, most submarine activities are sort of along those lines, put it that way, or a lot of submarines.
Simon: Are you aware of what you’re doing at the time or …?
Brian: Yeah. You’re not always aware exactly where you are, but you know by the temperature of the sea water and various aspects and what you’re doing, you’re very quiet, everything goes ultra-quiet, nobody moves, you shut down and then you’re really moving and chasing away or running away, put it that way if you find funny noises. You’re aware of what you’re doing, you’re not always aware exactly where you are but you’ve got a good idea where you are, especially if you’ve got ice inside the pressure hull because the condensation freezes. You know you’re not in the Mediterranean.
35 minutes 40 seconds
Simon: And if you’re responsible for … I mean that’s the noisy stuff isn’t it? The stuff outside the Engine Room you were responsible for. You’re then responsible for keeping it quiet as well.
Brian: Oh yeah, I mean everybody onboard a submarine is responsible for keeping quiet themselves, and all their surroundings and the machinery that they operate, so everything is sort of rubber mounted as such, all the machines that make noises is all rubber mounted or on floating platforms as such, and obviously you’ve got to maintain all that lot as well, so you make the least noise as possible. And there’s different quiet states that you go into, where you can’t do certain activities. You can’t watch films or you can’t play cards because people are banging the cards on the table or something like that, so you know you’re doing some very quiet stuff when that goes. So, there’s different quiet states and everybody’s responsible, each person onboard is responsible for their Department and their individual quietness onboard.
Simon: Are you getting to the state of tiptoeing around or …?
Brian: You can put mats down, especially in the Engine Room because you’ve got metal plates in the Engine Room and if you’re going into what they called the ‘ultra-quiet state’ you get the ultra-quiet mats out and lay them down and there’s the least amount of movement about the submarine as possible.
Simon: And that would be for a fairly short amount of time so it’s …
Brian: You can go to ultra-quiet for quite a long time.
Simon: Ok (laughs).
Brian: 2 days is most probably the longest, on a conventional submarine.
Simon: Ok, so that was … I mean I guess that felt quite exciting the first time you went to ultra- …?
Brian: Yeah, as a young lad then just joining and we sailed and thought ‘you’re not coming back for a couple of weeks.’ You know, you don’t take anything with you and all these different … it’s a big learning curve, put it that way. Of course, it can be boring when for a couple of days if you can’t move around. You can tiptoe out to your Watch Keeping duty but we weren’t flashing up the engines or anything like that and you’re sat out there. You’re just operating sort of fluids with the Main Ballast Pump as such and just keeping the Engine Room clean ‘cos there’s nothing else you could do. You sit there polishing a bit of bright work.
Simon: So, I understand that generating, or making the fresh water can be quite noisy.
Brian: No, not really.
Simon: Oh, ok.
Brian: On a conventional submarine there’s a small evaporator that didn’t work very well anyway. Used to sweat more than it used to make water I think, so if you were going on any trips, you’d always sail with all your fresh water tanks absolutely full. Depending on what you were going to do, you would put water restrictions in, so you could only sort of have a quick wash, put it that way. You can’t do any washing, nobody bothered used to shave, just cleaned your hands in a bit of Swarfega, splash some water over your face, that was it. There weren’t any real good showers, put it that way on a conventional submarine, although they did have showers.
Simon: How was the size of Otus compared with Alliance then, ‘cos I’ve been on Alliance.
Brian: Similar size really. The Alliance and P&O Class, they were more or less reasonably the same size. Otus, she might have been slightly wider, but more or less the same length. They were similar in size but obviously a very different design. All the Messing and the Engines where everything were different.
Simon: But there’s just no spare space on there is there? In fact, the food is piled up on the floor or the cans and …
Brian: Oh yes, particularly if you are going on a long trip.
Simon: So, how did the six-foot six guy get on with restricted height and …
Brian: Well, you get used … even you would bang your head quite a few times if you were running around the submarine, but you get used to it and you train your brain. It’s a sort of muscle training exercise put it that way ‘cos you automatically duck when you’re walking through the submarine. Especially the Control Room was a nightmare because you used to be in what they called ‘red lighting’ a lot of the time.
40 minutes 18 seconds
Simon: Why was that ‘red lighting’ on then, was there some advantage?
Brian: Yeah, because people looking through Periscopes and things like that, so your eyes are in the dark.
Simon: I see, so they’ve got sort of night vision straight away. Got you, ok. So, what happened after Otus? You say 6 years there.
Brian: Yeah,. I came inboard for a couple of months. I was supposed to have a 2 year stop draft into Dolphin, and I was drafted into the Engineer’s accommodation as what they called the ‘Engineer’s Office Writer.’ I was a Killick, not a Killick at the time but it was a cushy job. Didn’t keep any duties as such. I was in charge of writing all the Watch bills for all the different parts of ship of Dolphin you were in the Workshops, you were down the Jetty Fuelling Parties, you’re this, you’re that. That’s your Duty tonight, you’re Fire Party, so I was … and I thought I can’t stand this and I was phoning up ‘Drafty’ at least a couple of times a week ‘cos we get a report in, they wanted, you know someone had fallen sick on a submarine so I had to find a young lad to go and replace him what have you, so I’d be phoning up ‘Drafty’, “Oh can you find …, he wants to go on this ship, he wants to go …” and I said, “I’ve had enough of this, I want out of here.” He said, “No, you can’t, you’re inboard for 2 years at least.” I said, “No I’m not” ‘cos I’d gone sort of 2 ½ years on the Lowestoft at sea, 6 years on the Otus, not a lot of shore time except for little bits of training in between. “Get me out of here.” He said, “What do you want then?” and I’d just sort of started courting my wife and she was up in Teacher’s Training College in London. I said, “What you got in Chatham?” He said, “We’ve got Narwhal, she’s just coming out of refit, and actually they want an experienced Killick ‘cos she’s going to start 100 hours engine trial.” So, I said, “That’ll do me, I’m off” so the next week I got drafted up to Chatham, mainly to be close (laughs) …
Simon: That’s where she … what was your wife’s name?
Brian: Carolyn. She was in Trent Park Teacher’s Training College just off the North Circular, so it was pretty easy for me to get from Chatham up to London and stay in her digs on the weekends.
Simon: Let’s take a diversion on talking about your wife. How did you meet her, where did you meet her?
Brian: I met her in Dolphin. She was on a sabbatical or her summer break, put it that way, and her brother was in College as well at the time, and they both got a job working in the NAAFI in Dolphin, and she used to work behind the Bar in what they called a Rosario Club at the time and of course that was a little Bar that during that period I was the Engineer’s Officer’s Writer, special duties. I was ashore every night but I’d go in and have a … well I used to play badminton until about 7 o’clock and different sports and I’d go and have a shower, go and have a pint at the Rosario Club and then get a Liberty boat over to Pompey and Southsea Night Clubs and things like that. I saw this young girl working behind the Bar and the lady behind the Bar, the Senior Bar Lady was a lady called Fran. She was very good to a couple of us lads ‘cos we weren’t well paid at the time, she would let us run up a slate, if you understand what that is. We’d have a couple of pints and she’d chalk it down as long as pay day you went and paid your slate up. And there was a gang of us she used to let run a slate up, and about every month, we’d take her out for a meal, just two of us, would take her out for a meal and one night she said, “Would you mind if this lady comes?” I knew her name then, “Carolyn comes with us.” I quite fancied her. She was engaged at the time, she had an engagement ring on, and I didn’t want to know that, you know, I didn’t get messy with anybody, so I didn’t make any approaches to her at the time. So anyway, I said, “Yes, she can come out with us” and we went out to the Black Dog out in sort of the middle of the sticks in Meon Valley. And so, we got quite friendly. I went out a couple of times with her before she went back to College. She had a car at the time, she was driving, so I thought this is great, a girlfriend with a car. Didn’t think it was going anywhere, as I say she was still engaged. The next minute she dropped the engagement off. When she went back to Trent Park to finish off her training, so that’s how I met my wife. Never intended to get married or have kids at the time. Didn’t want any of that. I’d seen lots of divorces and things in my time, short period of time in the Navy then, you know. I’d seen people split up and nasty marriages and I thought I’m not having any of that. I’m not getting married while I’m in the Navy. It’s not a married sort of life for people , but there you go.
45 minutes 46 seconds
Simon: Um, and then how long before you did get married then?
Brian: That was ’71.
Simon: That you met her.
Brian: Yeah. We sailed from Chatham on the Narwhal and that was not a very good submarine. For various reasons, it was always blooming breaking down, the crew weren’t really all gelled together, so it wasn’t my favourite submarine, but I endured it but we were stick up in Scotland ‘cos we failed the first workup, ‘cos you go on a workup after a refit where you test all your systems to the limit, or the crew are tested to the limit. You have these people come onboard and fires, flames and you name it, all Action Stations and we failed that. Then we had a major hydraulic problem. We had to go in to Rosyth and get all the hydraulics drained ‘cos there was water in it. Then we tried doing workup again, wasn’t very good. I was still in touch with ‘Drafty’ at the time and I said, “I need to get off this submarine. I’d done you a favour because I …” He said, “Yeah, what do you want?” I said … ‘cos she was also once she’d finished the workup, she was going to be Devonport based. I said, “I want something running from 1st Submarine Squadron” and he says, “Oh right, how about Onslaught.” “That’ll do me” so about 2 weeks after that phone call, the Draft Chit arrived, the Engineer onboard wasn’t very happy or my Chief Stoker but they didn’t know I’d sort of … they didn’t want me to leave ‘cos I was one of their senior Killicks at the time. I said, “Sorry, I’ve got to get off here” so I was sent on a fortnight’s leave in 1973, July and August, and I got married in that fortnight and then sailed on the Onslaught.
Simon: Right.
Brian: Out to the Mediterranean.
Simon: So, that’s wedding, honeymoon and then you’re off.
Brian: Yeah.
Simon: Right.
Brian: And then I got back 11 months later.
Simon: Right. My goodness.
Brian: ‘Cos we sailed out …
Simon: And Carolyn knew that was a …
Brian: Well, the grandparents … her dad was in the Navy. He was on the Surface Fleets. He did actually get seconded into submarines but never actually dived on one and he never actually served onboard a British submarine. He served on German submarines ‘cos he was what they called a ‘Repatriation Crew’ taking submarines up to Murmansk, giving all ‘U’ Boats that had surrendered and giving them to the Russians, so he was like ferrying crew. Taking submarines up and down there, but he wasn’t your typical man. A very serious man, a very nice man but his wife, Carolyn’s mother was partially disabled and he sort of dedicated his life looking after her, once he came out the Navy. He joined in one Police Force in Bedenham and Portsmouth Dockyard, but he was a very sober man, a very serious man but a very nice man. Carolyn’s mother didn’t want her to marry me ‘cos her grandfather was a typical old Matelot. When he was home he’d go down the Pub and only come home when his dinner was ready and so she had a different sort of view of Matelots, although her husband was one but he was a very different Matelot. But I was a Submariner and she thought oh,. Of course, living in Gosport, seeing the state of all these … she’s seen a lot of submariners, but there you go, it was alright in the end.
Simon: So, what did she think when you went off for 11 months?
Brian: Well, we weren’t originally going to go off. We went out there Mediterranean specifically to do a couple of exercises and we knew this new Russian ship was coming out from the Black Sea, so we knew we were going to be chasing her around for a while, depending on what she did. We did catch her in anchor off a Bay in Crete where we had a good opportunity to sort of have a look at the underside of her and then we followed her over to Alexandria, followed her round for a bit, watching her sort of attempt to do flying off things. She was sort of a converted Cruiser into an Aircraft Carrier type thing. Didn’t quite work. Then we went back to Malta for a rest period. Sailed from Malta and as we were passing Gozo, the Cyprus incident blew up, and all the Navies around there ‘cos we had a couple of ships waiting to evacuate people or to help out, lots of other foreign ships, and it was a good opportunity at that stage ‘cos we were on special fit with fibre optic cameras and things, special Periscopes, to do that sort of work.
51 minutes 2 seconds
Simon: What because there are so many ships there you could get a good look at everything?
Brian: Instead of coming home (laughs) we got sent round to watch what was going on in Cyprus ‘till it was all over so we were puddling around there.
Simon: Had she been told that you were delayed or was there some sort of comms back?
Brian: There was a little bit of comms but we couldn’t write or anything. I mean the last phone call was, “Oh we’re on our way home.” We sailed, “No you’re not.” Finished messing about there, went to Gibraltar, just to refuel and stock up ready for sailing for home. Couple of days there and we’ll be home in sort of 5 days. As we were going through the Bay of Biscay, a signal, one of the ‘S’ boats had broken down and she was doing a target boat for a couple of surface ships on an exercise that was going off in the south-west approaches. “You’ll have to go as target boat for the ‘S’ boat that’s broken down” so there we were trundling around for a couple of weeks. All finished, sailing up the Channel. We’re just passing Dartmouth, or just about to pass Dartmouth, another signal, “The ‘O’ boat is supposed to do a weeks run in taking Cadets, potential submarine Officers to sea for a week has broken down, you’ll have to nip in there.” Into Dartmouth, away we go, get that done out for a week, dump them off , just passing Portland, “Ah, the submarine is supposed to do SBS running has broken down, you’ll have to go into Portland and do …” and that was another 4 weeks doing Special Ops with the SBS doing exit and re-entry drills and canoe offloading. So, every time, “I’ll be home in a week, I’ll be home in a week.” Oh, dear me.
Simon: I mean that’s a sort of baptism of fire for her on what it’s like to be a Submariner’s wife.
Brian: Yeah, we were living on Hayling Island at the time and she was working in Suntrap School, it was a Residential School and she had to do overnight duties and things like that, so she was quite comfortable, put it that way. Her parents were in Gosport so she could nip home on a weekend and see them.
Simon: Yeah, she was pretty occupied during that time, right.
Brian: Funny thing was when I eventually got home, there was 2 cars parked outside my flay, ‘cos we were the only people living in this block of flats. It was the Show Flat and my Bank Manager had bought it, and we moved in and we had the whole flat and these 2 cars and he said, “I had buy another car” I said, “Why?” He said, ”That one was making funny noises.” There you go.
Simon: What was the funny noises then?
Brian: Well, one of the cylinders had gone.
Simon: Oh, ok.
Brian: It would still run on three. I’d run it for a while on 3 cylinders. It used to burn more oil and petrol, but the piston rings had gone.
Simon: So, what’s the feeling onboard when you think you’re in touching distance of going home and then you’re diverted something like 4 or 5 times?
Brian: Oh, you’re down, but once you got back into ‘oh, we’re doing this’ you cracked on. That was it, it was a way of life. It happened to a lot of submarines. You know you’d have a programme set out for about 11 months but then you never really stuck to it. Not the conventional boats anyway. All the ‘S’s and the ‘T’s because they were … on a Missile submarine, you have a specific job. They’re not going to go running round doing all sorts of funny things. They go out and disappear for months on end and then come back, but on sort of the smaller, especially the conventional submarines, you were always … you never stuck to your programme, ever. There was always some incident somewhere where you had to go and divert from your original programme, put it that way. But it made more … it made life more exciting in a way because you never knew what you were going to do, never knew where you were going to end up.
55 minutes 8 seconds
Simon: So, you get shore time during those as well because you can’t be down for too long with a diesel.
Brian: Oh no. I mean you can be at sea for 14 weeks. I’ve been at sea for 16 weeks on a diesel. Not necessarily dived for 16 weeks but we would dive for 14 weeks but you’d go up and snort every … once your batteries got a bit low and if you were able to, if there wasn’t anybody too close to you or looking for you, go up and do a little bit of snort.
Simon: So, you got no shore leave during that time?
Brian: Oh no.
Simon: Right, ok.
Brian: At the end of Patrols, which was a good thing about conventional submarines, you’d end up going what they call a ‘jolly’ which is a foreign visit, put it that way, so there was always that to look forward to ‘cos time sort of flies anyway. Time, night and day disappears. Sort of you’re on a long Patrol.
Simon: So, what were your hours? What as the structure of a 24-hour day then?
Brian: Depending again what you were doing. You did 6 hours on, 6 hours off or it was other Watches, 4 hours, 8 hours. It all depends on what sort of Patrols and what you were doing at the time.
Simon: And when you are not doing the work stuff, what was that time like?
Brian: Your time off?
Simon: Some sleeping I guess.
Brian: Yeah a lot of sleeping if you could ‘cos even when you’re off Watch, there are still jobs to do. Cleaning your own Mess and things like that. Peeling spuds for the Cooks. Every Mess had to prep their own vegetables for the Cooks. There was only 2 Cooks, they couldn’t do it all. There was always something to do. Watch a film if they weren’t in any quiet states, play cards, wander around.
Simon: Was that fun time spending the social time with people?
Brian: Yeah, ‘cos I wouldn’t just stick in the Mess. I’d go up to the Sailor’s Mess and play cards up there. They had little competitions and things like that. There was always sort of activities going on you could join in if you wanted to. So, it was long hours. You used to be awake more than you were asleep but when you got the chance to sleep, you slept, or they’d do an exercise. They’d do a Fire Exercise or Flood Exercise …
Simon: What when you’re supposed to be sleeping?
Brian: They’d do it in between so every Watch had some sort of exercise, so it wasn’t just your Watch that was being disturbed, so everybody had to keep … you’d get everybody up for Action Stations or whatever, so there was always sometimes it was long hours. When you used to look back, it was sometimes 16, 17-hour days that you were awake, on Watch or doing some task, put it that way. So, when you could sleep, you slept, that’s for sure.
Simon: You got the ability to fall asleep pretty quickly then.
Brian: Yeah, that’s what the wife says. You put your head down, you’ve gone asleep. I was lucky like that.
Simon: You mentioned Cooks. What was the feeling about food? Was that an important part of the day?
Brian: Oh yeah. There weren’t any bad Chefs on submarines. I’ve never known any bad Chefs. I think that was one of the pick of the crop if you were a good Chef (laughs) you were put on a submarine I think.
Simon: Oh I see; they identified the quality.
Brian: Yeah, all the Chefs, all the submarines I’ve ever been on have been really good. You could never complain about the food that’s for sure. Sometimes you again … the menu was a bit restricted, put it that way. If you’d been at sea for a long time there wasn’t a lot of fresh veg around or anything like that, but no, the food was always good.
Simon: What was your favourite … I know some have got some unusual names. What were your favourite dishes that you had?
Brian: I always used to like roast dinners but any old ‘elephants footprints’, ‘shit on a raft’ I used to love that because I used to eat all the offal being a Butcher’s lad anyway so liver, kidneys, anything like that. Tripe, brains on toast. Didn’t have many of that in the Navy but I used to love brains on toast, but as I say, all the meals were good so … there weren’t many vegetarians on a submarine, put it that way.
Simon: Were there some?
Brian: You would have found it difficult I think.
Simon: Were there any?
Brian: Not that I know of (laughs). There might be these days because obviously they’ve got more storage and bigger fridges and freezers and things like that, and most probably they will have a vegan sort of dish on the menu but not on conventional submarines. Them days of anybody saying they were vegeta … I don’t think I’d ever heard of it.
60 minutes 22 seconds
Simon: I mean the thing that struck me walking through Alliance was how tiny the Galley was for that space to produce that much food was just extraordinary.
Brian: It is, but all you need is a big range and a couple of ovens when you basically put down to what do you cook on it at the minute. You’ve only got an oven …
Simon: I guess so. It’s just prep space or you know nothing around them.
Brian: Not a lot.
Simon: But they’re popular onboard the Chefs are they?
Brian: You didn’t sort of want to upset the Chefs, put it that way.
Simon: So, what happened after Onslaught then?
Brian: Oh I got drafted into Dolphin. How long was I alongside? Joined in ’73, I came off it in ’76. I was drafted into Dolphin or under Dolphin but I was drafted to AFD 26, over at Fountain Lake Jetty in the Dockyard, and I was …
Simon: What’s AFD 26 stand for?
Brian: Admiralty Floating Dock, that used to do all the submarine repair work. Stick her in the Floating Dock, lift her out. I was put on there as I/C of the Paint Party. Used to scrape all the old barnacles and all of that off, all back to metal, all painted all up to do [inaudible] and do all the propellor changes, any bracket bearings, stern gland bearings, changing all the outside mechanical stuff like that. I had a year of that, ’76.
Simon: I guess that gave you some time at home with your wife.
Brian: It gave me some time ‘cos we’d moved round to [inaudible] Road by then.
Simon: What was that like after having been away for so long? ‘Cos she’d been getting on with life hasn’t she and …?
Brian: She’d moved schools then and she worked in the school just up the road there, Crofton Anne Dale.
Simon: You said it was strange.
Brian: Yeah ‘cos I was home every night and it was quite pleasant, I was enjoying it over there except the winter we had over there was bloody freezing. And then, ’76 my daughter was born on the 2nd June and there was a heatwave that year. Cor, dear, so my daughter was only in nappies only until about the November. Of course, being strange then, a new dad, I’d come home and what do I do with this like, you know. Frightened to death ‘cos I never thought I’d have kids anyway, but anyway I was over in Dolphin ‘cos we had this new Haben gun, a high-pressure … instead of scraping it with scrapers and wire brushes, the power washer guns. A new one had just been allocated to AFD 26. When the submarines, prior to going into a Floating Dock, or into Dry Dock, you have to de-fuel it, take all the fuel out the external tanks. Of course that lifts her high out of the water so I thought I’d nip her into Dolphin with Haben gun ‘cos you could tow it and I’ll blast all the seaweed off and all the barnacles as she’s coming out the water, as she’s de-fuelling, so I was there with this gun with these couple of lads blasting all this off and I was leaning over the Jetty just watching them, and one of my old Coxswains came down on the Jetty and he was going to do an Escape Inspection on the submarine because the SETT Staff we had 18 submarines in the Dolphin then, or running from Dolphin and every year the SETT Staff do what they call an Escape Inspection to go round and inspect all the suits, all the air systems, all the floods, all the tower systems and everything onboard a submarine. He said, “What you doing over here then?” I said, “in charge of that lot now, I’m over here on AFD 26.” He said, “I’ll tell you what, how would you like to come and work at the Tank?” I said, “Sod that.” I wasn’t keen on that. When I first did it in ’65 it was quite an experience, and then you had to qualify every 3 ½ to 4 years during the submarine career to keep your submarine pay. If you didn’t do the Tank, you lost submarine pay. And every time I requaled, about 6 times I requaled. I’ve got a record in there, there was always one of my old crew members as SETT Staff and of course it was a thing amongst SETT Staff, they could do various things and it didn’t make it that pleasant when you were doing the Tank. They wouldn’t do anything dangerous, but it was just a bit of fun really. I thought, ‘bloody hell, I ain’t working with that lot.’ He said, “No, we’re short of a Maintainer” he said, “because a Chief Tiff who was maintaining, he’s gone on Draft. His relief didn’t pass a Medical because you still have to do a full submarine Medical and all the rest of it.” ‘Cos you have to get in the water to do certain underwater maintenance on some of the fittings then, and he failed his Medical so they were short of a Maintainer, and he said, “We’re really desperate.” I thought, I couldn’t face another winter over the Floating Dock anyway …
66 minutes 11 seconds
Simon: ‘Cos it’s damp. Is that why you couldn’t …?
Brian: Bloody damp, cold, I was always soaking wet, bloody feet rot. It wasn’t the most pleasant of jobs. So anyway, he says, “Come up and meet the Warrant Officer” or Fleet Chief as it was then, and I went up and he said, “Would you like to join?” I said, “Well, it depends” you know. I said, “I’ll join as your Maintenance Staff but I ain’t doing any of that sort of underwater ballerina stuff” and he says, “Oh, you’ll have to pass out in the water, you’ll have to go in the water ‘cos there are parts that you need to get in to do maintenance from the Diving Bell and everything.” I said, “Oh, that sounds a bit fun, I’ll have some of that” and at the time SETT Staff could really pick and choose who they wanted. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had like a ‘hot line’ to Drafty and if he wanted somebody, he’d phone up Drafty and they were put into the Tank. You have to do an interview to go in the Tank, and if they didn’t think you were suitable, they’d draft you. “You ain’t joining” and they’d get someone else. So, I said, “Yeah, I’ll join.” So anyway, I went back to the Floating Dock and the next week there was a Draft Chit and the Warrant Officer over there wasn’t very happy and the two-ringer chip piece …. “Sorry, I’ve got to join the Tank” so off I went and joined the Tank.
Simon: And you were looking forward to it?
Brian: Yeah, different experience and so I went in and had a sort of handover, did the Medical. Then introduced to the water, teaching you how to drop sort of and holding your breath down in the water. ‘What the fucking hell am I doing this for?’ Sorry about the swearing. He said, “Oh no, you’ve got to train up in all the positions.” I said, “No, I’m the Maintainer.” So, he said, “No, you go through the whole process ‘cos at some stage you’re going to have to get in the water yourself and you’re going to have to go down and do this stuff. Then you’re going to have to come back up, and if the Bell’s not working, you’ve got to come up on your own, so you’ve got to learn all the sort of breath, held, diving, free buoyant ascent.” Cor bloody hell, I struggled doing that ‘cos it’s a bit of mind over matter, you know.
Simon: Because you’re in the water and your brain is saying ‘I don’t want to be here.’
Brian: Yeah, especially when you first get in, you do what … you have to do a 15-metre drop, which is take a good deep breath, and push yourself down and try and drop to 15 metres. I thought I’ll struggle doing that. Although I’m negatively buoyant ‘cos I …
Simon: What’s that like 45 feet is it?
Brian: Yeah, so I’m lucky in a way that I’m more or less negatively buoyant ‘cos I’ve only got 11 % body fat, so there’s more bone mass than fat, so I can drop. Most people would struggle to get through sort of 5 metres because their natural buoyancy will take them back up, and then you go through a neutral buoyancy into negative buoyancy. So, you’ve got to force yourself through the positive buoyancy, neutral into negative. Like people jump off bridges and they don’t come back up ‘cos they’ve gone through their positive buoyancy, and neutral into negative buoyancy, so they’ll just sink to the bottom until they gas up and then float back to the surface. So, I struggles doing that, although I was dropping … oh, I don’t like this. My ears would be …
Simon: You had no breathing equipment on?
Brian: No. Just a nose clip and a mask.
Simon: So, when you’re taking yourself down, are you feeding yourself down a wire or …
Brian: There’s ladders around the Tank. If you notice they’re 12 feet 1 inch long believe it or not, and you just push yourself down, try and keep yourself sort of rigid ‘till you get to the bottom of the ladder. As I say, that’s 12 foot, just a couple of metres, and then you try and push off as hard as you can from the bottom to go through into negative buoyancy. A lot of people struggle with that, so they have to … until you get used to it, put it that way. ‘Cos you’ve taken a really good deep breath to try to get as much air in your lungs which would give you extra buoyancy obviously, as you can, and I would drop quite easily through the water ‘cos my sort of negative buoyancy point is the bottom of the ladders, 12 feet. I can’t float on the surface in fresh water. I just go like that and that’s the only bit above …
70 minutes 47 seconds
Simon: Just the forehead.
Brian: Yeah, so I was quite lucky in a way training up that I was negatively buoyant. That was a struggle. And then you do …
Simon: How long are you holding your breath when you’re doing that, the 15 metres?
Brian: Oh, not long for 15 metres. Only a minute or so to drop down. It depends how fast you drop, and then there’s ropes around the side that you pull yourself back up on because you’re negatively buoyant. You can’t swim up because, well you could, but you’re wasting energy. You’re burning up oxygen, you’re producing CO2, the more activities you do so you just pull yourself gently up the rope back to the surface. And then eventually they get you to drop to the bottom, down to 30 metres, and that can take 2 minutes, 3 minutes, but then you’re getting used to using all your lung capacity ‘cos most people only use sort of 75% of their lung capacity. 25% you never actually take a really good deep breath, so you’re taught how to take a really good deep breath.
Simon: What is that method?
Brian: Well, you take a good deep breath as hard as you can [breathes in] and now you start sucking [sucks in] and you feel it. [Simon takes a deep breath and then sucks in]. Keep sucking and only a narrow … keep sucking, and now the more you do that,
Simon: Feels as though I’m going to burst.
Brian: Then the more you do that, ‘cos you’re doing it every time you take in a good deep breath which is a lot of times, put it that way.
Simon: Right.
Brian: You’re just stretching, and now you’re starting to use all your alveoli that you’ve never used in your life. It depends whether you breath with your diaphragm or your upper chest because people breath slightly differently. You alter the way you breathe with just your diaphragm which fills up the bottom of your lungs, or you use the muscles up here to use the top of your lungs, but not many people do that. You mainly use your diaphragm. But doing all them sort of breathing exercises, you really start to. I mean my lung capacity increased in a way, put it that way, because it was 5.5 when you do your first Medical, ‘cos you have to breath into what they call a Fev machine, and it was 6.1 once I’d done al my water work training.
Simon: Wow, that’s litres is it?
Brian: Yeah, it’s not that my lungs had expanded, it’s because I’d started to use all the alveoli in your lungs.
Simon: Wow! So, then you’re dropping to the bottom of the Tank, 30 metres, and how was that? Your brain is saying, “Come on, I want to breathe now.”
Brian: Yeah.
Simon: And what method do you use to conquer your brain on that then?
Brian: I don’t know. It’s psychological. You just get used to being underwater and it’s quite pleasant ‘cos everybody’s got what they call a ‘diver’s reflex’ and some people, you develop an exaggerated ‘diver’s reflex.’ Like babies when they’re born, could be born in water or you could put them straight in water, they lower their breath, and a lot of people retain a certain amount of that, but then you start to lose it, and what that is, when you immerse yourself in water, all your peripherals start to shut down and the only bits that require oxygen and blood stay active. By training up in the Tank over a number of months, you start to get that … recover that ‘diver’s reflex’ so you don’t start gagging so much when you’re sort of [gagging noise] I’ve been down … you sort of put that out .. no, I’m not, I’m quite comfortable. And you can just train yourself …
Simon: Right, just extended exposure, a little bit more, a little bit more.
Brian: Yeah, oh I’m alright. I’ll take a breath in a minute or so, and you do various exercises when you’re training up, sort of what they call ‘Awkward Squads.’ They’ll make you push you to your limit and then push you a bit further until you. “I’ve had enough of that, I’m out of here” you know, so you get to know sort of your limits and then you push yourself beyond it, and it’s a bit of mind over matter, self-discipline. In the end I could hold my breath quite easily for 4 ½ to 5 minutes.
75 minutes 31 seconds
Simon: Wow!
Brian: There was a lot of them that could hold their breath 7 minutes and longer. It depends on your ‘diver’s reflex’ that you sort of recovered from, and if you could switch off … I mean I was … if we were doing single men escape tower runs, you used to leave the Diving Bell and sit outside the Tower waiting for the hatch to open and the Trainee to come out and talk to him and do all the drills that you had to, and sometimes once you’d left the Bell, they’d stop the flood in the Tower because the Trainee had a problem and now you’re sat out there … “Come on, sort it out, start flooding again” and you can’t sit out there forever and ever, so one of you go back to the Bell but you were always reluctant to go back because your first deep breath is better than the second deep breath and you could have taken those instances.
Simon: Really? Why is that then?
Brian: I don’t know, it’s just one of them … it could be psychological. So, I’d sit outside there and I started counting and some bolts around the top of the Tower, there are 37, did I get that right? 1,2,3,4, … and the other bloke used to shut his eyes and put his …
Simon: You’re distracting yourself, ok.
Brian: Yeah, you’re switching your brain off, because even if you’ve got to the stage which I did a few times and most Instructors did [retching sound] and you thought ‘I’m going back to the Bell’ and then you heard him flood it and the hatch is going to open and the gagging went away, because now you’ve had an activity that was required, so you’re going [gagging sound] ‘oh the hatch is opening, that’s alright.’ Why did that happen?
Simon: Right.
Brian: ‘Cos you’d switched the old CO2 trigger that you know makes you get out and you’d switched it off.
Simon: Amazing.
Brian: And that was done subconsciously as such.
Simon: So, they build those skills up in you and then what’s the next stage then ‘cos you were there to do maintenance but they sort of got you to join in the training part.
Brian: Yeah, they wanted what they call a ‘Swim Boy’ as well, because once I sort of accepted this water world drill, I trained up quite quickly, and I started to enjoy it ‘cos it pushed me beyond limits that I thought I could go. You know, you learn a lot about yourself, and it was quite fun, and they drafted another Mechanic. And he phoned me up and said, “What do you want to do?” I said, “Well, I’m quite enjoying it here” and he says, “well that year that you’ve had on the Maintenance Staff, we’ll class that as Sea Time because you volunteered to go in and fill a bill out of turn as such, so your time at the Tank starts now, and you’re going to be an Instructor.”
Simon: Wow!
Brian: Oh fine.
Simon: Did that feel good?
Brian: Yeah, once I’d got used to the water, I used to join in ‘Awkward Squads’ and things like that. I weren’t sort of initially allowed to go in with Trainees, but I used to join in and pretend to be Trainee and then I’d take up some of the Staff positions because I found it quite challenging and fun and I thought oh I want to be an Instructor now, and then the opportunity arose so that was it. So, I switched off to be an Instructor … it must have been ’78, that my son was born and then I became an Instructor as such doing all the water work bits and then started to learn all the Lectures and things like that in the classroom ‘cos the Tank just doesn’t train escape. I don’t know whether you know that. It trains lots of other things. I’ve got an octopus drawing somewhere I can show you at some stage. It did Tasks, the SETT used to get involved in.
Simon: Well look, this seems to be like a good point to break. Let’s take a break and if it’s ok I’ll come back.
Brian: I’m happy with that Simon.
Simon: I’ll come back another time, we’ll do the SETT stuff.
Brian: By all means. Once you get me talking, I had forgotten about half this stuff until somebody asks me a question ‘cos I don’t know what I know until somebody asks me a question and says, “Oh, what’s this, what’s that” and then of course the old filing cabinet opens up and I’m off.
Simon: One links to one thing and then it goes from there. Well, that’s been brilliant, thank you and we’ll sort out another thing. Thanks.
Interview ends
80 minutes 10 seconds
Transcribed February 2023
