Ami Burns – ‘Bin bags’ and ‘dabbers’
If there was ever a spin-off its Branches, you know, it’s the Weapons Engineers and the Marine Engineers, there’s not a, you know, you’re a ‘binbag’ or you’re a ‘dabber’.
Simon: So what’s a binbag?
A ‘binbag’ is a Marine Engineer
Simon: Why is that? Where’s that come from?
Ah it’s an awful story.
Simon: Oh OK well you don’t have to tell it to me.
It’s just not, if you ask any of the guys that you might have interviewed previously, the story comes from when you’re on Watch, they used to go to the toilet in binbags back aft.
So there was this, this, invariably, you know, it used to be that, not the case anymore, we actually have a toilet back aft now. But they’d be like oh, ‘binbags’, oh, just ‘binbags’, because that, and the name has stuck.
Simon: Right, because you’re on the go the whole time, there’s no time to take a break.
Yep, and for you to take, you know, in previous platforms where there wasn’t toilets back aft, you would have to get somebody to take the Watch from you for you to go to the toilet.
So you had to be excused from the Watch to go to the loo so now, it’s not the case, now you can actually go to the loo back aft or you actually get a relief if you need to go for’ard, so.
Simon: What was there, there was binbag, what was the other one?
Dabbers, so that was Warfare Officers.
Simon: And what’s the story behind that one?
OMs in the olden days, in warfare, they used to do all the painting and it was all about dabbing anti-rust and paint on the upper deck to keep the ship looking well.