Andy Dinsdale – Officer training

Simon: When you do the training to become an Officer, the Officer Training is sort of teaching you management skills is that?

It is, it’s teaching you people management, leadership and those kinds of skills, so yes it is, and it’s giving you a, I guess it’s more of an overview about you know the Ship or the Submarine Service.

Simon: So, where you’re individual submarine may fit in within an overall mission or role.

Yeah, absolutely. And it’s teaching you about the, I guess, understanding you know the Navy ethos and the history so you get a lot more about you know the background in the Navy so you learn more about that.

You learn more about things like, you know, you think more about Politics, in terms of what is the Navy in the bigger context, so I guess it’s getting you ready, even at that as a Junior Officer to think more about rather than as an Apprentice, you don’t necessarily get that level of detail in terms of you know, what’s the Navy, how is it funded and things like that so they try and get into you early days about what the Navy is actually about and the pride that the Navy can hold its head up and there’s bits in there about, you know I mentioned earlier the different ways of becoming an Officer.

You can either go early or a bit later, and if you are what is called a ‘Special Duties Officer’, you’re typically a later and you don’t do the same training as a Junior Officer, but they would go on what used to be called ‘The Knife and Fork Course’ so teaching you etiquette and you know how to use a knife and fork and things like that. So, there’s things like that that you learn as an Officer, that is quite important, because in terms of you know understanding sort of Mess life and that kind of context.

I guess it’s sort of broader training as an Engineer just to understand, you know, again as an example, as an Engineering Officer, at Dartmouth which is where you do your training, a lot of your time is spent on things like understanding Seamanship. So, understanding … and you have to do the same things as the eventual Seamen Officers.