Colin Clarke – Enjoyed time out in the Falklands

I suppose one of the things that I really did enjoy … I’ve been down to the Falklands four times on submarines, three times on HMS Osiris spookily enough, on the same diesel boat and then once on HMS Trafalgar, but on the first occasion, of going down there on Osiris, which I think was over the Christmas of ’84, as we were leaving in the sort of February time to come back to the UK, the Helicopter Squadron down there wanted to practice what we call ‘highline transfers’ so that’s taking people on and off the submarine from the Bridge.

And at the time, as the ‘Scratcher’, so that’s kind of like the Bosun’s Mate in effect in submarine terms, so the guy responsible for looking after the upper deck, its fixtures and fittings, coming alongside, ropes, and helo transfers comes under your bailiwick as well, so I’m standing there with the old hook to get all the static electricity off the line, to grab the line, get the first person all stropped up, off you go.

So, we’re coming away from the Falklands heading north, and the Helicopter Squadron had just … I think there were 2 helicopters, they were just constantly for about 6 hours, just practicing high line transfers and then we got to the point and I went, “Right, I’ve had enough of this, it’s about time I went up” so we all went up, rotated ourselves round as well, so that was good fun.

I’ve had it also where I think it was a Lynx helicopter did a mail transfer onto the back end of a diesel submarine, I think that was Osiris as well, and there’s not a lot of space on the back of a diesel submarine and now I’ve got a Lynx with 1 wheel balancing on the back end of a submarine and I’m, again as the ‘Scratcher’, crawling out with my Scratcher’s dickie, who is my mate and that’s just his nickname, getting the mail to get onboard the submarine, and it’s all a bit like. ’this is a bit hairy.’

Rotor blades are giving it like that. Something you wouldn’t do today I’m pretty sure but yeah, there’s some interesting times.