Colin Hamilton – First became interested in Submarines

I ended up selling ice cream and hotdogs on the beach which is really where I whetted my appetite for submarines, because it was a cold wet summer’s day. I was tipping stale loafs at the seagulls like you do and I saw the Grampus sailed from Birkenhead on her trials.

This sleek black ship went out and I was most impressed with that, so I thought well if I do join the Navy, that’s what I want to do, join submarines, but I’d been on a submarine as a Wolf Cub in 1955. The Poseidon came into Birkenhead, into Cammell Laird’s. She was tied up alongside, underneath the bows of the Ark Royal.

Not the Ark Royal I eventually ended up on, but the Ark Royal that was built in the ‘50s. The Stokers Mess gave us tea or lemonade and chocolate fingers, and we played around, were shown around and left the submarine.