Don Cleavin – Tour Guide on HMS Alliance

Simon: You were on the Alliance as a Tour Guide for 10 years weren’t you? What was that experience like of showing people around, the general members of the public?

A lot of fun.

Simon Because I guess the submarines … the general person in the street doesn’t know about submarines. They know they exist …

They only know what you tell them. I was very experienced person you see. I’d had a lot of experience of submarines, just like that one.

I was on four boats like that one, so I knew all about them.

You’ve got to be careful you don’t tell them too much ‘cos you can make a tour last for about tree or four hours if you want to, but I think it was about half an hour doing a tour, forty minutes.

So, you can only tell them what they need to know really.