Ian Moore – My Sea Dad, Robbie Robinson

I was very fortunate, my ‘Sea Dad’ a guy called Robbie Robinson, who was a dour Yorkshireman, no sense of humour whatsoever, and he’d been a Leading Hand for a good 10-12 years, and he saw that he’d wasted an awful lot of his career, and he saw in me, that as a protégée that he wasn’t going to allow me to go the same route that he did, so basically he kicked my arse morning, noon and night, until I actually had all this information inside my brain.

That I understood every single aspect of how a submarine works, and then he made me sit down and take all the exams that I needed to take in order to be able to better myself, which is why I ended up being a Leading Hand at 19 years old which ordinarily is probably at least 3 or 4 years earlier than most people would actually deem that they were ready to take the next higher rank