Ian Moore – How not to leave the Royal Navy

 Some people who tried to get out. There was one situation where we were probably 3 weeks into the training, and it was about 2 o’clock in the morning and they came round with the dustbin lids, banging these dustbin lids, and everybody was up. Switched all the lights on, told everybody to get out, get a pair of boots on and fall in outside.

Luckily I managed to grab a greatcoat that was hanging up by my bunk, and put it on, but for a lot of people I mean they were just in pyjamas with a pair of boots on. And they made us fall in outside and then marched us up to the top of the rise, and at the top of the road, it bent round to the left and instead they marched us over to the right.

And in front of us we could see that there was a set of spotlights had been put up and there was somebody on the top of the barbed wire fencing. What they wanted to do was to show that this is not the correct way to leave the Royal Navy.

They’d left him hanging there until the brought everybody out to see what was going on, and they marched us all up across the grass, and they stood us in front of this guy who was squealing like a pig on top of the barbed wire fencing, and one of the Instructors stepped forward, pointed to this guy up on the top of the fence.

He said, “That is not the way to leave our Royal Navy. If you wish to leave the Royal Navy, you will do it by filling out a Request Form. That’s not the way to do it.”