Steve Thorpe – Life in Gosport

I lived in a Married Quarter in Gosport, but because we had … there were 30 Instructors who had a really good close camaraderie and we had some really good social events, it was good.

When I first joined there in ’85, was heaving. It was like the Royal Arms which is on Stoke Road used to be a big submariner Pub. Emma’s upstairs Night Club always used to be rammed with people and submariners.

You could guarantee if you went out by yourself, you would always meet somebody that you knew off another crew, it was that sort of environment. In comparison to today where it’s a bit like a ghost town, in comparison to what it was back then.

And even in SETT, in ’98, the Submarine School was still in Dolphin, so there was a lot of people from there still, so it was really quite a thriving little community and really quite reliant on Dolphin as it was then for that trade if you like that used to go into Gosport quite a lot.

And the culture was a lot different to today as well. ‘Cos everybody used to go out drinking and socialise back then whereas now, it’s the ‘Play Station generation’ so even in Faslane, nobody really goes into Helensburgh like we would have gone to Gosport back in the day.