Under Pressure. Richard Humphreys

with its changes of course and depth. And lastly there was the leading writer,§ who could usually be found holed up in the ship’s office doing all the coxswain’s admin; he also took his turn at flying the boat as well.

Then there was the doctor, who occupied a small sick-bay on 2 Deck, where he treated physically sick sailors. Don’t assume there were any mental health considerations, mind you. If someone rocked up and complained, ‘I’m not feeling that great today, Doc. Can we have a chat about it, please?’ the main gist of the doctor’s response would be, ‘Yes, of course, now fuck off.’ He also doubled up doing a turn on ship control, where he helped look after the pitch and depth of the boat while it dived and was at periscope depth. The occasional failure to carry out that part of his obligations resulted in him being on the end of some almighty bollockings from the captain.

      That said, these always seemed to wash over him, for he was not easily irked. I guess doctors don’t get intimidated that easily. Although he was an officer with the rank of surgeon lieutenant, the doc I served all my patrols with preferred the company of the junior rates and drank heavily with us, always first in the queue for the pub on a night out and one of the last home, as well as being a heavy smoker. I’m not sure how he would have been judged by modern-day NHS standards, but he was great company – thoroughly entertaining, clever, level-headed and entirely unflappable. That said, I’m not sure I’d have wanted him taking my appendix out or resetting a broken bone.

The other major feature of the submarine particular to the nuclear deterrent was that it was made up of two crews, Port and Starboard (my crew). While one crew was out on patrol the other crew would be on the piss, on holiday or on training exercises. The main reason for this was maximising the amount of time any one of the four submarines could spend at sea. On these training exercises, we’d go to a simulated control room in Plymouth, where we’d practise both attacking and evasive manoeuvres in front of teaching staff who would judge our performance. It would be back-to-back, full-on attack-simulation training, with the warfare team under the leadership of the captain.

      We liked these simulations. It made for a nice change to practise attacks on enemy ships or submarines, and they kept our hand in, for our main task on patrol was to evade and hide, not to engage or investigate like the SSN hunter-killers, or the diesel submarines that spent their patrols intelligence-gathering in Soviet waters and tracking enemy submarines. On the attack drills I usually found myself paired up with the captain as his periscope assistant. This consisted of helping the team effort by working out my own range of given target/targets using the angle of its bow and a 360° protractor slide-rule. The captain could then choose to ignore it, use it, or refer to it as a ballpark figure to help him with his own calculations. This full-on training lasted around a week, and to relieve the stresses of the day we partied hard in Plymouth. It led me back to some of my old ‘run ashore’ haunts on Union Street that I’d first encountered near the end of my basic training.

Aptly named, Boobs nightclub left little to the imagination; drink was consumed on an industrial scale, one-night stands were commonplace, with women and sailors in various states of undress while still in the club. Full-on debauchery ran amok, and I remember a particularly frantic half-hour of my own in the ladies’ loos. The night would usually end side-stepping vomit or fighting men, occasionally women, or both at the same time, always alcohol-induced. Once, on exiting Boobs en route to our favoured Chinese takeaway, I saw a sailor come hurtling through the window; landing with panache, he dusted himself down and strolled off into the night like a gracefully listing galleon.

      Our other haunt was Diamond Lil’s, with Ronnie Potter. Ronnie played his Hammond organ while his wife sang mainly blue songs, as strippers did their thing on a raised stage, dragging inebriated sailors up for audience participation. All very bizarre, a kind of sleazy version of The Good Old Days, it was packed out every night. There was obviously no accounting for taste. The best hornpipe dance would win a free drink at the end of the night, but I’d never be in a sufficiently decent state to even attempt it. Although there were plenty of fights – mostly handbags – genuine violence was fairly thin on the ground among sailors. If there was any real trouble it tended to get started by the local thugs who wanted to put one over ‘Jolly Jack’ to prove that they still possessed the requisite manliness to survive in seaside cities they perceived as being ‘invaded’ by the Navy. All the recent debate about the disenfranchisement of the British working class is nothing new. I saw it first-hand in the mid-1980s on the streets of Plymouth and Portsmouth most Friday and Saturday nights.

      * ‘Junior rates’ is the collective term for seamen, able seamen and leading hands.

      † Submarine submerged nuclears – known as ‘hunter-killers’ – were nuclear-powered submarines that didn’t carry nuclear weapons.

      ‡ Nuclear weapons inspection.

      § The leading writer was responsible for helping with the HR function, legal matters and other administration.