So, you want to be a Navy Diver?
Moments in life define us, May of 1978 was one such moment for me. I qualified as a Royal Navy Clearance Diver. Many men older, bigger and stronger would fail, ‘wrap their hand in.’ A bitterly cold and freezing winter course at Horsea Lake, Portsmouth would find out those who lacked the mental stamina to pass the course and those who rose to the top and became part of the elite. We all have a strategy, or default mode, unwittingly or not to get through life. I was once informed mine was a blunt instrument, and it has worked for me.
Eighteen months before becoming a Clearance Diver, I had walked “hands thrust in pockets” up the pedestrian ramp that allowed access to Birmingham city’s New Street railway station. The city centre felt old, tired and damp, uninspiring in the season’s dullness, a mood reflected in me. Up the ramp from street level past several commercial shops, was the Royal Navy recruiting office. Half-heartedly, I pushed open the glass door and sauntered in.
A Petty Officer from the Royal Navy possibly mid-thirties, sat behind his neat and orderly black desk. The kind of desk that looked like its only function was a barrier to separate the plebs from the officer. Neatly, within half an arm’s length to his right, was an ashtray, closer still a coffee cup. Behind him in perfect symmetry hung a portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. He swayed ever so slightly from side to side in a swivel chair. He was as neat and orderly as the desk. Black tie, white collared shirt starched and pressed, rigid as only the military can be. His navy jacket with insignia was hung over the back of the chair. He was the recruiting officer.
This man would decide my destiny. Not that I was sure what destiny was or which was mine to follow. At 16, I had no interest in such philosophical matters. I was looking for something to do, something to be and preferably something that paid after school.
An hour before entering the recruiting office, I had taken the number ninety cream and blue double-decker bus from where I lived in Great Barr to the city centre. A journey of about twenty minutes. I sat on the upper level amongst a haze of wispy white layered thermal cigarette smoke. Grey building facades and low grey clouds of winter passed by as we trundled along. Passengers getting on and off the bus would drag fresh cold air upstairs, disturbing the smoke.
Inside the recruiting office, I waited with three other lads. I was conspicuously out of place. They had short, neat hair, polished black shoes, smart trousers, with shirt collars protruding from V-necked jumpers. One comforting factor, we were all skinny lads. My father in a jokey dad way once called me a ‘toast rack.’ The fact we were all skinny reassured me, ever so slightly, that I fitted in.
I wore patchwork jeans flared and frayed at the bottoms, a black t-shirt with a Judas Priests logo and a blue wrangler denim jacket. I can’t recall what was on my feet. No sandal-wearing hippie music for me. So most likely white plimsolls. I was into rock. Thin Lizzy, Status Quo and Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, were spun regularly on my record player as I ‘headbanged’ along. My hair was long and greasy, and my complexion would have been described as spotty, not quite pizza face. An uninspiring youth. The kind that when elderly female neighbours met each other shopping would say, “Shirley’s boy, he won’t amount to much, such a shame, his Mother is a lovely woman.”
“ Next!! was bellowed out. There the officer sat, no handshake offered. I sat on the opposite side of his desk in a small chair. The kind of chair that didn’t swivel and had no arm rests, my arms fluctuating between crossed and dangling loosely down, with my right hand occasionally sweeping back the fringe of my long, greasy hair.
“What can we do for you, lad,” he said.
“I want to be a navy diver,” I said.
The officer’s high-backed black office chair jolted backwards with the weight of his body. His eyes squinted shut and mouth wide open as he laughed at, I assume, the absurdity of my answer.
“What? So… you, want to be a Royal Navy Clearance Diver?”
“Yes,” I replied.
The Petty Officer composed himself. Leaning forward in his chair and as close to me as the desk would allow, he looked me in the eyes. “Look at you, you’d be two stone wet through! He paused for effect. “What makes you think you could be a clearance diver? He said condescendingly. “ Do you like to shoot guns, lad?”
I’d shot a gun once before. My mate’s older brother had a 22-air rifle that we borrowed once without asking. We were 14-year-old hunters, stalking the forest for prey. I shot from the hip, unintentionally killing a starling. I felt so terrible that I buried the bird in a box I had found and marked the grave with a small cross made of twigs.
“No, I don’t like guns. If I can’t be a clearance diver, I won’t be joining.”
He paused, rested back in his chair and started swaying again ever so slightly side to side as he pondered the somewhat dishevelled teenager who sat uncomfortably opposite him. He leaned forward and said, “Listen, lad, I am going to be honest with you. “It is one of the toughest branches of the Royal Navy. “Men…” he paused again for me to reflect on the word, “bigger and stronger than you have failed, those that pass are the elite, the roughest, toughest men of the Royal Navy!” Churchillian in his delivery.
I replayed a recent scene. There I was in my navy-blue overalls, stacking like bricks white two-pound sugar bags at the local supermarket, unimaginatively called Low Cost. I had left school, having done reasonably well. “Could do better” appeared to be the teacher’s standard comments on most of my reports. I guess my social life took precedence over my schoolwork.
I glanced up the shopping aisle and striding down were three of my teachers, Mr. White, Mr. Pritchard and his brother. They walked up to me near the wall of sugar I was stacking, looked at each other. One of the Pritchard brother’s who taught religious education, looked me up and down, then said to me: “We thought you’d end up here.” His tone was a matter of fact. They walked past without another word and made their way to the cash registers.
I have a default mode when I am told I cannot do something. It has been this way for as long as I can recall. Maybe it is in my genetic make-up or part of my upbringing. The critics, the doubters, the non-believers, those who scoff and the eyeball rollers can deflate you, but in my case, the more they say “No, you can’t” the more it motivates me. The flag that raises in my mind is big and bold, heroically fluttering, emblazoned with “I’ll show you.”
Resting back in his chair again he said, “You, just haven’t got what it takes, boy”. I gave a wry smile. Confidence, at 16, is an attribute I lacked but made up for it with a dogged determination to prove the naysayers wrong.
“That’s it son. The interviews over”. Good luck with whatever you decide to do. “The Navy life is not for you,” he said.
He motioned with his left hand and a nod of his head towards the exit door.
Without further discussion, I slumped towards the door, passing the nervous, smartly dressed lads on my way out.
Heading home on the smoke-filled upper deck of the bus, my tenacious flag was proudly flying. I had the idea of another strategy to get another interview and the prerequisite medical to at least get into HMS Raleigh in Plymouth, the shore establishment for basic training.
Through a friend who was already accepted into the Royal Navy, I managed to secure another interview. The week leading up to the next interview, I dug out my old school uniform, black blazer and trousers, white collared shirt and V-necked grey jumper, socks with polished black shoes, no tie. Reluctantly, I’d had my hair trimmed, still shoulder length. I sat opposite another recruitment officer, basically a carbon copy of the last one.
I never mentioned my intention to become a clearance diver. I now knew you had to start as a junior seaman sailor and do basic training before selecting a branch to specialise. I signed on to serve for 22 years.
The train from Birmingham, New street to Plymouth Station was about to depart, there were plenty of young men seated in my cabin, I assume joining the navy also. On the platform to my right stood in a line was my Grandmother, Mother, Aunty Sandra and older sister Teresa, I sat on the window seat facing in the direction of travel, I turned my head to look out the window, they were crying. The train slowly pulled away, through tears that I try to hold back, I could see my family waving me off.
After five hours, I arrived at Plymouth Station. Suitcase in hand, hair still shoulder length, I sauntered through the main gates of HMS Raleigh to begin basic training. The honoured badge of Clearance Diver would soon be sewn onto my naval uniform.
