David Lovell
SMF Supporter
Many years back I must have been about thirteen (work it out I'm sixty four now)I went on a school holiday/ trip to stay on the Training Ship Fudroyant ,sorry for the spelling, she was I think a captured French man of War from the same era as Victory , on a permanent mooring in Portsmouth Harbour it was big two or three diffrent schools on diffrent decks. So we were on one of the gun decks ,slept in hammocks wich had to be stowed correctly each morning, if I remember rightly they were stowed against the hull sides in real life as a dampner against splinters /shrapnel comming off the insides ,my hammock was red 22 how do I remember I'll tell you I think up on deck each morning for parade /muster my hammock number was called for not being rolled and stowed correctly ,no punishment but the walk of shame as you went below to put their stupid bloody hammock how they wanted (thats how it felt by the end of the week) . We ate on pull down tables on said gun deck at least the plates weren't wooden ,I do rember it was bloody freezing at night and the food wasn't up to much. Saying that mucking about on diffrent little boats for a week was what it was all about. We rowed a what I'd call a whaler/life boat across to the Isle of Wight got towed back ,it had its own service ship funnel and all some evenings we'd go out in the solent on it and the skipper would through a cardboard box over and come around you'd have to shout conning Tower sighted then we'd all take it in turn to try and ram it other evenings taken up with rowing races against the other schools. The ablutions were up on deck but one learnt that if you were quick you could pull the chain rush out and watch your poo shoot out of the pipe and splash down in to the water. The one thing that I do remember was being taken down in to the hull and taken around the carpenters walk wich ran the water line to allow running repairs to battle damage, all this a long time ago I wonder if she's still exist. Dave
