Observer career path/ real life experience. later times). 1976. John Garrett. Every letter of our names had to be perfectly in line. It had to be a joke! Now i know why! Welcome to our next documentary, investigating the decaying remains and iconic abandoned swimming pool of HMS Ganges Royal Naval training school, as well as . Initially, training continued to be carried out on the vessel, but after the completion of a shore-based facility at Shotley, the ship was sent to be broken up. According to the HMS Ganges Museum, her timbers were used to make objects including a grand staircase on an estate, and a cocktail bar in a small hotel, both in Devon. The mast has been a local landmark since it was. To get to the platform you would climb out over the Devil's Elbow, legs dangling in the air, only your grip keeping you from certain death. St George IOM Boys training 3/5/45 Christmas leave 45 took all kit and returned to Ipswich station, then by the ubiquitous 3 ton Bedford to Shotley where we reopened HMS Ganges as a boys establishment. However lessons, culminating in a test, were much more difficult. Martin Foster, 54, of Haig Road, Uxbridge, had already admitted two charges of fraud by abuse of position. Newsquest Media Group Ltd, Loudwater Mill, Station Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. She remained in service at RNTE Shotley until October 1976. He was sitting on a stool and told me to stand in front of him and begin. Some boys failed the initial inspection which only lengthen their time in the freezing conditions. Contents 1 Foundation and early history 1.1 Allegations of abuse 2 Ganges at Harwich 3 Ganges at Shotley 3.1 1906 changes 3.2 Later developments 3.3 First World War 3.4 Post war developments 3.5 Ganges in the Second World War 3.6 Postwar and closure 4 References 5 External links An appeal by Woolverstone Parish Council was turned down two years later. The one chippy bugger who thought it good fun to make you spar with him in the wash room (Annexe) I met up with in the Far Flung and gave him more than he gave me. From it came bloodcurdling cries of command, so frightening that I most surely would have obeyed them myself, if had I understood what they meant. She was established as a boys' training establishment in 1865, and was based aboard a number of hulks before moving ashore. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. When I say there was sexual abuse Im speaking from personal experience. LRO (G) Served from 1975 - 1998 Served in HMS Ganges. [1] Didn't like it, there are better ways of teaching than violence, but it hardened me up and made me self disciplined. 1937. The noise was excruciating. She was the last wooden wall ship to be a flagship, and the last to sail around cape horn unassisted. He was the officer that tested us when we endeavoured to qualify with a bosuns pipe. His early life was hard by any standards. JavaScript is disabled. The test consisted of two lengths of the pool while wearing a boiler suit, then floating for five minutes. He went on to be an SD subby. Life on the ship was extremely hard, with a memorial in Mylor, Cornwall, recording the names of 53 people who died while training on it between 1866 and 1899. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. "They had a hard life, but they were fed and looked after. In 1907, its famous training mast was erected on the parade ground. contact the editor here. View of the iconic mast at the former HMS Ganges site in Shotley Gate. Some 100 boy-sailors were in the canteen, chewing and chattering; clattering knives forks and spoons against plates and bowls. Royal Navy 238217 Boy 1st Class HMS Ganges II. Several tales about bullying and the harsh regime generally, not so much about the famous and frequent official canings. AboutPressCopyrightContact. Discipline was severe, routine constant and fear of punishment loomed at every turn. Attempts have been made to contact developers Haylink Ltd but have been unsucessfull. The Admiralty decided that the shore base should bear the name of the original training ship, HMS Ganges. http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/hms-ganges-swimming-pool-shotley-may-2015.t96792, Anniversary Toast - HMS RALEIGH 25th Oct 2009, Telegraph: "Captain Peter Grindal Obituary", Future Ford vehicles could repossess themselves, 10 myths told by Covid 'experts' now debunked. 'Letters back to front, remember!' they said. However, in the meantime we were still at the mercy of our instructors. Drake 39 mess At least the cubicles in the heads had doors on this time. 4 reviews When Peter Broadbent entered HMS Ganges, the toughest training establishment for young recruits to the Royal Navy, he was a naive 15-year-old Yorkshire schoolboy, entranced with the idea of seeing the world, proud of his drainpipe trousers and DA hairstyle, and eager to meet girls. If you are dissatisfied with the response provided you can The white letters would then be transformed, by our nimble fingers, into red with silk thread using the chain stitch. The cinemas would be packed with rows of Ganges boys in uniform and the caf at the corner of St Stephen's Lane would sell them many cups of tea as they waited for their bus back to Shotley. 1927. HMS Ganges had a reputation for its harsh discipline. #42. HMS Ganges moved moorings from Harwich to Shotley. First Royal Navy ship to visit Eire, post independence? HMS Ganges closed on June 6. CHARGE CHIEF PETTY OFFICER (WEA) Served from 1974 - 1997 Served in HMS Ganges. what an incredible article, thanks for that dave, how far did you get up that mast? The mast has been a local landmark since it was erected a century ago this year at the end of the Shotley peninsular. 1903. Maurice was nothing to do with HMS Ganges, in fact he had been a crew member of HMS Hambledon. The culprit was brought before the Commanders table, the punishment was awarded as six or twelve cuts. The next six years passed with regular naval detentions, ( Royal Naval Detention Quarters RNDQs Portsmouth) exhausting punishments, solitary confinements, ending with a twelve month sentence in the infamous HMP Corradino, Malta. Picture: CLAGUE ARCHITECTS (Image: CLAGUE ARCHITECTS). The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Looking pretty in candy-striped pyjama bottoms and naked chests, we were ordered across the parade ground, through the snow and ice, to the 'heads', that grown-up potty land, which had neither doors nor partitions around the bowls for privacy, to partake in our morning ablutions, a most embarrassing experience. We were ushered in as a group of naked boys and told to wash thoroughly. the reason i remember the date is that it was my 15th birthday, We got shipped out to Suez in October 1956 cutting short our training by a couple of months. Graduating from Ganges held the promise of better times ahead, we would be real sailors, excited at the prospect of visiting far off and exotic lands. Data returned from the Piano 'meterActive/meterExpired' callback event. They faced what was without doubt the most severe punishment, cuts. Even if it amazingly stayed put, as soon as I slammed the rifle onto the parade ground off it popped again. My DO was so unforgetable I can't remember his name, but he ponced around with his handky up his sleeve and a curled lip. Network 157.90../16 Abuse Contact API. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. I had already taught myself to swim. Independent Babergh District councillor for Ganges, Derek Davis. www.amazon.co.uk/H-m-S-Ganges-Dozen/dp/0906418003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269273975&sr=1-1, www.navy-net.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic/t=134/postdays=0/postorder=asc/start=0.html, www.veterans-uk.info/vets_badge/vets_badge.htm. It was hard, often . For more information, please see our Privacy Policy, Please enter a password with 6 characters or more. Other things we had to do included, clean a toilet with a toothbrush, polish a hundred square feet of block-wood flooring with a boot brush every night before going to bed, paint the inside of a dustbin white before putting your rubbish into it. Engineer commander had been on Amethyst up the Yangtse and was quite sympathetic when he was OOD. HMS Ganges 'He had the misfortune to be placed under the care of two particularly brutal and drunken instructors whose continual bullying and abuse proved too much for this emerging free spirit ' His early life was hard by any standards. If you cracked on and didn't buckle you were okay, but I wouldn't want to do it again. Most boys just wanted to complete their year and go to sea. Statistics for the 1930s indicate some 200 official canings per year in HMS Ganges alone, an average of four per week. The showers at Ganges were just one bare room with several shower heads, no privacy. It closed in 1998 or something. The kindly chef asked me whether I intended to eat the mountain of food I'd heaped on my plate or climb it! Download Citation | On Feb 1, 2023, Olivier Champagne and others published Future change in amplitude and timing of high-flow events in a Canadian subarctic watershed | Find, read and cite all the . I knew a gentleman who said when he was at Ganges in 1947 he had his first taste of hot food. Down the road we proudly thundered, the first time any of us had seen the outside words since the day of our arrival. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Padre Weekes was always good for a fag and Jim Conroy (PTI) taught me to yodel. After initial training we were marched from the training camp. One not only suffered the punishment such as doubling up and down the steps of laundry hill with a 303 rifle held high. Click here to remove banner ads from this forum. Ken said: It was a dreadful winter. After sewing on a tag and sporting a proud smile as I offered it up for inspection to that gorilla-of-gunner, I was sent scurrying away, ears ringing from slaps and vehement words, asking myself, 'How the hell did I mange to sew the tag on upside-down?'. Doesnt sound too bad does it. Coronation Day of George VI. RM B54PCM - Twiggy the baby elephant was half an hour late for her appointment to 'tow of the premises', the 47 year old Captain Derek Napper Napper, skipper of HMS Ganges the naval training school at Shotley Suffolk, and found she had been replaced by a couple of horses. Frederick "Ben" Rodgers author of "Lily & Me", "The Royal Navy & Me" and collector of Rover automobiles, Review from Newfoundland CraigChurchill. A history of the Royal Navy Training Establishment HMS Ganges. He was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court. Observer career path/ real life experience. Ganges will for ever be the legacy of every young boy who passed through those distant gates to emerge as a sailor and a man. Picture: CLAGUE ARCHITECTS, Aerial artist's impression of one of the green spaces earmarked for the former HMS Ganges site in Shotley Gate. I came across a clip on youtube that really saddened me and it tells its own story about the UK as it is now and the real fact that such things as pride, standards etc have long been lost and decay and neglect are the order of the day, I do not need to walk very far from my home to see with my own eyes the evidence all around me. It was hoped that Developers Haylink Ltd would start work early this year, but their plans were scuppered by the Covid-19 pandemic. The rest of the class were not pleased to suffer because of one boys stupidity and sometimes made a cruel point of letting the culprit know. These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience the local community. (LogOut/ At 14 he ran away to join the Royal Navy and signed on for 12 years. 2023 BBC. Rather than do the two as a pongo I signed on the dotted line for a dozen , best thing I ever did and I regret not staying in for the full time . St George IOM Boys training 3/5/45 Christmas leave 45 took all kit and returned to Ipswich station, then by the ubiquitous 3 ton Bedford to Shotley where we reopened HMS Ganges as a boys establishment. Indeed, I have never met a shipmate would ever claim otherwise. Like lots of other boys I ran away from home when I was 14 yrs old and joined the Royal Navy as a Boy Seaman 2nd class. HMS Ganges is situated on the Shotley Peninsula in Suffolk. Such a tragedy that this historical place has been left to rot. July 5 The old HMS Ganges sails out of Harwich Harbour. Life at Ganges was recalled recently in The Evening Star when a book about the base by Alan Peck was published. No way would the Royal Navy let the opportunity to instill fear into a young boy pass them by, So began another nine months of laughter and tears, disaster and joy. This was where the roped rigging jutted out some ten feet - above it, the platform. Mr Jones also offered reassurance around the historic mast, despite fears about its dilapidated state. In the first week of January it was snowed even harder and it snowed until March. If you have a complaint about the editorial content which relates to Registered in England & Wales | 01676637 |. Heard so much about HMS Ganges though and it sounded very good for developing 'real sailors ' but as much as I hate to admit it I suspect it would have been too much for me . 2023 BBC. Yes indeed, they were the best of times and the worst of times. 1905 - 1976 HMS Ganges was the name given to several Royal Navy ships from 1779 onwards, but in 1905 it was chosen for a new training base at Shotley Gate, near Ipswich, where about 500 boy recruits were stationed. S=Books & qid=1269273975 & sr=1-1, www.navy-net.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic/t=134/postdays=0/postorder=asc/start=0.html, www.veterans-uk.info/vets_badge/vets_badge.htm bosuns pipe ) from. 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