Royal Marine anecdotes .

Fact and Fiction ,Verse and prose.1939-1961.

Chatham Grande and National Service Squads.

Sixty Years on!

Among the many bits of good fortune resulting from the writer’s failure to pass the medical examination for entry into the Royal Navy as a boy, was that of joining the Corps and being sent to Chatham Grande for training instead of Eastney , where as Capt Thompson said ,one would have been too close to home!

The spiritually moving architectural, tree-lined beauty ,romance and warmth of Chatham Barracks was later enhanced by service under Adjutant Captain Stewart.. I do not remember his Christian name but remember he wore two gold wound- stripes on his sleeve. It was he who presided ,with others, over the training of National Servicemen , circa 1949.

What a pleasure it was to meet with such wide, social sections of young British men who had grown up during the World War Two.

A day spent flitting to Chatham Railway Station to pick up groups of men ,positive and bemused, culminated in the evening with a walk around the two barrack rooms allocated to a particular squad in the former ”A” Block. The block , sat adjacent to St Mary’s, once the barrack church and containing memorials to fallen marines in the Opium Wars, in particular attacking China’s Peiho Forts; one to a Lieutenant, who was possibly the last man ,certainly the last Royal Marine to be killed by a cross-bow!

The young men ranged from eighteen to twenty-four plus , with accents ranging from the cut-glass to all four nations, five including those from Bow!

Gently querying the feelings ,the accents and the backgrounds of a forty strong squad.

revealed graduates, students, budding tradesmen and general workers.

Once upon the parade the speed of learning was astonishing and one instructor steeped in Corp’s history with idealised views of Nelson and Captain Philips, (first governor of New South Wales,) was able to teach by marching chant--

“The convicts who built this, long gone to Botany Bay,

With Captain Phillps- they had their day!

And few remember the New Stairs that Nelson trod

Now grass grown, strewn here and there with sod.*

.(The lack of resentment and acceptance of National Service surprised but placed against the Pressed men led by Nelson at Trafalgar was perhaps typical of the social discipline of the British.)

One ginger-haired and somewhat sombre graduate of mathematical persuasion on hearing among the many tales surrounding this ancient pile that the Drum Major leading the Divisional Band under the ornate arch of the ceremonial gate was given to throwing the mace over the top to catch it on the other side expressed some doubt! The instructor discouraged any calculation.

Captain Stewart regularly talked over the squads with the instructors from whom generally ,each forty produced two Officers and a strong complement of Non Commissioned Officers and worthy men.

Many served and some died or were wounded in Malaya and other outposts in the long retreat from Empire adding to the 500 casualties suffered by the Corps post war 1945 -1959.

Years later, National Servicemen ,much experienced and time- expired , paraded before the Commanding Officer, and encouraged to comment, expressed no regret nor doubted the value of their service to themselves and to their country.

Jack LaceyÓ

September 23^rd,2009.

595. words.

*The New Stairs are no longer a cobbled way, they are somewhat obscured by new buildings but can still be walked, by the persistent, to the River Medway.

* Extract from, from the poem ”Saplings and Trees,” Booklet “Call Me Royal!” Jack Lacey .Ó1987.

(For further detail see also “Chatham Grande,” Bygone Kent. Volume Eleven ,Number Ten. To be found in the Medway Study Centre, Strood.)