I arrived in Kyle in the back of a mini bus, I had just traveled up from HMS Neptune (which was our Mother base). We pulled up outside our digs and was greeted by Mrs Mcphearson, there were two of us staying at this Address.
On the pavement outside the digs there was a bloke asleep, Mrs Mcphearson asked us if we could help her get her son Murdo" into the house. This was about 3pm and Murdo had been in the pub all morning.
This was my welcome to Kyle of lochalsh. Kyle is a very small village on the west coast of Scotland, it's where you used to get the ferry across to the Isle of Skye (I say used to because there is now a bridge built across) there was one Hotel and one pub in the village plus a pub on the railway station, on Sundays we used to go across to the Isle of Skye to play darts in a Hotel there.
Most days consisted of going down to a compound that the Navy had which was made up of 6 port-a-kabins inside a wire fence, we would hang around for most of the morning then go to the pub on the railway until about 4ish, then go back to the digs and sleep until dinner was ready. After which it was back down to the local for the evening darts competition. This was all very cushy, the only thing that spoiled it was the fact that we had to go and do range safety for torpedo firings. This was hard work, we would leave Kyle at 5am and arrive at the range about 6.30am where we would stay watching Radar and warning fishing boats until the early hours of the next day. |
