I became "leading hand of the mess" which made things worse because all the trouble makers just happened to be in my mess. Still it wasn't all bad there were some good lads onboard.
We did a tour of the Falklands over Christmas 1984 which turned out to be quite interesting, during the tour we visited South Georgia, the burial place of Earnest Shackleton, seeing his grave is something I will never forget. The only building left standing at Grytviken (the capital) is the Church, which is maintained by visiting ships. There are also massive Elephant seals just laying about all over the place, which seem quite friendly until you get too close!
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Wolfie or Wolfman or Dave Gittens (middle) watching something enthrawling on the tele.
We had 2 mess squares on Minerva, this is the qiuet side. The other mess square was for partying and other functions. |
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Looks like head down time after a heavy dinner time session.
Please email me with his identity as I cannot remember. |
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Ginge Heatherington and Scouse Birchall. Thanks to Ian Calvert for help with names. |
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Don't know far left, (looks a bit like Big Bird) then Fossie Foster, Henry Cooper and Joe Jordan. |
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Taff Mortimer, who organised the mess run to visit Coronation Street and meet the stars. Great day out, cheers Taff. |
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Sid. I once got a lift back to the ship after a weekend and the car Sid was driving only had one wheel nut holding one of the wheels on. After a few miles we realised this so had to take another wheel nut from one of the other wheels.
Later on we crashed on the motorway doing 90 m.p.h. in thick fog, Sid had nodded off and hit the central reservation.
No one was hurt and we managed to hitch a lift the rest of the way. Happy days!!! |
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Me and Joe Jordan, just entering Gritviken, South Georgia for a bit or R 'n' R
Torpedo tube turned outwards in case of trouble, but this was
2 years after the war, so chances are there wouldn't be any. |
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Coming to a Buoy in Gritviken Harbour. Luckily it was a very calm day so we had a good view of the glacier in the background. |
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A better view of the Glacier. Its hard to judge the size of it from this photo, but when we got up closer it towered above the ship. |
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Some of the lads relaxing on the beach, but really there were hundreds of Seals just laying around plus some massive Elephant Seals that you didn't want to get too close to. |
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One of the massive Elephant Seals, look closly and you will see many more in the background, and even further back is the whaling station. |
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This is what all the builldings in Grytviken were like (apart from the church which was maintained by visiting sailors) so not a great deal of night life really. |
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Inside one of the buildings, looks like a post nuclear war film set, quite spooky as well. |
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Gritviken Whaling Station. Seen better days I would say, although there was one old whaling boat still afloat, which again was maintained by visiting sailors. |
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Preparing to lower the Accomodation ladder, this was a pretty straight forward task on a Leader class frigate due to how it was designed. Unlike on the type 21 frigate which was a total nightmare. |
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The Lynx is airborne, off to take some shots of the Glacier, it's hard to believe there were people in tee shirts on the upper deck, but it was an exceptionally nice day. |
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HMS Minerva alongside a support vessel in Port Stanley harbour on Christmas day 1984 and just for a change I was Quartermaster, deep joy. |
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Port Stanley, throbbing motropolis that it is. I managed to get ashore for a drink in the Globe Hotel and make a sat telephone call home |
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