Seven Creases (Down Each Leg)

Frederick Henry Stanford 21st October 1929 - 15th September 2007

My father hand wrote over 400 pages describing his life in the Navy/Fleet Air Arm, a career that lasted over 27 years.

It covers all the airstations and ships in which he served, and is heavily anecdotal full of wonderful stories giving a real flavour of what life was like in the services in the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's.

Here he is standing on deck on the Eagle outside Cape Town

As a taster for his style and humour, here is an extract covering just one of the many mishaps he got into...

Ah! The boat race, at long last it was the day of reckoning! I don’t think P. O. Durrell was too hopeful, because there was no doubt that the other three classes had good crews, particularly ‘Beatty’ class whose times over the training period were exceptional. The atmosphere in St. George was electric, bets were being placed and of course the prestige aspect was clearly evident. The four crews and coxswains were marched down to the quayside and boarded the Cutters. Cutters had been allocated by a draw. We positioned ourselves in a boat station, carried out the oar drill, and were duly towed out to the start point. The ships company thronged the quayside and jetty, and those fortunate enough managed to get aboard the many motorboats that would follow in our wake. Even the warships in the harbour were aware of the occasion with the ships companies lined up on deck shouting for their particular ‘Cutter’. We were all identified by a different coloured flag flying from the stern. The Troubridge boat, my boat, was red ident, Beatty was blue, Cunningham was green, and finally the Vernon boat was yellow coloured. On the way to the starter buoy’s P. O. Durrell, our coxswain, kept us on our toes, encouraging us, and maintained that the Beatty boat was the one to beat – keep an eye on the blue. Of course the rest of the crew, like me, were really tensed up but determined to do our best for the class and P. O. Durrell in particular. Taff Jones tried hard to relax us from his key position of stroke oarsman. In his broad Welsh accent he threatened us with just about every torture possible if we didn’t do well, and promised me an extra slice of seaweed cake if we won. ‘I was tempted’! Frankie, positioned a couple of places in front of me suggested that if we didn’t pull our weight we would probably end up in the ‘drink’, and suggested that Portsmouth Harbour was renown for the number of man eating sharks, not true of course, but it certainly concentrated the mind! When we were lined up, P. O. Durrell reminded us that we would be called on for 25 to 30 fast strokes to really get us under way, and then settle into a nice steady stroke for the 2½ mile course. Suddenly we found ourselves under starters orders, as the bow oarsman, and relatively ‘puny’, my task was slightly harder as I was further out of the water than the rest of the crew and therefore had to lift the oar further than the rest. I just prayed. All of a sudden we heard the starter cannon and with P. O. Durrell shouting through his megaphone ‘in’, ‘out’ at the desired rate to get us under way. Did we work? The effort we put into the task was unbelievable. But we were under way, and holding our own with the other three Cutters, in fact we were, I am sure, just slightly ahead. Out of the corner of my eye I could see we had a very slight advantage. The cheers and roars were unbelievable, and the number of motorboats in our wake, and alongside us made it look like the annual boat race on the Thames. The encouragement from P. O. Durrell was fantastic. I was beginning to get a bit concerned because the effort I had put into start was taking its toll. The weight of the oar had caused my wrists to swell and ache. We had just reached the halfway market when disaster struck our boat, I caught a ‘crab’ with my oar. In other words my oar got caught up due to the forward momentum, and began to drag and slow us down. I really was fighting hard with everything I had left to clear my oar from the water, and get in tune again with the rest of the crew. P. O. Durrell was screaming at me to get my bloody oar clear of the water, oh how I was trying so very hard! All of a sudden I heard this very cultured voice from one of the following motorboats yell out over his load hailer, ‘Troubridge Boat, Red Boat, this is the Commander speaking, Coxswain, for Christ sake throw that f***ing bow oarsman overboard'! You will never ever know what effect that comment had on me. Fear of the consequences somehow gave me extra strength, God knows where from, because I was knackered, but somehow I managed to drag my oar free and started to row again in rhythm with the stroke, dear old Taff. We continued to hold our own....