(This story was originally written for a non RFA/RN audience)

My first “real” appointment was to RFA Resource.

RFA Resource

She was at Glenmallen. Where? Get a train to Helensburgh and we will have a car to meet you.

The first of many lies told to me by MoD. No car. No money. Wait for 4 hours. Get a taxi and managing to break the local language barrier got him to understand that he would be re-imbursed and, bless him, he took me on the short tour of the Scottish Highlands.

For those of you who don’t know Loch Long, it’s a very interesting place up from Faslane. A very scenic road up the eastern side of the loch, but you could be in for a big surprise. Come around a bend and you may well be confronted by a rather large grey ship that really has no business being there.

Welcome to the Glenmallen ammunition and explosives jetty.

RNAD Glenmallen

One of the (very) few places in the UK where the RFA ammo ships can actually get to tie up. Not that it makes a blind bit of difference as getting from there to anywhere else takes dedication. But I suppose siting a major ammo depot in a populated area for the convenience of a ships crew may give rise to a few complaints.

Loch Long was once used as a torpedo testing area. Nice and straight and long.. hence the name?. I also recall watching dinghy fishermen hauling in 5′ long cod. To get to anywhere else (unless you had a car) the RN laid on a sort of bus a few times a day into Helensburgh via Garlochhead (a good pub was there), then catch a train to Glasgow and then onwards. It took forever.

So this is really where my “career” in the RFA began. Up a Scottish creek with not many ways out. Although there was always a Mod-Plod presence on the compound gate there never seemed to be much thought given to the “water” side of the ship. Although I had had a brief introduction to the RFA aboard “Olmeda”, this ship blew me away. Absolutely and totally different from anything I had ever seen before. (Remember the RFA is a civilian manned organisation). But it was the on-board organisation, jargon and effectively having 3 crews ..and so many people! The jargon may as well been in Chinese for all the sense I could make of it. The entire ships company seemed to converse in TLAs. Also, although she was a dry-cargo vessel (a very loose term here), she had no hatches. All the decks were flush and the 5 decks of “holds” were served by lifts of varying sizes and capacities according to what particular whizz-bang was to be put in there.

The “holds” and their contents were “looked after” by a civil service crew (CS from now on). The ranking structure of this bunch was also confusing. Can you really imagine a structure that would encompass the rating of a “Skilled Labourer”? Surely that is an oxymoron. These “dockyard maties” would spend all day whizzing around the decks on fork-lift trucks and really chewing up the nice green deck paint. And they had a habit of bumping into things (like bits of the ship) that would have been funny if it wasn’t for the nature of the “stuff” they were carting around. The gap between the amidships block and the back bit were joined by a passageway on each side of the ship that was probably 400′ long. The ships ABs had the port alley (Burma Road) and the CS had the starboard (Union Street). Each crew was responsible for the cleaning of their own alleyway. The ABs had to fit the job in between other tasks. The CS employed a “specialist skilled labourer” whose sole task was to trog up and down their alleyway with a polishing machine and a souji cloth. 7 days a week. (Overtime at weekends, see?). The then rank structure was a bit bizarre also (been cleaned up a bit since then). Captain. Chief Officer, First Officer, 3x2nd Officers, 2x3rd Officers. 4X Radio Officers, One “writer” (a sort of purser) and a Chief Steward who never really knew which camp he belonged in. Too many engineers to shake a stick at, 3 Electrical Officers, 2 Refrigeration Officers and possibly a cadet training unit…12 of them with their own training officer. And I’m sure I have missed out others. One helicopter pilot (RN). The POs bar was just as crowded. Bosun and 2 bosuns mates. A Yeoman of Signals (and he had 2 signalmen below him). Engineers a bit similar with the Donkeyman at the top of the heap. The CS bunch had maybe 8 officers and a dozen POs. One of their junior officers had a very strange remit. His “day-job” was to oversee the large garage that fixed the busted fork-lifts, re-charge the batteries and so on..but his other “job” was to look after and “test” (not figuratively) some of the ammunition. All his “superiors” were pen-pushers. Tell you anything? With any luck you will now be as confused as I was.

Every now and again a MoD ship has to undergo “cold weather trials”. I think that this is a euphemism for “make the poor sods suffer while we have another cup of tea”. I mean, lets face it, if the sea has a layer of ice on it, it doesn’t mean that the sea underneath the ice was frozen….otherwise it would be. But the suits had decided that in this particular year that RFA Resource” would do it.

Off we trogged (I was the 12-4 watchkeeper) looking for ice. Just heading North ought to do it. Well, how far North do you have to go before you are heading South again. No ice. Scoot over to Iceland. That must be good. Nope. And this was in the middle of winter. Like January. My argument that we should wait until March fell upon deaf ears. Stuff’em. So, burning up lots of fuel and getting the whole crew seriously miffed we eventually found some off Greenland. All this time we had been in the “land” of everlasting night. Big ammo ship full of whatever steaming around aimlessly must have confused the hell out of the “Red” team.

All the time the weather was fairly nasty. One gets tired of being bumped around 24 hours a day and never knowing if it was breakfast or dinner time…the cooks didn’t either as they just seemed to cook on a whim. But we found ice. The sludgy sort. This was a blessed relief as the ice flattened out the sea to a nice gentle swell and let everybody get a good night (day) sleep. We trudged through this stuff for days getting very bored until one lovely morning the SUN actually popped a little over the horizon. The colours reflecting off the grey ice were amazing and led to the lightening of 200 troglodyte hearts. They say that Norwegians have a very high suicide rate during the winter. I am not surprised. As one Norwegian put it to me, “In Summer there is fishing and f……  but in winter there is only f……”  Much as I love Norway I am not surprised.

As an aside, Tromso and Port Stanley (Falklands) have one thing in common. They are the only 2 places I have ever been to that have their satellite dishes pointing downwards. Even though Port Stanley is about the same latitude South as Leicester is North. Point to ponder.