Once I’d become a qualified submariner with more free time on my hands, the issue of managing time became much more pressing. The endless bustling around the boat I’d done, looking for hull valves, switches, absorption units and electrolysers, was now over. While life was easier on the one hand, I now had to make my own entertainment off watch, and cope with the inevitable downtime and boredom.
Education was one sure-fire way to eliminate ennui. I always tried to picture a life outside of the service, so enrolled myself on two A-level correspondence courses: one in law, the other in government and politics. Also, the new navigator on board was running O-level navigation classes, and since my day job centred on elements of navigation, it seemed like a sensible idea to join these. I’d purchased the set textbooks before patrol and cracked on while at sea, spending at least two hours every day studying, usually stuck away in the sonar console space, which tended to be one of the quietest areas for work and contemplation. I soon understood why many long-term prisoners gained further education qualifications and degrees. It’s not just that they can work as much or as little as they like, more that conditions when confined are perfect for studying; that, and the availability of time. It was the same on a sub.
In my later working life I met convicted armed robber John McVicar, who’d also done A-level courses while in jail in the early 1970s. In addition, he’d completed a sociology degree. By then he’d become a journalist, and he talked about the need for constant self-improvement to better his life and situation. This, to me, was what my studying was all about. I’d done OK with my O-levels, but nothing to write home about. I hated a lot of the subjects and just scraped by in most of them with the minimum amount of effort. I’d been too much involved in extra-curricular activities, most notably girls, music and drink. But studying for A-levels on the sub was a different matter altogether, as I was very interested in the law and fascinated by political discourse.
I soon got used to the gentle hum of the air cooling the sonar gear as I studied family and common law, legislation, proportional representation, the history of the labour movement and the constitution of the Unites States. Those days were of course pre-email, pre-computers even, so I would be doing two or three months’ worth of work and then sending it all off to get marked once I’d returned from patrol. As a result the courses dragged on a little, but it was worth it because when I left the service I secured a place at university in London to read history.
I suppose I was an outsider, perhaps a tad different compared with the other junior rates on board. I’d started out my career looking for something to test and intrigue me. But as soon as I’d got my dolphins, my head was already being turned by thoughts of what I’d do later in life. Education felt like it would open opportunities for me after I was done with the Silent Service, and reading about law and politics proved more interesting than the readers wives’ pages of Razzle. Mind you, we all needed that on occasion.
That’s not to say that I didn’t get on well with most people on board, apart from the bullying incident on my first patrol. Studying helped break the day up into a manageable routine and took my mind off the constant thoughts of potential danger, which living in a steel coffin could certainly provoke. While it helped me switch off from the stresses and strains of everyday underwater life, I also found the education process stimulating. If I hadn’t enrolled in study, I’m not sure how I’d have coped with the inevitable long periods of boredom and isolation off watch. It was easy to sink into a zombie-like state of sleep, eat, drink, shit and repeat.
But the most important part of being able to study was the solitude it gave me. Even at the best of times, other people can be very annoying – myself included; but under the sea, with the knowledge that there’s nowhere to escape, people can drive you fucking crazy. In the space of 30 seconds a friendly chat with someone might easily turn into a nasty, full-blown row. Sometimes you simply needed to vent, and it would usually be the nearest person in the firing line who copped your wrath. It was never personal – well, very rarely – just a product of the conditions we had to put up with. Being out of other people’s faces studying meant I was usually greeted by most people like some long-lost relative, and relaxation time was chilled and passed without incident – just how it should have been. People constantly on edge and on the look-out for arguments were simply not suited to the service. If there’s one thing a submariner needs above all else, it’s a sensible disposition and the ability to live and let live. Studying helped me remain sane.
Sometimes I’d just sit in the sonar console space thinking about what was out in front of us, outside the sub. I’d get a rising feeling of doom in my gut that the sonar hadn’t picked something up and we were going to hit it full-on; that it would come straight through the pressure hull and I’d be sucked out into the depths of the ocean below. This was not as far-fetched as it seemed, as Resolution travelled so slowly that it hardly gave off any acoustic signature. This, coupled with its covering of anechoic tiles, made us almost undetectable. And, if another submarine, whether it be French, Russian or American, was in the same area, then who knows? An underwater collision was certainly possible.
It wasn’t all work, though. Physical exercise played a key role in keeping up some of the crew’s morale throughout the patrol. There was a keep-fit class twice a week run by one of the chief wreckers. He was an early adopter of the triathlon and spent most of his spare time off the boat competing in events up and down the country, but given that it was the mid- to late-80s, I’d never heard of the sport before. Needless to say, his keep-fit classes were pretty hard core. At the age of 19 I considered myself reasonably fit, but after an hour of sit-ups, press-ups, burpees, squat thrusts and shadow-boxing, I was ready to puke.
The oxygen and ventilation used to get cranked up both during and after exercise to help us breathe better, and also to clear the collective stench of ten sweaty submariners after an hour’s workout. The oxygen supply was controlled by the MEO, and he would turn it up if he wanted people doing lots of work and turn it down if he wanted people to be quiet.
After exercise, all I wanted to do was have a nice, long shower, but in our world of conserving water, this just wasn’t going to happen. The rule about showering in a submarine was simple: use the least amount of water possible. So I’d turn on the shower for 10 to 15 seconds until my hair and body were wet, then switch it off, wash said hair and body thoroughly, then switch the water back on and rinse for 30 seconds – max. A full shower in under a minute. Woe betide anyone who took longer than that. There’d be hell to pay if you were accused of having a ‘Hollywood’ or ‘hotel’ shower, and it would be a long time before you next got to wash from head to toe. Don’t imagine there was any privacy either, for there was no shower curtain. I’d be standing there stark bollock naked having a chat with someone shaving in one of the sinks next to the showers, while someone else was laying cable in trap three, with fruity sound effects. Private time it definitely wasn’t. If we had to conserve water or couldn’t use the showers because we were running in quiet state due to a perceived threat in the area, I had to resort to a single sink of water, with which I was expected to have an all-over wash using a flannel, a teeth-clean and a shave – assuming I wasn’t growing a beard.
Talking of beards, they’ve been allowed in the Navy for hundreds of years. Not moustaches, mind; we leave those for the Army and RAF. Beards were common on patrol, if in a minority. I wish I could say mine lived up to expectations, but I was no Herman Melville. Trying to grow one at such a young age was difficult. I looked like someone had stuck some pubic hair on various parts of my face, and if I’d gone up top when we’d surfaced, a gust of wind would have blown the lot off. It was useful to do, though, as it prevented unnecessary water use. My beard-growing skills have improved considerably with age and I have a full, lustrously thick one now that would have been deemed too long back on Resolution.
As I’ve mentioned, there was an exercise bike in the missile compartment that was in constant demand throughout the day, so the best time to use it was in the middle of the night. I’d sit on it listening to Kraftwerk’s ‘Tour de France’ on my Walkman, imagining I was Greg LeMond powering up the 21 hairpins of Alpe d’Huez. The bike was a great conduit for de-stressing from the daily grind of patrol, and further into my career a rowing machine was introduced, which led to competitions as to who could row the furthest on the metres gauge in five minutes. These informal events were probably the closest to death I’ve ever come.
In the lower level of the torpedo compartment, usually late at night if I was off watch, I used to shadowbox to keep trim. I’d do it for two minutes at a time, for around ten to twelve minutes. It was surreal because I was usually in darkness and almost total silence, and the only sound I could hear was my own breathlessness, sweat sluicing off me as I threw uppercuts, hooks and jabs, my feet bouncing off the compartment floor as I weaved in and out of the torpedo racks firing off salvos of punches at the tubes themselves. It totally immersed me, narrowed my focus, and was perhaps the closest to meditation I could get. A warm glow would come over me as I caught my second wind, and for that ten minutes or so I could have been anywhere in the world.