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THE 'WOLVERTON' FACTOR - By Brian 'Chez' Chester (Ex-RO1)
I remember the drafting preference form quite vividly. Under the section preference for ship and location I wrote 'frigate or above' preferably based at Plymouth. (I wasn't particularly good with the sea sickness even on a frigate in anything above a force 2). Well the Entertainments Officer on the 'Marie Celeste', who was working in the drafting office, must have laughed for years after because after leaving RAF Stanmore and a quick PJT at HMS Mercury, I found myself on a very dark, freezing and windswept December morning in 1969 standing on the jetty at Port Edgar watching Wolverton reversing out into the Forth. (First day and I had missed my ship !!). Another reason I didn't want a small ship was the fact I had been used to playing a good standard of football and didn't think there would be much of a team on a sweeper. However, I was approached by a Sub Lt on the jetty who happened to be the Wolvertons Correspondence Officer and after asking my name the next question was "Do you play football?" Things were looking up already. I was then given a lift over to Rosyth to join my ship. The captain, then, was Lt Cdr Bill Davies - ex Fleet Air Arm, whom I later found out was worse than me on the seasickness stakes. It was somewhat of a shock going to a sweeper when I had been on a frigate and big 'COMMCEN' at Northwood to realise that I had to muck io with the others in every day life onboard. When I wasn't doing my own comms work I used to assist down the sweep deck occasionally operating the winches and remember having to peel the spuds at 4 am when doing 'Quartermaster'. A lot of the time was spent out in the Forth exercising with mother duckling - HMS Abdiel, and other members of the 1st MCM of which we were then the Squadron Leader. We had a few good runs ashore around the UK including Dundee, Aberdeen, Largs, Faslane, Brixham, Dartmouth, Kings Lynn, Boston, Great Yarmouth and a couple of foreign trips to Esberg (live mine sweep with the Yanks), Frederiksund and Ostend. Time onboard went pretty quickly because, being the only 'sparker', I had to do single operator periods which I think were designed by some lunatic in the Admiralty which meant getting up at ridiculous times of the night to listen to the morse broadcast from Whitehall commcen. This wouldn't have been too bad but quite frequently some R.O. on nights at Whitehall would fall asleep/watch telly/play cards in their warm offices and forget to close us down in which case the periods ran into each other. (I know of a case in relation to the Fishery Protection sweepers that one operator was on watch for two days). The Correspondence Officer was right about the football. Wolverton without doubt had the best football team in the squadron and I can't remember being beaten at all (That should bring a few replies). Other interesting exercises I remember were sweeping the Varne bank in the English channel after sever ships had sunk. We had to ensure there was no danger to shipping by submerged ships. Another thing that sticks clearly in my mind was when we were Day Running out of Great Yarmouth on a secret mission (can't tell you what it was about. You know us communicators are always secretive!) when we sunk an ocean-going yacht tied up alongside the jetty up the river Yare. We in fact crushed it as we bounced off the jetty causing it to sink. I was in the mess at the time doing 'mess cooks' when the whole ship shook. I wasn't too concerned at this stage but after the next crunch I made a swift exit from below the water line to go onto the upper deck and see the wreckage floating on the water.The skipper was exonerated at the enquiry and it was put down to a very strong tide in the river taking charge. I seem to remember that immediately on return to Lochinvar the First Lieutenant was given experience in ship handling and on trying to manoeuvre us stern onto the loop jetty he also sunk a smaller dinghy. The captain allegedly commented. "Don't worry number one. It happens to us all" It was, I think, shortly after this that the Wolverton was selected to represent the Royal Navy at the Centenary of Captain Cook at Whitby where we were required to provide a ceremonial guard. That caused a bit of a stir because when we first paraded in front of the G.I. at Lochinvar I think we only had one pair of boots between 12 of us. This leads me to the next when I received a signal saying that we could reduce our guard to 50 to conform to the RAF band that would accompany us. Only having 35 onboard we replied "You can have 12 and that's it". Life went on and then another signal arrived saying that we were to be converted to a patrol boat complete with armour plating and sent along with the Wasperton and Monkton to Hong Kong to replace three sweepers out there. By this time we had a new captain Lt. Cdr Bell who was to take us out to the far east. We eventually left Plymouth in January 1972 leaving in a Force 10 storm. This continued through the Bay of Biscay. I can remember the Bulwark being delayed due to the bad weather but the three sweepers being ordered to sea. (couldn't get my head round that one). It was that rough we never communicated with anyone for three days and eventually Bulwark came looking for us. We spent a week in Gibraltar repairing the storm damage. After that however we only had one rough day as I can remember and that was coming out of Durban South Africa. The places we visited on the way were Dakar (Senegal) Lagos (Nigeria) St Helena Simonstown (3 weeks refit) Durban, Mombassa (Kenya) Seychelles, RAF Gan (Maldives) (bit of a scrap with the 'crabfats' there I seem to remember) Colombo (Sri Lanka) Penang (Malasia) Singapore and finally Hong Kong. We spent three weeks in the China Fleet Club before flying home to good old 'Blighty'. Notable memories of that trip were sleeping on the upper deck under a cloudless sky, watching open air movies on the sweepdeck and everyone diving for cover when a flying fish landed amongst us (roughy toughy sailors eh!!), stopping in the Indian ocean and shark fishing. A week at Silver Sands camp in 'Mombers' and being asked to assist with a cocktail party onboard the three sweepers on the fo'c'sle. Myself and the REM at the time, Allan Robertson (TCA member), were asked to do the bar !!! which wouldn't have been so bad had we not been on a run ashore at dinner time and only arriving back 15 minutes before the start. It went quite well up until the loss of memory and consciousness. The 'Jimmy' said we had done extremely well but it wasn't the done thing to put ones arm round the Ambassadors wife and trying to cajole her into having a drink with me. (strangely we never got asked again). While we were in Simonstown some of the 'dabtoes' found a giant penguin (which they named "Wings") somewhat fed up in the dockyard and brought it back onboard. Frantic efforts were made to make it welcome i.e. rigging up a shower and seawater bath and feeding it tins of sardines (opened of course). It was later handed over to Capetown zoo. (with a hangover). It's a pity I can't remember all the names of the lads who spent some time on the "WOLVY" but here are some that I can remember :- Lt. Roger St. John Bishop Navigator, REM Allan "Robbie" Robertson, his predecessor Mac McAslin, AB George Sutherland (bain of my life), RO(T) Tony Holmes, CY Gordon "George" Codling, LRO(T) Dave Askew, R.O.(T) Nobby Clarke, AB Mike Gooderham (TCA member), EM Jim Woodcock, AB Logie Baird, MEM "Slinger" Woods. After the initial shock I have to say what a great bunch of lads and what a great time I had mixing with the Iron men of the Wooden ships (another signal quote from the Yanks when we hammered them in a danbuoy race) and of course what a good trip in a very relaxed and happy ship. Some very good memories.
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