La anarĥiismo kaj mi de Stig Dagerman - Anarchism and Me by Stig Dagerman

La kritikantoj de la anarĥiismo ne ĉiuj havas la saman ideon pri la ideologia danĝero, kiun tiu-ĉi reprezentas, kaj tiu ideo varias laŭ ilia grado de armiĝado, kaj laŭ la leĝaj eblecoj, kiujn ili havas uzi ĝin. Dum en Hispanio, inter 1936 kaj 1939, la anarĥiisto estis konsiderata tiel danĝera por la socio, ke decis lin pafi el ambaŭ flankoj (fakte, li estis submetita ne nur fronte, al germanaj kaj italaj pafiloj, sed ankaŭ dorse, al la rusaj kugloj de siaj komunistaj "aliancanoj"), la sveda anarĥisto estas konsiderata en iuj radikalaj rondoj, kaj ĉefe marksistaj, kiel obstinema romantikulo, ia politika idealisto, kun liberalaj kompleksoj profunde enradikigitaj. Pli-malpli konscie, oni ne rigardas la fakton, tamen esenca, ke la anarĥia ideologio kunigita al ekonomia teorio (la sindikatismo) finatingis, en Katalunio dum la intercivitana milito, sistemon de produktado perfekte funkciantan, bazita sur ekonomia egaleco, kaj ne sur mensa nivelado, sur praktika kunagado sen ideologia perforto, kaj sur racia kunordigado sen murdo de la individua libero, kontraŭdiraj konceptoj, kiuj bedaŭrinde ŝajnas pli kaj pli disvastigitaj en la formo de sintezoj. Komence, cele refuti ian kontraŭanarĥiistan kritikon, kiu estas ofte farita de homoj, kiuj konfuzas sian mizeran redaktistan foteleton kun barelo de pulvo, kaj kiuj, pro ekzemple kelkaj raportaĵoj pri Rusio, pensas, ke ili havas la monopolon de la vero pri la laborista klaso kaj ĝiaj kondiĉoj, mi intencas, en la sekvantaj linioj, restadi sur tiu formo de anarĥiismo, kiu estas konata, aparte en latinaj landoj, per la nomo anarĥo-sindikatismo, kaj montriĝis perfekte efika, ne nur por la konkero de antaŭe sufokitaj liberoj, sed ankaŭ por la konkero de la pano.

En la elekto de politika ideologio, tiu reĝa vojo al stato de socio, kiu esprimas almenaŭ kelkajn centonojn da similo kun la idealoj, kiujn ni revis, antaŭ ol ekkonscii, ke la teraj kompasoj estas senespere malĝustaj, enmiksiĝas preskaŭ ĉiam la ekkonscio pri la fakto, ke la malsukceso de la aliaj ebloj, ĉu ili estas naziaj, faŝistaj, liberalaj aŭ el ia ajn burĝa tendenco, aŭ ankaŭ ordoneme socialistaj el ĉiuj nuancoj, montriĝas, ne nur per la kvanto de ruinaĵoj, de mortintoj kaj kripluloj en landoj rekte trafitaj de la milito, sed ankaŭ per la kvanto da neŭrozoj kaj kazoj de frenezo, kaj manko de stabileco en landoj laŭŝajne ne trafitaj kiel Svedio.

La kriterio pri anomalio de socia sistemo, estas ne nur indigniga maljusteco en la dispartigo de nutraĵo, vestoj kaj instruaj ebloj, necesas ankaŭ ke estu bone starigita la fakto, ke tempa aŭtoritato, kiu inspiras timon al siaj administratoj, devas esti objekto de sana malfido. La sistemoj bazitaj sur teroro, kiel la naziismo, ja elmontras tuj sian naturon per fizika brutaleco, kiu ne havas limon, sed iom pli profunda pripenso kondukas rapide al kompreno, ke eĉ la ŝtataj sistemoj la plej demokrataj pezigas sur la simplaj mortemuloj angoran ŝarĝon, kiun nek la fantomoj nek la krimromanoj havas la plej etan ŝancon egali. Ni ĉiuj memoras tiujn grandajn nigrajn kaj timigajn titolojn en la ĵurnaloj, dum la munkena epoko -kiom da neŭrozoj ja pezas sur iliaj konsciencoj-, sed la milito de la nervoj, kiun la mastroj de la mondo faras precize nun en Londono kontraŭ la tergloba loĝantaro, per la ĝenerala asembleo de UNO, ne estas malpli rafinita. Ni lasu flanke tion, kio estas neakceptebla en la fakto, ke plenmano da delegitoj povas ludi kun la destino de pli ol unu miliardo da homoj, tiel ke neniu trovas tion indigniga, sed kiu diros kiagrade estas horora kaj barbara, psikologie, la metodo per kiu oni reguligas la mondajn destinojn ? La psika perforto, kiu ŝajnas esti la komuna denominatoro de la politiko, kiun faras landojn, alie tiel malsamaj, kiel Anglio kaj Sovetio, jam sufiĉas por pravigi, ke oni kvalifikas iliajn respektivajn reĝimojn nehomaj. Ŝajnas ke por la aŭtoritataj reĝimoj, tiel la demokrataj kiel la diktatoraj, la ŝtatprofito iĝis iom post iom celo en si mem, antaŭ kiu devis forviŝiĝi la origina celo de la politiko : faciligi la profitojn de iuj homaj grupoj. Bedaŭrinde, la defendo de la homa elemento en politiko estis aliigita en sloganon sensencan de liberala propagando, kiu kaŝis la egoistajn interesojn de iuj monopoloj sub la vualo de mildaĉaj homaraj dogmoj sen granda idealista enhavo, sed ĉi tio kompreneble ne povas, sola, endanĝerigi la homan kapablon de adaptiĝo, kiel la propagandistoj de la ŝtata doktrino volas kredigi nin.

La abstraktiga procezo, kiun spertis la koncepto pri ŝtato dum la tempoj estas, laŭ mi, unu el la plej danĝeraj konvencioj el la konvenciaro, kiun la poeto devas trairi. La adoro de la konkreto, pri kiu Harry Martinson ekkonsciis dum sia voyaĝo en USSR, ke ĝi estas la kerno de la ŝtata doktrino (kaj kiu montriĝis per portretoj de Stalino ĉiagrandaj kaj ĉiaspecaj), estis kompreneble nur ŝparvojo sur la vojo kondukanta al tiu kanonigo de la Abstrakto, kiu estas parto de la plej timigaj karakterizaĵoj de la koncepto de Ŝtato. La abstrakto precize, per sia netuŝebleco, per sia situo ekster la influa sfero, povas domini la agadon, paralizi la volon, malhelpi la iniciatojn kaj aliigi la energion al katastrofa neŭrozo de la enkateniĝo per psika perforto, kiu povas certe, dum ia tempo, garantii al regantoj iom da paco, da komforto kaj da ŝajna politika suvereneco, sed kiu povas finfine nur efiki kiel socia bumerango. La kompenso, kiu estas donacita al individuo dum ĉiu baloto, por la ageblecoj, je kiuj li estas senigita, estas ne sufiĉa per si mem, kaj estas tia kompreneble pli kaj pli, laŭgrade kiom lia interna kapablo de iniciato estos kunpremita. La nevideblaj ligoj, kiuj, super la nuboj, kunigas en komunumo de kompleksaj sed grandegaj destinoj, la ŝtaton kaj la grandan financistaron, la regantojn kun tiuj, kiuj manipulas ilin, kaj la politikon kun la mono, enŝovas en la malkleran parton de la homaro, fatalismon, kiun nek la ŝtatsocietoj por loĝejkonstruado, nek la romanegoj de Upton Sinclair sukcesis detranĉi.

Oni do povas pruvi, ke la demokrata ŝtato de la nuna epoko reprezentas ian tute novan malhomecon, kiu egalvaloras la aŭtokratajn reĝimojn de la antaŭaj epokoj. La principo "dividi por regi" certe ne estis forlasita, sed la angoro devenanta de la malsato, la angoro devenanta de la soifo, la angoro devenanta de la socia inkvizicio, devis, almenaŭ principe, doni lokon, kiel rimedo por suvereneco ene de la provindencoŝtato, al la angoro devenanta de la necerto kaj senpovo en kiu troviĝas la individuo, por disponi la ĉefan parton de sia destino. Enprofundigita en la ŝtata bloko, la individuo estas senĉese turmentata de obseda sento de necerto kaj senpovo, kiu probable memorigas la situacion de la boateto en la Malstromo, aŭ tiun de fervoja vagono ligita al freneziĝinta lokomotivo, kiu kapablas pensi, sed ne kapablas kompreni la signalojn, nek orientiĝi en la trakforkoj.

Iuj provis difini la obsedan analizon de la angoro, kiu karakterizas mian libron "La Serpento", kiel ian "romantikismon de la angoro", sed la romantikismo kuntrenas analizan nekonscion, intencan manieron ignori ĉiun fakton, kiu riskas ne akordiĝi kun la ideo, kiun li havas pri aferoj. Dum la romantikulo de la angoro, kaptita de sekreta ĝojo vidi subite ĉion akordiĝi, deziras almiksi la tuton en sistemon de angoro, la analizanto de la angoro batalas kontraŭ tiun tuton per sia analizo kiel antaŭa bastiono, nudigante per sia stileto ĉiujn ĝiajn sekretajn disbranĉiĝojn. Laŭ la politika vidpunkto, tio devas sekvigi, ke la romantikulo, kiu akceptas ĉion, kio povas nutri la braĝarojn de lia kredo, ne povas riproĉi ion al socia sistemo bazita sur la angoro, kaj eĉ akceptas ĝin kun fatalisma ĝojo. Por mi, kiu male estas analizisto de la angoro, endis, per analiza metodo de sinsekvaj forĵetoj, trovi solvon en kiu la tuta socia maŝino povas funkcii ne uzante angoron aŭ timon kiel fonton de energio. Kompreneble estas vere, ke tio supozigas politikan dimension tute novan, kiu devas esti liberigita el la konvencioj, kiujn ni kutimas rigardi kiel nepraj. La sociologia psikologio devas doni al si la taskon detrui la miton de la "efikeco" de la centralizismo : la neŭrozo kaŭzita de la manko de perspektivo kaj de la neeblo identigi la propran situacion en la socio, ne povas esti kompensita de materiaj avantaĝoj simple videblaj.

La dissplitiĝo de la makro-kolektivo en malgrandajn individuistajn unuojn, kiuj kunlaboras inter si, sed alie memregaj, kiujn rekomendas la sindikat-anarĥismo, estas la nura ebla psikologia solvo en neŭroza mondo, en kiu la pezo de la politika super-strukturo stumbligas la individuon. La obĵeto laŭ kiu la internacia kunlaborado estus malhelpita de la detruo de la diversaj ŝtatoj, kompreneble ne rezistas la analizon ; ĉar neniu aŭdacus aserti, ke la eksterlanda politiko farita, mondnivele, de diversaj ŝtatoj kontribuis al pliproksimiĝo de la landoj inter ili.

Pli serioza estas la obĵeto laŭ kiu la homaro ne kapablus, laŭ kvalita vidpunkto, funkciigi anarĥian socion. Eble estas vere ĝis ia punkto : la grupa reflekso ensorbigita de la edukado, kaj la paralizo de la iniciatemo efikis tute malfavore al politika penso eliranta el la multuzataj vojoj. (Precize pro tiu kialo mi elektis raporti miajn ideojn pri anarĥiismo ĉefe per negativa formo). Sed mi dubas, ke la aŭtoritatismo kaj la centralizismo estas denaskaj en la homo. Mi prefere kredus, male, ke nova penso, laŭ ĝia maniero, kiun, pro manko de pli bona termino, mi nomus la intelekta primitivismo, kaj kiu, per tre fajna analizo, plenumus radiografion de la ĉefaj konvencioj preterlasitaj de ĝia prao, la seksa primitivismo, povus fine fari prozelitojn inter ĉiuj, kiuj, koste de, interalie, neŭrozoj kaj mondmilitoj, deziras koincidigi siajn kalkulojn kun tiuj de Markso, de Adam Smith aŭ de la papo. Tio eble implicas siavice novan literaturan dimension, kies principoj indus esti esplorataj.

La anarĥia verkisto (necese pesimisma, ĉar li konscias la fakton, ke lia kontribuo povas esti nur simbola) povas momente atribui al si, tute bonkonscience, la modestan rolon de tervermo en la kultura humuso, kiu, sen li, restus malfekunda, pro la sekeco de la konvencioj. Esti la politikisto de la neebleco, en mondo kie tiuj de la ebleco estas ja tro multaj, estas, malgraŭ ĉio, rolo kiu kontentigas min, samtempe kiel socia estaĵo, kiel individuo, kaj kiel aŭtoro de "la Serpento".

Stig Dagerman (1946)

traduko far Phil
korektoj far Vinko

The critics of Anarchism do not all have the same idea about the ideological danger it represents, and that idea differs according to the degree of animosity, and according to the legal possibilities they have to use it. In Spain during the years 1936-39 the Anarchist was considered so dangerous to society that it was decided to shoot him from both sides. (in fact he was suppressed not only in the front by German and Italian rifles but also suppressed at the rear by the Russian bullets of their Communist "allies"). The Swedish Anarchist is considered in some radical circles, mostly Marxists as a stubborn romantic, with deeply rooted liberal complexes. More or less consciously, they do not recognise the fact, that essentially the anarchist ideology combined with the economic theory (Syndicalism) finished, in Catalunya during the civil war, a system of production that worked perfectly, based on economic equality, and not on mental levelling, on practical co-operation without ideological violence, and on rational coordination without the death of individual liberty, contradictory concepts which unfortunately seems to be increasingly widespread in the form of synthesis. Beginning with the aim to refute some anti anarchist critics, which are often made be people who confuse their miserable armchair with a barrel of gunpowder. And who due to the example of a few reports about Russia think that they have a monopoly on the truth about the working class and its conditions. I intend in the following lines to stay on that form of Anarchism which is well known, particularly in Latin countries, by the name Anarcho-syndicalism and shown to be perfectly effective, not just for the conquest of previously drowned freedoms, but also for the conquest of bread.

In the choice of political ideology, that royal state of society that expresses at least a few hundredths of similarity with the ideals of which we dreamed, before we realised the earthly compassions are hopelessly unjust. The knowledge that the other options failed is also intermingled, whether they be Nazis, Fascists, liberals or some other kind of bourgeois tendency, or also socialists of many nuances, have shown by the quantity of ruins, deaths, maimed, in countries directly hit by war. But also by the neurosis and cases of insanity and lack of stability in countries that apparently escaped war like Sweden.

The criteria for anomaly in a social system, is not only indignant injustice in the disparity in food, clothes and education possibilities. It also needs to be established that the temporal authority which inspires fear in its administrators, must be the object of sound distrust. The systems based on terror like Nazism immediately show their nature by physical brutality without limits. But just a little deep thinking will quickly lead one to realise that even the state systems of the most democratic states place a heavy burden on ordinary mortals that not even ghosts or criminals can match. We all remember the great, black and frightening headlines in the newspapers during the Munich epoch, -indeed neuroses weigh on their consciences- but the war on nerves which the masters of the world are making right now in London through the General Assembly of the UN, is no less refined. Let us leave aside what is unacceptable in the fact that a handful of delegates can play with the destiny of more than one billion people, so that no one finds it outrageous, but who will say how horrific and barbaric, psychologically, the method is by who regulates world destinies? The psychic violence, which seems to be the common denominator in politics, which makes countries as different as England and the Soviet Union capable of justifying each others inhuman regimes. It seems that for the authoritarian regimes, both the democratic and the dictatorial, the state benefit gradually becomes the goal in itself with the original policy wiped away: To benefit the profits of some human groups. Unfortunately the defence of the human element has become a slogan of liberal propaganda, which covers the selfish interests of a few monopolies under gentile humanistic dogmas without much idealistic content, but this cannot of course threaten the human capacity for adaptation, as the propagandists for state action want us to believe.

The abstract process that the state has undergone over time is in my opinion, one of the most dangerous conventions a poet must go through. The worship of concrete, which Harry Martinson became aware during his trip to the USSR, that it is the nucleus of the state doctrine, (and which was shown by the portraits of Stalin in all sizes and hanging in every space) this was of course only a shortcut to the canonisation of the abstract which is part of the most frightening characteristics of the concept of state. The abstract precisely, by its immutability, by its location outside the sphere of influence, can dominate the action, paralyze the will, prevent the initiatives and align the energy to a catastrophic neurosis of the imprisonment with psychic violence, which can for a certain time, to guarantee rulers some peace, comfort and apparent political sovereignty, but which can ultimately only have an effect as a social boomerang. The compensation which is given to the individual at every ballot, for the abilities at which he is deprived, are not enough for him and it is certain more and more that his capacity for initiative will be compressed. The unforeseeable links, which above the clouds unite in common the complex but grand destinies, the state and the big capitalists the rulers with those who handle them, and the politics with the money, bring into the ignorant part of humanity, a fatalism that neither the state-owned companies for housing construction nor the romances of Upton Sinclair have managed to cut off.
One can try to prove that the democratic state of the modern times represents some new type of inhumanity, that has the same values of the authoritarian regimes of previous times. The principle "Divide to rule" has certainly not been left behind, but the anxiety arising from hunger, the anxiety arising from thirst, the anxiety arising from social inquisition had, at least in principle, to give place, as a means of sovereignty within the province of providence, to the anxiety arising from the uncertainty and powerlessness in which the individual is, in order to dispose of the principal part of his destiny. Sunk in the state block, the individual is constantly tormented by an obsessive feeling of uncertainty and powerlessness, which reminds one of the boat in a tempest, or a carriage attached to a runaway train, where you are capable of thinking but cannot understand the signals, or change the track. Some have tried to define the obsessive analysis of anxiety that characterises my novel "The Serpent" as some kind of "romanticism of anxiety". but romanticism involves an analytical unconscious, a deliberate way of ignoring every fact that risks not coming into line with his idea of things. While the anxious romantic, catching a secret joy to suddenly see that they got everything right, desires to mix the total in a system of anxiety. The analyst of anxiety fights against this totality with their analysis like a former bastion, stripping with its small knife all of its secret branches. According to the political viewpoint, it must follow that the romantic who accepts everything, must feed the braziers of his faith, and cannot blame anything on a social system based on anxiety, and even accepts it with a fatalistic joy. For me, who on the contrary is an analyst of anxiety, it is by the analytical process of elimination, that a solution for a societal machine that does not run on anxiety and fear as the source of its energy can be found. Of course it is true, that this supposes a totally new political dimension that has to liberate us from the conventions that we usually assume to be absolutes. Sociological psychology must give us the task of destroying the myth of the "effectiveness" of centralisation: the neurosis caused by a lack of perspective and by the impossibility of identifying one's own situation in society, cannot be offset by material advantages merely visible. The break up of the Macro-groups into small individualistic unions who collaborate amongst themselves but otherwise self govern, advocated by Anarcho-syndicalism, is the only possible psychological solution in a neurotic world where the weight of the political superstructure squeezes the individual.
The objection that international cooperation would be hampered by the destruction of the various states, of course, does not stand in the way of analysis; for no one would dare to assert that the foreign policy made, at the world level, by various states, contributed to a closer approximation of the countries between them. More serious is the objection that humanity will not be capable of living within an Anarchistic society. Possibly there is some truth in this view, at least to an extent: the reflection of the group consists of the education it absorbs, and paralysis of initiative this causes affects political thinking in many ways. (It is mainly for this reason that I explained my views on Anarchism in a negative sense.) But I doubt that authoritarianism and centralisation is inherent in humanity. On the contrary, I would rather believe that a new thought, in its own way, which, for lack of a better term, I would call intellectual primitivism, and which, by a very fine analysis, would carry out an x-ray of the principal conventions omitted by its ancestor, the sexual primitivism could eventually make proselytes among all who, at the expense of, among others, neuroses and world wars, wish to match their calculations with those of Marx, Adam Smith or the Pope. This may in turn imply a new literary dimension, the principles of which should be explored.
The anarchist author (necessarily pessimistic, because his is consious of the fact, that his contribution can only be symbolic) can momentarily attribute to himself, a totally good consciense, the modest role of an earthquake in the cultural humus, which without him would remain barren due to the dryness of conventions. To be the politician of the impossible, in a world where those of  the possible are already too many, this is despite everything a role that contents me, as a social creature, as an individual and as author of "the serpent".

La Commune by the Cinema of the People

Armand Guerra's 1914 film commemoration of the 1871 Paris Commune 

Link https://youtu.be/AyALCIAhugA

Armand Guerra's 1914 film commemoration of the 1871 Paris Commune (this is the first part of two, the second part was not concluded because of the outbreak of WW1). The last two minutes of the film includes footage by Armand Guerra of a 1911 gathering of some surviving revolutionaries of the Paris Commune, including the anarchist Nathalie Lemel

French intertitles, English subtitles, Portuguese Captions
Archive link https://archive.org/details/lacommune1914

There are several copies of the film on the web, one I found had English and Portuguese captions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzSgOEwHP7E&t=1050s

But the film is silent and quite degraded at parts. There are also several very high quality restoration that come with soundtracks but all of them only had the French intertitles. So I took the English captions, edited and retimed them and turned them into subtitles for the better version.

6 A Happy Ship

6 A Happy Ship


Parsimony, which seemed to have grasped the Navy of the thirties in a grip that threatened to squeeze the life’s blood out of the service, found one feature which it could not pare down, try as it might. That was tradition. Even the traditions that entailed a certain amount of expenditure survived, so tenaciously did they stick. How naval traditions came into existence is questionable. In most cases they did not originate with the incident they are supposed to commemorate, but have been adapted to it. It is known, for instance, that the black silk a sailor wears in mourning for Nelson was worn by the men who did the heavy work of firing the guns long before Nelson’s demise. When closed up to the guns, they tied a black rag round their foreheads to prevent the sweat getting into their eyes. But the silk’s mourning character has come to be accepted and, like many other traditions, is accredited to Nelson. When a young, inexperienced sailor asks `Why do we do this?` the standard answer is: `Young man, Nelson did it, and so will you.`


So, just as paying off a ship demanded a hundred-foot-long pennant, the commissioning of a new ship also had its traditions. There was a difference, however, for the paying off traditions were a show for everyone to see. What could be more stirring than the sight of a sleek cruiser steaming along with the paying off pennant streaming from the mast, the wide end decorated with the red St George’s cross and three or four gold-painted balloons tied to the tip?


The commissioning tradition was far less spectacular and usually no over-welcomed by the men. It was an event which set the tone for the future life of the ship’s company. `To be or not to be` was the question, and in this case a much more worrying one than the young chap from Denmark ever faced. The point at issue was whether this would, or would not, be a `happy ship` - the alternative to which was a `hell ship`. True, that term was generally reserved for the merchant service and naval ratings rare used it; but that did not stop them from thinking it.


When it is first taken over from the builders, a ship is a disgrace to naval discipline and order. Unlike most mechanical objects, which are freshly painted, every piece of metal a blaze of shining light, a new warship has to be scraped and polished, chipped and painted, scrubbed and washed until, as they say `One could eat one’s dinner off the floor of the toilet`. And all this work is done by the new ship’s company.


Now, to achieve the high degree of cleanliness desired, an unofficial tradition was practised by some captains which meant, in brief, roping in a large number of men for extra work in their free time. The captain simply passed the word to his commander who, being the executive officer and therefore responsible for carrying out the captain’s wishes, gave instructions that conditions be created to rope the needed numbers in. Everything was done verbally and nowhere was there written proof, but every man on the ship was aware of what was happening. The regulating staff under the command of the master-at-arms moved into action. Not one little infringement was passed up, and if no infringements existed they were invented. Consequently, every day, at commander’s defaulters, there was a large crowd of men, mostly seamen of course, waiting to be punished. Usually it meant seven days of what was known officially as 10a, but in the jargon of the lower deck as `seven days` extra dancing class`. Every evening they were scattered round different parts of the ship, some with emery paper, scrubbing away at a dockyard-painted steel deck to make it look like a mirror; some with wash-cloths and buckets of `suji-muji`, a liquid concoction of five parts water and five parts any kind of powerful cleanser guaranteed to remove unwanted marks more effectively than flames; and of course a large body with the inevitable `holy stone`, called by the men `the sailor’s bible`.


According to naval regulations this 10a punishment was supposed to be drill with rifle and bayonet from 5 pm till 7 pm. But no captain let loose his `crushers`, that is regulating petty officers, on an unbridled rampage, for the pleasure of watching men toss rifles around, whilst his ship needed to be brought up to naval scratch.


Doubtless the possibility of a swoop of `crushers` was uppermost in the men’s minds as we went on board to take over the Norfolk; for this would be a first intimation of how the orchestra of shipboard life was to be tuned for the remainder of the commission. However, although the master-at-arms on the Norfolk was a sullen, scowling type, notorious throughout the Devonport Division for his favourite saying, `My name is Cause and I’ll give you cause to remember me’, there was no sign of a mantrap at work when we arrived with our bags and hammocks. Night fell without anybody being taken before the officer of the day. It was a good omen, and we all had the feeling that Norfolk would be rated a happy ship. We were further convinced of this when the captain called us to the quarter-deck to make his acquaintance.


In his address Captain Prickett particularly emphasised the importance of a ship working even more smoothly than a watch. Britain with its empire was like a dog with a juicy bone, he said; there were other dogs only too anxious to take it away, and therefore we must always be at the highest peak of efficiency. He played it skilfully, for when we put out to sea to join the Fleet, now gathered at Scapa Flow, he had another talk to us and asked us if, despite the short period of preparation, we would agree to enter the annual regatta, less than a week away. We had little time for training; none of us knew each other’s capabilities, and there would be no opportunity to find out who were the best oarsmen. But nevertheless we responded with enthusiasm, and the captain was pleased. Although we should have practically no success with untrained crews, our entry in the regatta under those conditions would earn him a very complimentary signal. Captain Prickett had set a good tone from the beginning, and it is a well-known fact that what the captain does the other officers always try to follow.


There were other ships in the Fleet whose reputation as happy ships was known throughout the Navy. The battleship Ramilies was nicknamed `Ragtime Ramy`. It was said that when a new member of the ship’s company stepped aboard the Ragtime Ramy, he was met with the questions: `Have you any talent? Can you play football? Can you box? Do you play a musical instrument?` And there was an expression of dismay on the face of the questioner if the new hand confessed to not being gifted in any way.


Arriving at Scapa Flow we told the world – that is our world, the Fleet and the admiral of the Second Cruiser Squadron to which Norfolk belonged – that we were in the regatta. As expected we did not win a race, but when it was all over we certainly got the complimentary signal that the captain was hoping would come from the flagship. It congratulated us on our splendid attempt and cheered us by suggesting that the next year we should do better. This prophecy turned out truer than the admiral suspected, for the next year we walked away with the regatta and won the overall `Silver Chanticleer` which meant that our ship was cock o’ the walk. But more about that later.


Norfolk was not a beautiful ship to look at, with the sleek speedy lines of the lighter cruisers or the symmetrical silhouette of the Hood. With its high free-board, stretching from forward to aft, and three irregular funnels, it could have been taken, were it not for the turrets, for a large passenger-freight ship. But the old saying `appearances deceive` was appropriate to the Norfolk class of heavy cruiser. I became aware of that on our first long trip, when we went to the West Indies in the spring of 1931. We had on the trip a kind of super-cargo an engineer commander who was measuring the roll and pitch of the ship. There happened to be tumultuous enough sea about for him to take good measurements, and we liked to watch him. Being an engineer, and therefore not dependent on prestige on any particular show of aloofness from the mob, he was quite willing to speak to us and answer our questions. One thing he said I shall never forget. `This class of ship,` he explained, `is more powerful than a pre-1914 battleship.` I did not remain on her long enough to witness the proof of his words myself, but those German units who tried to tackle one of these cruisers found it out the hard way, and that is the best evidence of the fighting ability of any warship.


So despite the parsimony afflicting the Navy between the wars, technical developments made rapid strides. After all, to get more power in 10,000 tons than previously was contained in 25,000 tons in the course of a short fifteen years was a tremendous achievement. But for some reason the men who had to operate these mechanical wonders went through a training more suited to the old hand-worked ship. When I was qualifying for seaman gunner, most of our training was based on a gun whose definition we had to learn by heart: `a six-inch breech-loading gun`. When breech-loading guns were first introduced into the Navy it had been necessary to distinguish between them and the old muzzle-loading guns. Long before I was born, however, muzzle-loaders had disappeared from the Navy, but still it was thought vital to drum this ancient formula into our heads. On the other hand, no extra time was allowed us to master the new, intricate instruments of fire control, then coming into use. Our instructor calmly informed us that we would have to study them in time stolen from other subjects. The inspiration behind so ridiculous a measure of economy is hard to fathom.


During the course we received our normal wages and after successfully completing it and acquiring non-substantial rating, we got a small increase. Yet in spite of the extra threepence a day, we left the course to wash paint and polish brass-work. Scrub and polish, scrape and paint – clearly such activities would improve our gunnery efficiency and help us master the complexities of fire control. Indeed, this was the very shortcoming which but a few years later allowed the Tirpitz to be the grave-digger of the mighty Hood.


Some admirals were so obsessed with the scrub-and-polish fetish that they ceased to be normal human beings. One such gave a burlesque performance at the half-yearly `admiral’s inspection` aboard one vessel. Striding along the deck, the suite and ship’s officers trailing behind dressed in their Sunday best, swords and cocked hats and all that, he spotted a sliver of match-stick in the scuppers of an otherwise spotless deck. He drew up stiff like a bull sighting the toreador. There was a pause as he regained his breath, then he shot his arms into the air as if imploring all the devils in hell. `Dig me out! He shrieked. `Dig me out! I am up to my neck in shit! Dig me out!`


This screaming clown asked none of the men he was inspecting where their action stations were, or their fire stations, or their collision stations. In his conception the matchstick was more important to the safety of the ship than a knowledge of emergency action. It was about this time that the Y turret, the Royal Marines’ turret on a Norfolk-type cruiser, sustained a terrible accident which almost completely wiped out the turret’s crew. During firing practice, one of the guns misfired, and the number 2 opened the breech. The moment the rush of air entered the breech, the cordite exploded. It was a human error, maybe due to insufficient training, but certainly not due to somebody’s failure to find a matchstick in the scuppers. After the catastrophe a gadget was invented to prevent the breech being opened before the gun had fired. I am sure it was not that admiral who invented it. He was probably devoting his time to distributing magnifying glasses in the search for dust. The emptiness of the old phrase `cleanliness next to godliness` was proved at Savo when Admiral Mikawa’s highly trained seamen sent, along with a number of American ships, the Canberra,  another Norfolk-class cruiser, and all her crew to their maker, polished but untrained.


After Scapa Flow we were ready to fulfil our traditional duty. Our ship was named Norfolk, so we had to establish good relations with the people of the county whose name we bore. On commissioning, a social club committee had been formed on the ship, of which I was elected secretary with a certain AB George Hill as my aide. First we wrote to Norwich City Football Club and informed them that all our sports teams would wear the club’s canary-coloured shirts. Then we set out to visit two of the county’s towns, Cromer and Yarmouth in that order. Our arrival at Cromer was something of a sensation as a cruiser like ours had b=never been seen there before. The good folk of Cromer were very hospitable and many places in the town were thrown open to us. We set off for Yarmouth with high hopes. They were not disappointed. Within a few hours of our arrival the town hoardings, the local tramcars, and other places where it was possible to stick something up were plastered with huge bills: `HMS Norfolk – A Grand Carnival Dance`.


It was a smashing success in the great glass hall on the pier. All the town was saying that this had been one of the most attractive events for years. Even the local Conservative chairman, who had at first announced that the Conservative Club would be closed to the drunken sailors he feared would overrun the town, came on board to apologise to the captain and invite the sailors to the club. Furthermore, the warrant officer sent to maintain order at the dance reported to the captain next morning that he could not have chosen a better event to make his name. Yarmouth was convinced that the blue collar covered not only strong shoulders but gentlemanly ones as well. On the popularity market the Norfolk’s shares rocketed to the skies, and the captain was number one shareholder.

In the spring of 1931 we made our cruise to the West Indies, taking two weeks to get there. No doubt this trip included a lot of exercises, but we knew as much about them as the policeman on duty outside the Houses of Parliament knows about Cabinet business. There and back, we went on scrubbing and polishing and adding not one iota to our efficiency.


Easter leave passed and once again we were at Scapa Flow, lining up for the annual regatta. This time the Norfolk’s oarsmen were prepared, but so were the oarsmen of all the other ships of the squadron, and especially those of our greatest rival, the York. In the months since commissioning we had acquired most of the sports trophies we had competed for, and a glass case about six feet high had appeared just outside the wardroom. We had only let the York take one silver cup, for football.

One of the few worthwhile regattas of Britain, the Atlantic Fleet’s annual regatta was always rowed in an outlandish spot such as Scapa Flow, and no information about it ever appeared in any newspaper, anywhere. There was none of the ballyhoo about the training or the actual races that there was for the overpraised university boat race, which, to us, seemed ninety percent publicity and ten percent real rowing. It was a two-day event with a trophy for each race and, unique in the Navy, a money prize for the overall winners. One of the ships ran a tote to which bets were brought by representatives from all the other ships.


The biggest event was the seaman’s cutters’ race, a three-mile slog in a ton-and-a-half boat, with fixed thwarts and an oar fifteen foot long, so thick at the grip that the hand does not completely surround it. There were no featherweight cockles here that, after a training session, two chaps pick up and take home with them for fear the wind might blow it away, nor any oars hardly larger than a jam-maker’s wooden spoon. No fleet of motorboats, steam launches or what have you followed down the course. One single boat followed the six cutters through waters too rough for the students’ boats. And when the winning cutter sped across the finishing line, nobody flopped over his oar, but in true naval fashion the crew, like one man, tossed their oars and kept them perfectly straight in the air as all the ships cheered.


For some unknown reason every measure was taken to prevent the public from seeing this extraordinary display of oarsmanship. Maybe the old boy network did not favour the idea of powerful plebeians stealing the show. Now if two public races were held – one in which a naval and a student crew competed I university cockleshells, and another in which they competed in naval twelve-oared cutters – that would set the Thames on fire.


So the Norfolk won that regatta, the very same Norfolk that chroniclers of Invergordon were to describe as a hotbed of red agitators. And in the winning seamen’s cutter were two of the outstanding figures at Invergordon. Leading Seaman Richard Carr, the best stroke ever to take a fifteen-foot ash oar in his grip, and the modest second bow, myself. Strange as it may seem, we were always to the fore in any kind of social activity or entertainment – and all for the good of the lower deck and, of course, of the Navy.


Having filled our six-foot-high trophy case with every kind of trophy, and by doing so raised the prestige of Captain Prickett above that of all other cruiser captains, we sailed for Kiel, one of the first ships to visit the famous German naval base since World War I. Conspiracy-minded scribes have discovered in this visit the iniquitous influence that began to change our allegiance from the flag of prestige to the flag of red. True, we did meet up with red, a whole bucketful of it that somebody had poured over the still-standing statue of the Kaiser. But we ourselves were not splashed with it to the extent of one pinhead. The Germans received us wonderfully well. They spent hours with our men who had fought in the war, and the yarns they swapped kept everybody too busy to think of anything else.


Except me. I found time to pen and send an angry letter to the old Daily Herald. Their man, who was supposed to be covering this visit, announced that our ships would be met by a gun salute from the new, German, pocket battleship Deutschland. I could not let that pass. After a sly dig at his powers of observation I informed the paper that the Deutschland was just a hulk on the stocks, sans engines, sans guns, sans everything. My letter was not only not published, it was not even acknowledged.

At that time I was given to writing letters to newspapers, being naïve enough to believe they might have a little influence. One that did get printed was written when I nearly went berserk over an article printed in one of the big London dailies. The author was a well-known woman writer who, not long before, had married a naval officer. Her article was an insulting and degrading blurb of patronising snobbery under the title Jack’s Christmas Dinner. The paper published my letter with the heading `A Broadside From the Navy`. My own heading had been slightly different. `Miss So-and-so’s Bloomers`, but the editor was evidently more delicate than I was. The many other letters from the lower deck which, besides mine, were prompted by this jibing article gave the writer to understand that when the pen is thrown down challengingly at the feet of the Navy, we answer, `Madam, keep off the lower deck. When we want female company we go ashore for it`.


Then came the time for summer leave. After it the Fleet would sail from home ports to rendezvous at Invergordon and I would put in a request to go to the Gunnery School to qualify for Gunlayer Two, the next step up the gunnery man’s ladder. Or so I thought.

The Warsaw Uprising Association Condems Government Homophobia

Photo from this thread 

Recently the Polish national government working in tandem with several regional and municipal authorities have increased their homophobic and anti LGBTQ rhetoric, and pushed to further combat "Queer ideology" by endorsing a new family charter.

Understandably this has provoked strong opposition within the country. One source of opposition is the association to commemorate the Warsaw uprising and its few surviving veterans.

They've released an official statement denouncing the actions of the government and the very logic of homophobia. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2950827485036967&id=1436010186518712

My friend Sasha translated it into English,


The Warsaw Uprising Association and the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Heroes of the Warsaw Uprising, which work to commemorate the veterans of WW2, are appalled by recent events, aimed at dividing society and incite hatred of LGBT people. Without delving into judgements of worldview, each human deserved dignity and respect, including those of different sexual preferences.

Despite that, for the last few days we hear words that attempt to negate the humanity of others. Because the very harmful idea that homosexual people are not people, is being spread, a narrative that is tragic in its effects is introduced into the public consciousness. In that framing, other human beings are being perceived as objects, devoid of feelings, affections and emotions. Words that were heard all over Poland and indeed, around the world, need to be radically opposed by all decent people. During the Warsaw Uprising, people fought to restore human dignity that was taken away by the occupier. We will not be idle while minorities are being dehumanised in a way reminiscent of the worst times we lived through. We believe that we are bound by duty to speak out in defence of weaker people. We can't abide by acts of violence, including in speech, against any people, in any form, in a democratic, tolerant Poland, in the EU. We can't abide by degrading of sexual minorities, in a country, where gay people were killed by fascists for their difference.

We appeal to the politicians to end dividing society. Human hurt, repressions and degradation are really not worth political gain. We appeal in the words of Marian Turski (Jewish survivor of the Uprising) - "Do not be passive, when any minority is discriminated". We won't be.

5 Some Have Politics Thrust Upon Them

Devonport Barracks are not in Devonport at all but in a little place called Keyham. The two districts are so close, however that only the town architect can say where the boundary lies. In 1930 the population of the barracks was about four thousand men and officers. The imposing gateway suggested the entrance to a palace, and the guard with his rifle and fixed bayonet contributed to the impression, although, instead of a busby on his head, he wore a sailor’s cap. A building which was something in the style of a palace stood to the left of the entrance, a little way down towards the drill ground. That was the wardroom, where the officers lived. To the right were, first the quarters of the chiefs and petty officers, and then the barracks for the men – barracks which on Sundays suggested a deserted factory.


They were large four-storey brick building with one long room on either side of each floor. At one time each building had its own feeding arrangements. Food was brought from the huge galley to each mess, which was simply a table placed along one side of the room divided down the middle by bag racks. Then a chief cook named Jago devised a scheme whereby the ground floors of two buildings facing each other were turned into dining rooms, catering for all the men in the complex.

It completely altered the feeling of this large number of men and was the introduction of what was called `General Messing`. The catering was taken out of the hands of the leading seaman in each mess and placed in the hands of this same Jago, who was now a warrant officer. Under the old system the men were faced, every month, with a mess bill, because the sum accredited to each man, one shilling and sevenpence per day, was not enough to enable them to eat as they wanted. The new system allowed the caterer to buy food wholesale, with the result that not only did the men have no monthly mess bills but there was also considerable economy all round, the money thus saved being used to provide other comforts in the barracks, Sitting-rooms were opened on this money, furnished with carpets and easy chairs and supplied with newspapers and magazines.


However at the time in question the system had been introduced only into the barracks and into one or two of the bigger sea-going units. When a man was detailed for draft to a ship his first question was whether the ship was on General Messing or Canteen Messing, with its attendant monthly mess bill. As a result of this innovation many men looked upon the barracks as a rest home. So did the Navy, but the authorities took care to see that no one stayed in the rest home for very long.

I mention this system of feeding because of the differences it made to a sailor’s pay. The so-called experts who have written about the pay of the lower deck at the time of Invergordon have never once included in their assessments the mess bill which the greater part of the Navy paid every month out of its own pocket. It could reach ten shillings or more, and on the China station, where many food products were imported, sometimes from England, it reached ten Hong Kong dollars a month, at that time the equivalent of £1. Only after many applications to the Admiralty was a small addition granted to the victualling allowance on that station.


There is no denying the fact that with General Messing the men lived and fed better. Moreover as well as purchasing the comforts already described, there were funds enough to employ the men on the barracks as waiters, so that the dining-room was as well equipped and run as the canteen of any large industrial enterprise in he country.


Liberty, as the right to go on shore is termed in the Navy, was exceptionally generous at Devonport, in that we could spend all our free time on shore. All activities. Study ad working parties ended at 4 pm, and anybody not on watch aboard was entitled to go on shore till seven the next morning. Such freedom I have never met in any armed force in the world. As a result many married men, returning from a foreign commission to be accommodated in the barracks, closed up their houses in their home towns, hired rooms near the barracks and lived with their wives the whole time they were at Devonport. A man was free to go ashore three days in four, had two short weekends every month plus one long, from Friday evening to Monday morning, and was altogether in a position somewhat equal to a man working in a factory. Of course it generally lasted no more than a few months, rarely as long as a year.


It had its negative side too. Keeping two homes meant extra expense – another thing the `financial experts` have never taken into account when working out their rather distorted conception of a sailor’s pay. no doubt it was these same experts who told the two-and-a-half million unemployed of that time that two buckets of water had the same calorie content as a loaf of bread, and advised them to drink more water. Some may say that the sailor accepted this obligation to keep two homes of his own free will. But it is only human for a man absent from his wife for two or three years to want to spend all his available time with her. Further, did not the Navy, who had signed a contract with this man – sometimes for twenty-five years and including these long periods of absence- have some responsibility to see that he could be with his wife as much as possible? They never lifted a finger to assist, although a fighting man becomes a better fighter if he knows that those at home are comfortably provided for.


At the age of twenty-one I was not particularly worried by these problems. I was what is known as fancy-free and wanted to make the best of my young life, as far as women and song were concerned. Wine I gave a miss, as I have done all my life, never having been convinced of the joy it provides. Too often I saw young comrades of mine who had been on the booze the previous night, holding their aching heads and groaning in all sincerity. `Oh, I had a wonderful time last night. Oh my poor head. I don’t know how I will do my work today. But I had a wonderful time last night. Spent all my money. Oh, what a wonderful time I had and oh, my poor head`. No money left and a thick head into the bargain was not my idea of a good time. But I liked to get around, go to a dance, do a little toetripping with a fair young thing. And somehow I never got a sore head.


Even then, my type of sailor predominated in the Navy. Increasingly young people were joining from the school bench rather than from work like me, and conscious of their superior ability and recognising that the Navy would be their career, they pitched the tone of their ambitions somewhat higher than I or other men who from the beginning, were quite content with the prospect of CPO [Chief Petty Officer] rank. But these ambitious young men were doomed to disappointment. For what reason? The simple answer is class prejudice.


Although the naval authorities talked about their men with great pride to other people, civilian officials and such like - `my sailors` was the term used – they deliberately hindered the men from developing their talents in the interests of the service. In 1918, Rear-Admiral Lay, Director of Naval Training, proposed that gifted young men from the lower deck should be aided to enter the officer corps. Read-Admiral Lay was not trying to earn a reputation as a kind uncle to the lower deck. The 1914-18 war had completely and brutally smashed our conceptions of social relations. It had shown that the despised plebeian could perform acts of bravery, take initiatives, demonstrate leadership. Rear-Admiral Lay recognised this and also recognised that the Navy needed an injection of non-blue blood, that birth was less in demand than brains.


His chief opponent, the then Second Sea Lord Vice-Admiral Heath, raised the almost unbelievably snobbish objection: `To be a good officer it is necessary to be a gentleman`. Perfectly true, though not in the way he meant it. Many officers were known as `gents`, the lower deck’s highest praise, but these were not the people who were gentlemen among gentlemen and boors to their subordinates. It was not behaviour that Vice-Admiral Heath had in mind, however, but the fear that someone might appear in the wardroom whose mother took in washing. So although by his tenacity Rear-Admiral Lay succeeded in getting some reforms passed in the promotion system, the `Heaths` introduced a whole series of unofficial obstacles to block the ascent from the lower deck.


In only a few years of service I had already witnessed the callous destruction of young men for every reason except lack of talent. When I was just a boy serving in the submarines I met a two-badge AB nearly at the end of his first twelve years and somewhere in the region of thirty years old. With the large number of unemployed in civilian life he knew he was obliged to sign on for a pension. This man had passed the higher education test in accordance with the regulations, the most annoying of which was the stipulation that the test must be taken before reaching the age of twenty-four: just one of the many little obstacles deliberately placed in the path of the lower deck man who wanted to move out of his class. In addition he had passed the general knowledge test, and on the face of it there was nothing to stop him receiving his mate’s rating, the lower deck’s first step to becoming an officer. But almost six years had passed since his examinations and he had now less chance of becoming an officer than I had of becoming the Queen of Sheba.


Besides the compulsory examinations there were a number of other tests which were never made public, various commissions which investigated a candidate’s ability to meet the high standards of society behaviour considered essential by the seagoing elite. There was, for instance, the `Etiquette Commission` which visited this AB’s home and found his mother in a sack-bag apron; whereupon away went his chances/ another acquaintance, successful in the examinations, had been foolish enough to visit a tattoo shop on his first trip ashore in a foreign port. The result was not a lurid picture of a huge ship disappearing under a green-blue sea across his chest, but a small compass in the joint between thumb and index finger: in all about the size of a sixpence. But it was enough to spoil his chances. The annoying aspect of this was that the wardroom had plenty of officers whose bodies looked like the National Gallery after a suffragette raid. Similarly an entry in red ink on a man’s medical history sheet, indicating that he had caught VD, put an end to his prospects, though quite a number of officers spent periods in hospital for this affliction. It was never described as VD, however, and was therefore called by the men `wardroom lumbago`.


Some candidates passed the social tests as well as the technical examinations, but were these rare successes accepted in the true sense of the word? In many ways they were never accepted. Such a candidate knew very well that he would never make the top naval academy, and up to 1930 only one lower deck man in the twentieth century reached flag rank. Even that one exception received his rank only on retiring, having previously occupied the post of captain of a training ship, never a ship of the line.


Usually an officer from the lower deck received lieutenant’s rank and after eight years was retired with the rank of lieutenant-commander. There is little doubt that they were unhappy: the one lower decker among the officers was a lonely man, a man on a strange desert island who had left our society and had not arrived at the society he desired. At eleven o’clock such a man would often be seen coming on deck to relieve the officer of the day. Now the Navy works its watches strictly to the famous eight bells, and eleven o’clock is six bells, not a time when watches are normally relieved. But eleven o’clock was the time the bar opened in the wardroom, and not having the money to drink duty free whisky, not to speak of treating his pals, the officer from the lower deck would (for a small renumeration, some sailors hinted) stand the watch for an officer more able to buy a round of drinks. How far this was true, I do not know, but one ex-lower deck man I served with was seen late in the evening making his way to the officers’ bathroom with a bundle of dirty linen under his arm. He was married and his pay did not stretch to the luxury of paying for his laundry. When guests from ashore were invited to an officers’ evening party, he never took part but relieved the OOD [Officer On Duty].

Such goings-on in the confined space of a ship could not be concealed from the men. Not that they sympathised. But the snub given to the lower deck officer was much the same as the snub administered to us, except that where he, on the surface at least, was treated as a shipmate, for us such camouflage was considered unnecessary. Some people thought that the rare selection of a lower deck man to become a commissioned officer was part of the general recruiting campaign. Others, and maybe they were nearer the mark, suggested that the authorities were trying to fill the gap between the officers and the lower deck with a favoured recruit who could be a source of badly needed knowledge of the men. If so, their stratagem was a complete failure, for, because of the wardroom’s attitude towards him, he was neither theirs nor ours.


It is useless to pretend that I had all this cut and dried at the age of twenty-two. Then I spent most of my duty time working for a gunnery qualification and, as soon as studies finished, I ran out with the first liberty boat to a little room I had hired where I put on a civilian suit, bought from the strict regime of economy I had kept during my time in China. I well knew that a sailor in uniform was just as likely to get a snub in Plymouth as in Hong Kong – only not such a blatant one and not from such cheap snobs.


Nevertheless, politics, in a very mild form, was forcing itself into my life, and considering that there was little effort to give the lower deck even an elementary idea of what was going on in the country, that was a big step forward. From the beginning in the Training Ship we had lived in political isolation. Admittedly there was a notice-board on which cuttings from newspapers were occasionally put up, but rarely a complete one. This strange kind of censorship was very effective: although my period in the Training Ship included January 1924, I, and I suppose many like me, left the ship unaware not only that Lenin had died but that he had ever existed. Even the Daily Herald was not allowed on the ships till 1926, and then not because of a progressive move on the part of the Admiralty, but because of a change in the Herald’s policy and, more likely, ownership.


It is ridiculous to talk of outside influences developing a certain political trend in me, as some writers on Invergordon have alleged[1]. In fact the Navy, especially the lower deck, resented any influences of that sort from whatever source. After the raid on the pirates’ lair in Bias Bay, I was told that a certain Chinese newspaper had printed a lurid account of the bloody slaughter we had wrought, claiming a number of dead and mutilated bodies far in excess of the total population of the village. As a participant in the raid I scoffed at this blatant lying, but men who had not been there roared with laughter and that was the end of it.


If I was influenced by anybody, it was by more experienced sailors who were nearing retirement age. In my last period on the Ambrose I worked with a man who was a rare exception in the Navy. He had passed the age of forty, when he should have left on pension, but was making up `bad time` - that is, the time spent in the cells in his youth for breaking all the Navy’s rules and regulations short of `Aid to the enemy`. When I knew him he had ceased his rule-breaking and was leading a quiet life. He was very intelligent, respected not only by other seamen but also by the petty officers and chief petty officers, although he had never aimed higher than an AB rating himself. He possessed a wise and sensible notion of politics, and though, like everyone else in the Navy, he did not belong to a political party, he was capable of putting a case in a very erudite manner. While we worked together he explained many things about relationships between the lower deck and the wardroom. He described the peacetime Navy as a regimented yacht club. The owners of the yachts were the officers and the menial strength to the men. The regimentation came from the faraway Admiralty which, notwithstanding the preferences of the yacht owners, dictated the movements of the ship. But wherever the Admiralty sent a ship, the officers arrived like passengers, ordered a boat ashore whenever they wanted one and, at any time of the night, ordered one back on board.


Despite the tradition forbidding women on board after sunset, many boats returning with officers in the wee small hours carried women too. The Ambrose was, as I have said, a very roomy ship, and besides the officers serving the ship itself there was on the strength a large contingent of submarine officers. These last were prone to leading the high life – not only because they received considerably more pay than general service officers, but also because volunteers for the submarines were mainly dare-devil young men who wanted to have their fling. If the students of those days could have `rags`, and knock off policemen’s helmets to play football with, then why couldn’t these young people have fun too? There were no policemen to control them and they were indifferent to what the lower deck might think of them, not accepting that the men they commanded had an opinion worth hearing in such affairs. One night we had the remarkable spectacle of two officers, each wearing nothing more than a tie, swimming to the ship, whilst on the forecastle of the accompanying motorboat two women and some other officers screamed with hysterical laughter and shouted lurid observations to be heard all over Hong Kong harbour. Their innocent evening frolics ended up with one of the women quite drunk, riding totally naked up and down the officers’ passage way on a bicycle, met at either end by officers with fire hoses.


Of course all the mess had to be cleaned up by the seamen. Maybe similar high jinks are sometimes practised in the houses of the affluent, and there it is the servants who have to clean up the mess. But that is what they are paid for and, moreover, the servants will not be asked to go into battle or to uphold the integrity of a famous force by exemplary behaviour ashore. If by chance a sailor should disgrace his uniform on shore, one of these officers would consider it his `painful duty` to punish the man severely.


I hope no one will misconstrue my intentions in describing the foregoing incident, or suppose that I wish to convey the impression that such incidents led to Invergordon. What they did was add to the brew in that cauldron which was belching out the obnoxious fumes of class prejudice; and which, in its turn, was widening the gap between the lower deck and the wardroom.


The mystery of the rift has never been fully explained and it is not as simple as some people would have us believe, with their neat formula: `We are we, and they are they, and never the twain shall meet`. At that time there were just over a hundred thousand men in the Navy, nearly ten thousand of whom were officers. Most of the officers were from the middle, or lower middle, classes. The aristocratic officers (including, by the way, members of the Royal Family) were a very insignificant minority, although I might add, it was from these people that we saw and felt the least class prejudice. Some of the majority had barely escaped putting on the blue collar. perhaps their parents had got them into Dartmouth with the aid of a distant relative who had a little pull in naval circles. However that may be, these people entered Dartmouth when they were mere boys of twelve, and nobody will accept that boys of twelve are already infused with flagrant class prejudice.


The answer must be that, while at school, they were subjected to a very subtle sort of indoctrination. It must have been that they were brainwashed into believing the stupid saying that `the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton`. One marvels at the picture conjured up: scions of the gentry pull of their famous ties and tear into Napoleon’s Old Guard, knocking them down like ninepins, while a crowd of lads from the Old Kent Road, Moss Side and the Gorballs stand to one side leaning on their muskets, watching the slaughter and chewing their cud. Strange that so many of the scum got killed or wounded. They must have got too near the fragments of Eton ties that were flying around. Of course in those days not much was known about the school. Now that its inner secrets have been revealed, we should perhaps rewrite the saying: `The battle for Homolib was won in the dormitories of Eton`.


As evidence that naval officers were indoctrinated with class prejudice before they ever reached the sea. I cite their almost universal attitude towards men from the lower deck. If a sailor tried to explain the cause of a minor misdemeanour, the officer’s foregone conclusion was always that the man was lying. Equally, it was accepted without evidence or question that the men were dull-witted. Where could the officers have learned this approach unless it was engendered in the college? However, it is greatly to the credit of the officer corps of the RN that a considerable number of them discarded this attitude, developing instead an approach based on a simple, humane principle: firm but polite.

Indoctrination is an extraordinary thing which many people underrate. They fail to understand that the people least able to appreciate its power are those subjected to it. Presented as something giving them superiority over those they have to control or command, they go with it all the way. I have witnessed in the Far East the insidious change indoctrination makes in people whilst they themselves are completely ignorant of what is going on in their minds. A batch of new entrants to the army were to take over the duty of guarding convicts. Arriving in their civilian clothes from their towns and villages, they passed, on the way from the station to their quarters, a body of convicts working under guard. Touched by the sight of these men the new arrivals searched their bags and bundles for something to eat and threw it to the convicts. Two weeks later, after a `training` period, their attitude had changed beyond recognition: every time they were obliged to communicate with the convicts, they used the most insulting language and where possible inflicted discomforts which might be described as sadistic. When taxed they could only parrot `Duty, duty`.


The course for seaman gunner’s rating, the first step on the gunnery ladder, lasts three months and provides an elementary knowledge of the major features of naval gunnery. Upon completion an examination is held. Unluckily for us, our course took place just after the enforcement of the economy measure preventing those who passed from immediately taking the next course. I came top of the class with the allowed eighty-three percent, but as that was two marks below the percentage admitting a man to further study, I had to spend much valuable time hanging around the Gunnery School washing windows and polishing brass-work.


It was at this time that notices were posted up announcing a forthcoming meeting of the Welfare Committee. Owing to the fact that sailors were only temporarily resident anywhere, the Welfare Committee did not exist in the generally understood sense. Each time the bi-annual farce was announced its members were elected anew. What the Admiralty expected from it is hard to say. Cynics suggested that it served the purpose of convincing the public that sailors had at least a small part to play in their own welfare. Shortly before I read the announcement of the forthcoming meeting, the Board of Admiralty’s answers to requests submitted by the previous committee had been posted on the noticeboard. A small crowd of sailors had gathered round and were almost bursting with bitter laughter at the ridiculous requests submitted, which had no bearing on the real grievances of the lower deck. None of the requests would have entailed trouble or expense, yet the Admiralty had refused more than half of them. The scoffing attitude of the men clearly demonstrated that the Welfare Committee was a joke – but a heartless joke, played by sleeves ringed with gold braid which should have been ashamed to associate themselves with such a farce.


I was urged to go to the meeting at which the committee would be chosen, but remembering the requests that had been turned down, I was a little wary at first. Then I came to the conclusion that the reason for the Welfare Committee’s helplessness could only be discovered by being on it, and I agreed to go. It was a poorly attended meeting and I was voted on to the committee. There was no need ever to return to another meeting, for here in this cinema hall everything became clear to me.

The presiding officer was a Lieutenant-Commander Malleson, one of the few World War I VCs still alive. There could not have been a more unsuitable choice, for Lieutenant-Commander Malleson was no hero to us. He seemed to get enjoyment from subjecting the men from his division to continuous childish pinpricks. After Mr Malleson had walked round the barracks, there were chalked crosses everywhere – on ditty boxes he thought dirty, on kit-bags not exactly straight in their racks, and in a myriad of other places. A cross on a man’s gear came to be known as `a kiss from Mr Malleson`. The biggest laugh came when Malleson drove up to the barracks in a ramshackle two-seater with a dickey so dirty that its colour was unrecognisable. Promptly the men went to town, and in a very short time that car was covered with kisses drawn in the dirt.


There was little for Malleson to do. What he did do, or rather read, was enough to show the Welfare Committee in its true light. The first words were a warning from the Admiralty about the limits on the committee’s work. `Presiding officers,` it began, `are to warn the committee that the following subjects are not to be discussed: 1 Individual ships and establishments. 2 Individual claims. 3 Personnel…` Then, after a couple of similar forbidden points, came the all-embracing embargo which enabled presiding officers to veto any point raised. It came under the single word `Policy`. From the beginning, therefore, the Welfare Committee was tied hand and foot and for that matter, blind-folded and gagged. Anything and everything came under the heading of policy. The warning ended with a reminder that all requests must be delivered to the Admiralty by post, no personal deputations would be received.


Now I knew why the sailors scoffed. Here was a serious body like the Admiralty spending its time discussing, and what’s more refusing, simply asinine requests – such as permission for the men to have cuffs on their number two suits as well as on their number one suits; or to wear sewn-round caps, because the sewn-round cap looks smarter than the non-sewn-round cap. It sounds incredible that the ruling power of His Britannic Majesty’s Royal Navy, a body of men with distinguished careers, specialists in one or other of the intricate mechanisms of fighting ships, some of whom had contributed scientific discoveries to be copied by all the world, should deal with the `welfare` of the lower deck as only a person with the brains of a rocking-horse could do. For years the men had been endeavouring, through the Welfare Committee, to establish a contributory fund through which they could get railway tickets gratis when they went on leave. Although it was a system which would pay for itself, it had been refused again and again on the flimsy pretext that it would require extra clerical staff.


What driving power was it that urged these people of the highest position in the Navy to present the lower deck with a committee to expose and rectify their grievances, then disarm it with excuses of the most feeble kind? The answer is that these highly educated gentlemen were, politically, living in the early nineteenth century, when the ruling classes all over the country were dominated by the idea that any privilege granted to the lower orders would infallibly lead to calamity – for themselves, that is. To say `no` to the most harmless of the Welfare Committee’s requests was the surest way of keeping the lower deck where it belonged; to say `yes` was a sign of weakness that could only encourage further demands. It was precisely the justification for the cruelty which a circus-trainer uses to train wild animals.


Evidently every list of requests from the Welfare Committee carried within itself the seeds of bloody revolution, every request brought these gentlemen nearer to a `Bounty` or a `Spithead` or a `Nore`.

It would be wrong to contend that the Welfare Committee’s powerlessness led to Invergordon, but it certainly deepened the men’s mistrust of the Admiralty, and that mistrust was to be the reason why the men would not listen to pledges from senior officers of the Fleet that the pay-cuts would be reviewed.


After the Devonport Division Welfare Committee had finished its discussions a delegation was chosen to go to the final meeting at Portsmouth, where all the port divisions would be gathered. My name was suggested but the Detailed For Draft office had other plans for me. In their estimation I had been in the depot too long and a spell at sea was badly needed. So I was removed from the list and a little later was drafted to join the new cruiser Norfolk, then completing construction in Fairfield’s yard in Glasgow.


Thus it was that an overzealous clerk put me aboard the Norfolk. A little more laxity on his part and I might have gone as a delegate to Portsmouth, and this story would never have been told.

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[1] For example, The Mutiny at InverGordon, Kenneth Edwards, London, 1937.