QUIT YE LIKE MEN
John W Perry, £12.50
978-184104-1833
Do you remember your schooldays, or are they just a hazy recollection of isolated incidents, names and faces blurring with the passage time? If so, you’ll be very impressed by John Perry’s incredible recall of the terms spent at HMS Conway, forming the first part of his absorbing account of his pre-sea training and subsequent early career at sea,
As older readers will be aware, during the 1950s (and into the 60s) there were four main nautical training colleges – HMS Worcester, HMS Conway, Pangbourne and Warsash – of which only the last still exists, in a different guise, to train the seafarers of tomorrow. There was the inevitable friendly rivalry between them, but they had a common purpose in turning boys (no girls!) into young men ready to play their part in Britain’s maritime tradition, with those skills – and friendships – lasting a lifetime.
The preliminary third of John Perry’s book is a school story, regaling the reader with reminiscences of the food, lessons, discipline, fun and embarrassments common in many an educational establishment, told in an idiosyncratic style. Of particular interest - primarily due to the seeming absence of any regard to Health & Safety - was the requirement for potential P&O cadets to complete a month-long course at an Outbound Centre: when did that cease and why, I wonder?
To a certain extent, the remainder of the tale is more of the same, but embracing a far wider canvas – geographically as well as metaphorically – as he ventures to sea as an apprentice with P&O in its ‘golden age’. Whilst the yarns will strike a chord with his contemporaries, (particularly those from that illustrious shipping line, possibly even recognising some of the characters that he mentions) the appeal to a wider audience is as a social history of the period – sharply contrasting (or should that be ‘comparing’?) with the experiences of today’s crop of cadets, so far fewer in number than fifty years ago.
As with all titles from the Memoir Club, the publishers of this book, it’s sometimes difficult to know whether a reader appreciates it simply for its own sake, or because it evokes memories of a shared history or experience, but it is without doubt very readable with an engaging turn of phrase.