If anyones got this months Navy News go to page 35 (swop drafts) look at PO(sea) Read. Before I contact him does anyone know if it's a blue card job and will I get weekends off.

www.navynews.co.uk/

Well, today I had to go in the Royal Marines School of Music to do a job and when I'd finished asked the WO I was working with if I could have a look inside the cell block. No problem, and he walked me through from one end to the other on the ground floor.

It is apparently a listed building now and so very few changes have been made. It looks for all the world like the Victorian type prison depicted in Porridge only worse! There are nets between the balconies on each floor - suicide nets apparently - and I was told they are the original ones which have been left there.

Maybe it all gets too much for trainee musicians from time to time !

Curiosity satisfied!
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RN - 1967 - 1980 www.s61.org

Recession - when people are losing their jobs.
Depression - when you're losing yours.
Finance - the art of passing money from hand to hand until it disappears.

I have been in Pompey DQ's over 20 times..............

once as an inmate and the rest as Viccy Barracks Registry messenger with the 'Black Box' mail.
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Political correctness
A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end

I was in there twice, 67 and 69, missed 53 class by a week.
In 1968 world in action did a documentary about DQ's and labelled it the hardest prison in the UK. There were major changes between my two visits
Did 28 days for being 2 months AWOL in '67 (I was in luv, honest)
Not allowed to speak to anyone except "staff", porridge and tea for breakfast every day 'cept Sunday when you got 1 sausage. Veg soup, boiled taters and rice every day with a sausage on Tuesdays and a piece of fish the size of a minnow on a Friday. Sunday was special, instead of rice we got a piece of sponge pudding.
Everything in your room was spotless, metalwork cleaned with pumice powder, get caught short during the night, shit in the pan and wash dry and shiny in the morning.
The day I joined DQ's, four of us were lined up in our NO2's, mid July and given the law by the chief in charge. He ended his wee tirade by saying "when I say jump, you jump" "Jump!" All three guys beside me jumped and I burst out laughing. Ten seconds later I was wiping his spittle of my face as I went round the assault course for the next hour.

Drafted twice to the hotel, May 76 & Jan 68 hard to believe I know but I was a gobby stroppy little sod in those days, anyway the highlight of both visits was when the resident next to me spat on the skipper during Sunday divisions.
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'Wake up people your country bleeds you'

Here we go. I did two spells in the place. First was going on the trot from the torquay in Penzance. I got 28 days.
The second whack was an accumulation of minor offences, thirteen naughties in twelve month period.
The routine was simple, you doubled everywhere except in the chapel or on a staircase.
O530 Call the hands.
Slop out bucket.
Come out to wash and shave.
In cell clean cell and bucket. ( Dip hand in pumice, wet, rub bucket, dip hand in water, pumice rub bucket. You had to make it shine it was your mirror to shave in.
Hands to breakfast.
PT.
Close quarter rifle drill at double.
assault course.
Stand easy. Stay where you were.
PT.
Close quarter rifle drill.
In cell.
Hands to dinner.
Task in cell Picking oakum a 12 inch length of rope which you had to pick into fibres until your fingers bled.
Smoke two fags lit from a hot shovel. If shovel went cold, no fags.
In cell with a book of choice (The book of your faith, or Queens regulations as applied to the Admiralty.
Pipe down wooden block for pillow and one pussers blanket, two in winter months.
The above routine was 7 days a week stand fast Saturday afternoon wash bedding, and Sunday afternoon make a mend/church parade.

If you was asked a question by a member of staff, you had to stand to attention and say "Permission to speak sir" answer the question, but if you was addressed again you had to request to speak every time.
If you had more than three defaults in a day you had another day added to your sentence.
You could get solitary on bread and water. 8 pints of water a day, and 5 slices of thick sliced bread. You could be kept on that for 5 days at a time with two days between each bout.
When you did rifle drill you had to slope arms with the SMLE and if you got caught with a duster in your shirt, ohhhhhhh dear pun.
And Old Greenie we was in in the same years, wonder if we met in there.
The week in recess before you went over was OK.
And if it rained you got lectures on drug abuse and VD. The same one all the time.
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Joined before the "Dead sea" had reported sick.
Roll on the Rodney, Repulse or Renown,
This two funnelled bastard,
Is getting me down.

For my holiday in the sumer of 1993, it consisted of three parts, part 1, 2 & 3. Part one was a three week course which started on a monday, so you could spend up to 5-6 days waiting to start week one, after successfully completing week three, you moved on to part 2. and if you were on holiday long enough eventually to part 3. Over the three weeks of part one you had various lectures ( finacial, medical, naval), did PT, rifle drill (negative Baynots), learnt about rescue techniques so you could form part of the RN international rescue team (if required). Went swimming every Thursday morning after your Daily mile and a half run. We had morning divisions every week day. Played Team games every Sat & Sun. Went to church on a Sunday (Multi denominational). Lived in a 'room' which was kept spotlessly clean by yourself it was inspected every morning. All clothes and bedding were washed by hand. All the Staff were either promised men or extended service Chiefs and Colour SGT's. After part 1 you moved onto part two, you still did the daily run and swimming and morning divisions then instead of lectures you were turned too on minor ships husbandary tasks and gardening around the establishment. Part 3's were employed outside of the establishment at other units, diving school was one place some of them went. They also could earn leave two hours on a sunday afternoon to begin with which was increased if they maintained there VG Status. Ah those happy carefree un-stressful days of the summer of 93.

Fookin hell sounds great, what was this place called, BUTLINS?
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Joined before the "Dead sea" had reported sick.
Roll on the Rodney, Repulse or Renown,
This two funnelled bastard,
Is getting me down.

FFS I cannot believe what I amreading, now in my day it was a real punishment not a fekin 5* cruise ship.

You youngsters will know, are there seperate showers for Jenny?
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'Wake up people your country bleeds you'

Fink thats better routine than we had on the fuckin ship
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Joined before the "Dead sea" had reported sick.
Roll on the Rodney, Repulse or Renown,
This two funnelled bastard,
Is getting me down.

I'm researching my other halfs family history and have discovered
that her mothers dad (born in Dublin in 1896), joined the Royal
Navy circa 1913 for a 12 year stint. He managed to do 8 years
before getting hoofed out SNLR in 1922, and in the course of
his illustrious Naval career he was "awarded" the following:

30 days Prison for Threatening Behaviour and Language.
5 Days Cells
14 days Cells
7 Days Cells
60 Days Detention
90 Days Detention
40 Days detention for Insubordination and Disobedience

I've got hold of a copy of his SC's and yes.....the corner has
most definitely been sliced off.

Can anyone tell me if RNDQ's goes this far back, or did this
stroppy Irish matelot do time at other places (prison ships?
or any other Naval Prison?).

Any help from Military police chappies would be greatly appreciated.
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www.godfreydykes.info
Gives quite a lot of detail about RN Prisons and DQs - nasty places, especially in his time methinks.

That website is so busy it made my eyes bleed!

I am going to have a god look through it though
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Give a man a fish and he'll feed his family for a day,

teach a man to fish and he'll sit round on a boat all day drinking beer.

Then there was that horrible little man of a CPO(GI) a.k.a 'The Screaming Skull'.
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'Wake up people your country bleeds you'

The Screaming Skull was not a horrible little man , he was an out and out sadistic barsteward who even hated himself. Did the crime done the time and the second time round it really straightened me out. As RumRat so lucidly pointed out that was our routine for the duration. Seems to have become something of a Holliday Camp in later years. Met the Skull in the Ship Anson some time afterwards and what a very lonely sad man he was. Served him right.
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Once Navy Always Navy