HMS COLLINGWOOD

Nozzy

Soyyr I left out the home of all Geenies, which now appears to have metamorphised into the centre of the Training World being all things to all Pusser Person's.

Nutty

 

I think you need to amend the Subject to read: HMS COLLINGWOOD (COLINGRAD) for those of us who didn't actually know what its real name was (or in my case, couldn't spell it properly) :wink:

 

When I joined I spent a week at Collingwood being issued and sorting kit, apparantly Mercury didn't have the facilities to do it.

 

HMS Collingwood - I will stand corrected but isn't it the Maritime Warfare School now? At least the guys & girls have MWS on the cap tallies now.
Anyone remember White City and "Shovel face" in the 1980's?

 

Who could forget shovel face, he could strike fear in the heart of the devil himself. Also remember the WW2 style accom at pelican road and the southern club, also who could forget the bop slags from fareham (sorry if any readers are married to em, yours is different).

 

Just remembered a collingwood dit.
We were doing security duties on standby at collingwood when we got a call to get to the theatre asap with damage control lamps? As usual for the grad the power station had crapped out and put the theatre in darkness in the middle of a show.
The variety club or some such group had some downs syndrome types watching the show who proceeded to throw a total wobbly and scream the house down. We ended up with one guy playing the piano whilst we hung in the rafters with the floodlamps to calm the fcukers down.
I think we were as scared as they were when we rushed into that place with floodlamps to light the faces of screaming mongols who screamed even more at the sight of us. Great night.

 

I just passed out of collingwood last friday on my omc course, we have hms collingwood on our cap tallys not mws. collingwood definately got its ups and downs, the downs definately being the pti's. had some interesting experiences at collingwood, lowe building the new messes just built in phase2 training, is like a broffel at night, girls 'n' lads running around naked and you wouldnt be suprised if you found someone streakin in your mess with there s10 resperators on and throwin your quilt in the showers at night, but wot goes around comes around haha.








better? 8)

 

Shit mate, I hope you don't type like that when you are sending signals... 8O

 

As a FOST CRS I can tell you that OM(C)'s very rarely type out signals these days. It is all done for them by the drafter using automated message handling systems such as AMHA, AMHS and NAMC.

I do believe the passmark for typing exercises has been drastically reduced, as just about every other passmark. How on earth can our little darlings get through training otherwise. ;-)

Do not think it will be long before all OM(C)'s are sending signals using text language. Can just see it now...

rqst birf @ 7 wrf 4 fuel n stuff. sure lines 2b avlble. r u able 2 provide spuds n ovver fings, innit. Wot is currantsy 4 chngin are money mate, innit. Yeah.

(Spelling mistakes on purpose) :lol:

 

For our new boy (OMCTILLIDIE) you are now on backwards VDU exercises and to remain onboard this evening until you pass. 8O :lol:

 

I was Ships Company in Collingwood in 71 , in Finnesteare block , left in march 72 and did'nt go back untill 93 when I drove the Commadore from Devonport Naval Base , I know it was 21 years , but I could'nt recognise anything about the place , only stayed the one night but was quite impressed with the Senior Rates mess :twisted: :roll: :twisted:
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I should have thought being able to read & send Morse, type quickly and accurately, read, write and spell and read and send flag semaphore were pretty basic - in fact VERY BASIC! 8O Keyboard skills are however pretty essential even for inputting or data processing on a computer these days, so even there I should have though it a necessary skill. After all if recruits have to score 85% surely they must be as intelligent as us 15 year olds were when matelots were matelots and jennies were wrens. :roll:

 

Nozzy,

Morse (Audio) is no longer used in the RN and has not been since taught since around 1994. They still use flashing light and flags but even this is now being handed over to the new regime - TCS (Tactical Comms Support) which is basically the buffer, I kid you not.

Typing IS still taught and part of the basic skills of a Communicator, but the passing out level is much lower than years ago. I believe it is now something like 16wpm. Crikey, my daughter can type faster than than that and she has had NO formal training.

Still, they have us believe that standards are not being eroded. Yeah right.

IMHO, far too many students are passing out of training these days when they should not. Many of them 'fail' to achieve the pass rate but the hierarchy/grown-ups like to keep their pass figures high and the fail figures low to look good and play the one-upmanship game with other establishments. They will not admit to it, but they bloody well do. Last time I was at Collingwood as an instructor I was thoroughly pissed off with the amount of OM(C)'s being 'let' through to keep the bums on seats numbers at correct levels. It's quite sad really.

 

Are there no bloody Greenies out there it seems that its just bleeding 'sparkers' postings!
I joined up at Collingrad August 1960 as one of the last entries to join there before Raleigh became the 'joining up' place. We had in our class of 'loads' (about twenty of us) a mixture of Sick Bay tiffs, Waafo greenies and General service greenies. After six weeks basic training we all went off our seperate ways, me, I stayed in Collingrad and did basic greenies course before joining Chaplet in March 61 as a 16 year old Junior Electrical Mechanic second class!!! Into a mess of badgemen scared witless!!
Oh how time flew!!
Come on the greenies lets here from yer!!!

 

Ah!

Who can forget bunnyhopping up and down Pelican Road at LHOM'S whim while doing Part 2 training.

Those were the days, eh?

 

If NozzyNozzer thinks:

"I should have thought being able to read & send Morse, type quickly and accurately, read, write and spell and read and send flag semaphore were pretty basic - in fact VERY BASIC!"

he should try and teach the OM's that we have in the Mob today! The ones I have come across struggle to get dressed and turn up on time let alone communicate in more than grunts and 'text' speak !!!

On average I come across 1 in 16 who are mildly to chronicly dyslexic...not their fault but is it then fair to expect them to read and write signals ? :roll:

 

Ah ...! Collingwood - this picture warms my heart. Note the well equipped fire party. At that time, a lot of Collingwood was wooden huts covered with tar and creosote and when they caught fire, the fire party NEVER got there in time - they wouldn't have been able to - even if they had wanted !

http://www.s61.org/photographs/collingwood/fireinmatapan.htm

Does anyone remember marching to instruction in the pouring rain with your burberry folded over your arm because the QM hadn't put the "burberries may be worn" flag up?

 

Tufty you know my 'run ashore' buddy Mo (Milky bar kid) Morris I think!!
I was a killick greenie on Plymouth with Gordon brilliant ship and a good bunch of greenies!
Yes remember marching to instruction with half the class carrying their burberryies the other half wearing them whilst the GI screamed either burberries on or burberries off - well you can guess what happened next, those wearing them took them off whilst those carrying them..................
All this in an effort to confuse (not difficult to do) whilst winding up (again not difficult to do!) the parade ground staff - happy days.
What about Security patrols carrying a helve whilst wearing a tin hat wandering the streets of the 'White City' to make sure the marauding hoards of outlaying Fareham from breaking into Collingrad!

 

Marching to instruction !
Usually in the afternoon and well clear of the parade ground, all those classes, marching along whistling the Laural & Hardy cuckoo song.
The memories still make me smile when I hear it.

 

Do you remember the rubber road too???