FISHING VESSEL CREW

'Roll on the Nelson, Rodney, Renown,
These flat bottom bastards are getting us down.'

Reminds me (here we go again he said) of the time I got a draft chitty after volunteering for 'combined ops'.

I was told to pick up a craft at Weymouth, & when I saw the craft I blinked & rubbed my eyes. It was a FISHING VESSEL, & I was to join a leisure cruise across the channel, (didn't anyone know that the Nazi's occupied Europe).

There were eight-crew member's all occupying living accommodation measuring eight feet by twelve. Including eight bunks, & a mess room table. The Crewmembers were 'Hoppy', he thought he was Joe Louis & wanted to fight everyone. 'Lofty' he was six feet six tall & broad as a barn door but if he contracted a brain tumor, he would have died because the surgeon would never have found his brain. 'Curly' had a metal plate in his head where no hair would ever grow again. Our normal dress was sea boots, working trousers, & navy blue issue jersey, Oh, & a knife in our sea-boot. I soon learnt not to sit at the mess deck table with a wooden bulkhead behind me, as the lads liked to practice their knife throwing.

After a short pleasure cruise we pulled into Poole Harbour and as the Admiralty didn't want us erk's anywhere near the general public we moored alongside a jetty on the remote end of the harbour called Haywards Heath. We were nowhere near civilization, but we found that if we walked about five miles along a railway track, there was a nice little country pub. I occupied a top bunk where after a nice Sunday Pork lunch I could lay down & through the hatch see an eighty-foot mast swaying from side to side. By now though there was about four inches of snow on deck, & it was freezing cold. So we 'borrowed' a stove, chimney & fuel & installed it in our mess room. The object now was to see if we could make it glow white hot, but as Lofty suffered from claustrophobia & also went mad on the full moon, he didn't want the place too warm. So after he had had a night supping beer at the local he used to come back when we were all asleep & piss on it to put it out, the smell in our quarters was beyond belief.

It was Christmas Eve & seven of us had had a good time at the local but we had lost Lofty. We all returned to our craft & had 'crashed our Swede's' by one o'clock. About three in the morning we were woken by Lofty who with a false grin on face & 'nissed as a pewt', kept shaking Hoppy, saying' want to buy a raffle ticket for a battleship Hoppy', get yer'e head down Lofty came the dozzie reply. 'Want to have a piss' Lofty said to Hoppy, get your @@<<>> head down lofty. This continued for quite a while until Lofty flopped on his bottom bunk under Hoppy. Peace at last & we all went to sleep.

It must have been about four o'clock in the morning when all of us were woken by hollering & shouting. When we put the light on, there was Hoppy standing over Lofty pissing all over him saying 'I didn't want one when you asked me but I sure do want one now'. The following morning there were Lofty's blankets & gear laid out all over the place to dry, & we all had a stinking Xmas day.

Do you know, that after being with the scum of the earth for so long, it has taken me fifty five-year's of very high polishing, to become the rough diamond that I am today.

A yank serviceman 'Leroy' was returning home to Kentucky & he wanted something to remind him of his service abroad, so he took home a hand grenade.

When he got home to the backwoods, he put the grenade on a high shelf in his Kitchen so that his son could not get it. At the bottom of their yard there was a cesspit with a wooden surround that served as a toilet. Every morning his mother would go into the bog smoking her clay pipe & read the local newspaper. Leeroy's son also wanted to use the loo but couldn't because his grandmother had occupied it for two hours or more. Finally, Leeroy's son was so frustrated that he climbed up on the kitchen table & took the hand grenade off the shelf, then in his anger, he ran into the backyard, pulled out the pin & threw it at the bog. There was a massive BOOM & Leroy went running down to the loo, shouting 'Hey Ma Ma are you alright' to which his Ma replied 'Yerse son, guess it mustavebeen something I ate'.