Cyril Tawney - Naval ditties, The A25 Song

I’ve noticed that a couple of my posts featuring naval ditties sung brilliantly by Shep Woolley or Cyril Tawney attract a bit of interest (probably from ex-RN’ers around the world).  Anyway, where I think there might be interest I will endeavour to please, so here are the words to another favourite Cyril Tawney Navy song.  It’s called, The A25 Song.  As with most of Cyril Tawney’s work, the song is ‘old’ Navy – fledgling days of the Fleet Air Arm and set in the struggle of WWII.  Cyril did thirteen years in the RN (joined at 16 years old), but had talent and left to do time as the longest serving professional folk singer in Britain.

The A25 Song

(Cyril Tawney 1930 -2005)

 

They say in the Air Force a landing’s OK,

If the pilot gets out and can still walk away,

But in the Fleet Air Arm the prospect is grim,

If the landing’s piss poor and the pilot can’t swim.

Cracking show! I’m alive!

But I still have to render my A25.

 

I fly for a living and not just for fun,

I’m not very anxious to hack down a hun,

And as for deck landings at night in the dark,

As I told wings this morning, blow that for a lark.

Cracking show!  I’m alive!

But I still have to render my A25.

 

When the batsman gives lower, I always go higher,

I drift o’er to starboard and prang my Seafire,

The boys in the gofers think that I’m green,

But I get the commission from Super Marine.

Cracking show!  I’m alive!

But I still have to render my A25.

 

They gave me a Barra to beat up the fleet,

I shot up the Rodney and Nelson a treat,

I forgot the high mast that sticks out from Formid….

And a seat in the gofers was worth fifty quid.

Cracking show!  I’m alive!

But I still have to render my A25.

 

I thought I was comin in high enough but,

I was fifty feet up when the batsman gave ‘cut’,

And loud in my earphones the sweet angels sang,

Float, float float, float, float, float, float, float, float,

Prang!

Cracking show!  I’m alive!

But I still have to render my A25.

 

The moral of this story is easy to see,

A Fleet Air Arm pilot you never should be,

But stay on the shore and get two rings or three,

And go out every night on the piss down at Lee.

Cracking show! I’m alive!

But I still have to render my A25.

 

I have seen versions of The A25 Song where there are up to seven additional verses, but this is the one I have on CD.  For the uninitiated, an A25 is an accident report form; a Barra is a type of aircraft; and ‘Formid..’ refers to HMS Formidable, an Illustrious class aircraft carrier in commission during WWII.  The times I read this song, it makes me feel how quickly we distance from actual experiences and recollections of what we once knew as familiar technology and methods.  Very soon, the people of a time won’t receive that feeling of how it was and what it was like.  That’s why it’s important for poets in the present to capture and preserve observations, emotions and experiences of our time, no matter how mundane.

I use a poem of mine titled, ‘Nirimba’ as the link in this post.  It’s a Fleet Air Arm link.  I was totally unaware of the history of ‘HMAS Nirimba’ when I first joined the Navy and that establishment to undertake my three and a half years of trade training.  We had joined the Navy to see the sea so why were we being bussed inland, miles from any water, to an abandoned airfield west of Sydney?  The Navy’s hold on an inland aerodrome went back to the second world war when the British Pacific fleet used the RAAF facility (Schofields aerodrome) as a maintenance base for their Fleet Air Arm (a Mobile Naval Air Base – MONAB).  At that time, it was commissioned as HMS Nabstock.  After the war, the RAN set the base up as their apprentice training establishment (RANATE).  In my poem I try to go back and capture ‘Nirimba’ and the beautiful innocence of our young time when we were Naval Apprentices.  Soon, there will be too much distance for anybody to feel how it truly was or know what it was like.  The Navy’s ‘Nirimba’ decommissioned in 1994 and the facilities handed on to the Education Department to become a college precinct in western Sydney.

2011.  HMAS Nirimba was the Royal Australian Navy’s apprentice training establishment from 1956 to 1994.  It was located at Quakers Hill in Sydney, miles inland on the site of a fleet air arm base from the second world war.  Apprentices spent three and a half years (seven terms) at Nirimba before going to sea.  A lengthy time by today’s terms to develop a unique culture.  I was an apprentice there from January 1969 to July 1972.

Nirimba

 

Go back,

way, way back,

  before the Richmond line was electrified,

    before Parklea,

      before muppets, before round rig,

when Bruno was the bouncer at the Blacktown RSL,

  and the Robin Hood was out of bounds,

before Facility 12,

  before purpose built brick buildings

    replaced corrugated iron and concrete floors,

      open ablution blocks left over from the war,

bucket and pogo stick laundering,

before rough play became bullying and bastardization,

  when character guidance was still taught,

    debutante balls with white gloves,

      cardboard detachable collars and crisp starched shirts,

Look up, look up! Don’t look down,

  there’s nothing on the ground,

    one day you may find,

      you have to square off and show you are the better man,

and some of the old salts still remembering,

modeled it on the British,

with an emphasis on pride,

loyalty, example, perseverance, guts and heart,

  Saturday morning working parties,

    winter afternoons on sporting fields,

     assembled under patron explorers,

Bass, Banks, Stirling and Tasman,

Dampier, King, Bligh, then Cook,

  where cheers went up for service,

    for division, for term, for hut

     for being a part, and the love of life,

when attendance at Sunday service was compulsory,

and lingering, longing looks,

upon Chaplain Rossier’s daughters,

  when rejection hurt,

    before free love,

when local schoolgirls were bussed in to cinema dances,

no alcohol, no drugs and strict ten o’clock finishes,

  before videos, before computers and personal television sets,

    competed with the focus and jibes at Mr Marks movies,

clacking mechanically through projector sprockets and guides

reel changes, jams, burnt celluloid and missing cinemascope lenses,

  and the cinema, the cinema the central point,

    when warrants were read from the steps,

to the prejudice of good order and discipline,

and a boy could get fourteen days in Holsworthy prison,

or seven days MUPs for silent contempt

  and a man’s morals were measured in his performance review,

    and Mrs Clarke knew every boy’s name,

      looking eagerly and expectantly for mail,

back when folk packaged parcels and wrote letters, cards

for which waiting taught virtue of patience, and receiving

was something held to carry treasured

in a private corner of a cheap wood ply locker,

  kit musters, cleanliness and inspections

    when liberty men presented at the main gate

     before cars,

      before civvies

shaven hair, blue blazers and private school pocket rig

uniforms massing down Quakers Hill road on foot

when that was still a brisk walk in the country

and a full weekend and freedom tasted sweet

released early from Friday workshops and classrooms

divisions and gunnery jacks with red faces

Look up, look up!  Don’t look down,

  there’s nothing on the ground

    look me in the eye, stand tall!  With men

who believed pride and confidence, something

having to be yelled into a boy,

  before economies and efficiencies argued

    and a seven term investment

      seemed not too long

        to have to wait for return

and it was mind, body and soul to be fed

  before R & Q, before outside catering

    when tables were always laden with generosity

fresh bread, unopened jars, clean butter, and

canned herrings in tomato sauce

take all you want, eat all you take

  you have to be fighting fit, to be fit to fight

when Sister Hazel practiced a brand of military nursing

based on the Crimea, when PTI’s were still feared

and leather soled boots struck at the double on roadways.

Look up, look up.

  don’t look down.

nothing on the ground, anymore

  nothing on the ground

    .... anymore.

                                                                   J. O. White

Shep Woolley - Rammit Mate I'm RDP

I’ll be driving along on my own, heading to work or down to Bunnings, and I’ll put on one of my Shep Woolley CD’s and I let him take me back to madcap days when life seemed less serious or made less serious by irreverent characters you came across in the Navy; when work was fun and we still got the job done; and today is today and tomorrow will take care of itself, so let’s have another beer – and I’ll shout out loud, right there sitting in the car at the lights, ‘Rammit Mate! I’m RDP!’  This is another of my favourite Shep Woolley songs.  I couldn’t do a better job in explaining what RDP is, so this is how Shep introduces it on his album:

“RDP – in every sailor’s life, there comes a period which sailors call RDP. This means, Run Down Period.  From the very first time a sailor joins the Navy he joins a grotty training establishment somewhere probably stuck out in the middle of Ipswich like mine was.  And you’re there for something like about, a year, you see, and when you’re leaving, you’re so bloody chuffed, you know, “I’ve had enough of this bloody hole, ooh if he got up my nose one more time I’d have him”, you know. And that is when you’re having your run down bit, you see.  And then you’re dying to get to the fleet, and you get to the fleet and you get on a new ship, and it’s great! – for two hours!  And then you start again, “e’ gives me the bloody earache e’ does”, you know, like that, you see. And this is what you call having a run down period, you see and in every commission and every sort of barracks you go into, at the end of it all you always have this RDP bit.  And the best part in a sailor’s life when his most important RDP comes, is before he embarks on that lovely ship called citizenship, you see, and he enters that great big cavern outside called civilian street, you see, and this song, particularly, I wrote, I was standing one morning on the gangway HMS Blake and I went out in the dockyard to have a slash and I came back and saw this submariner walking toward me with his mac on and his cap pulled down over his eyes and I said to him, “have you got the time mate?”  He said, “Piss off!” just like that, he did, and I thought I’ve got to write a song about that, you see – and so the ensuing song”:

Rammit Mate I’m RDP

(Shep Woolley 1940? - )

 

Chorus:

la la la  la  lala la  la la la  lala la,

la la la  la  lala la  la la la  lala la,

la la la  la  lala la  la la la  lala la,

         Rammit!  I’m RDP!

 

I was walking through the dockyard,

one morning bright and fair,

When a sailor came towards me,

he had long and shaggy hair,

And he looked for all the world as though

He didn’t have a care

And he said, why are you looking at me?

I said, well it’s your uniform, you really look a scruff.

He said, see me in me civvies mate,

I’m really quite the stuff,

And when I put me BRUT on,

I smell just like a puff,

I’m a smoothie from RND.

I’ve been to Honolulu and I’ve been to Tokyo,

I’ve been to San Francisco, most any place you’ll go.

I’ve been nine years in the Navy,

And there’s just three days to go

         Rammit mate!  I’m RDP!

 

There’ll be no more get your hair cut,

No standing out in road,

No more duty watches, no more RPO’s

No killicks, pigs or PTI’s now they get up my nose

       And Rammit mate! I’m RDP.

 

As I return me pusser’s dirk,

I’m sure I’ll feel the loss,

Two blue suits and steaming boots,

For now I’ll count the cost,

But I’ll stand outside the barracks and make rude signs at the Joss

        And Rammit mate! I’m RDP.

 

I tracked polar bears in Iceland

Film stars down in Nice

Grissly bears in Canada

And snappers in the fleece

But now it’s nearly over

And there’s two days to release

          Rammit mate!  I’m RDP!

 

I’ve held me share of punishment

I’ve sweated in the sun

I’ve had 9’s and fines and DQ’s

But now it’s nearly done

And now some silly basket has just asked me to sign on

         But Rammit mate!  I’m RDP.

 

But now I’ve stood here talking really long enough

I’ve got to go to barracks mate

You see, I’ve got to pack me stuff

Perhaps I might come in again

If civvy street gets rough

But Rammit Mate!  I'm RDP!

 

Here’s another Navy poem that I wrote, Kye and Cake Blues.  The genre is Navy, Shep Woolley, but influence for the rhythm came from an American folk, bluegrass singer, John Hartford (you probably know of him for the song he wrote and made more famous by people like Glen Campbell, Gentle on My Mind).  I’m driving along listening to a John Hartford CD that I picked up in a music shop or car boot sale, and I’m captivated by this song, Corn Cob Blues.  I love the monotone, talking style and quirky lyrics.  I just had to write a poem like that.
 2010.  Every kid who joined the Royal Australian Navy as an apprentice ‘MOBI’ remembers the winter evening ritual at HMAS Nirimba of risking encounters with senior apprentices, regulating staff and cranky cooks to reach the galley and get a kye issue in winter - hot cup of chocolate and  a piece of cake.  Like salmon in a mountain stream, success was not always a certainty.

Kye and Cake Blues

Now the cook stood guard at the galley door

Only picked up his hook two weeks before

The poster swivels on a government stool

And ships him out to Mobi school

The cook did Nam and believes in fate

But he’s never guarded kye and Madeira cake.

 

The first term sprogs grow bold in a week

They crawl on their knees through a muddy creek

The cook he snuffles at the air that stunk

And they blame dry cleaning that their battledress shrunk

So he studies the drain like a greasy lake

And ponders on kye and Madeira cake.

 

The seniors listen for the scran hall squeal

And they play another hand of mah-jong deal

The Reg Chief’s asleep by nine o’clock

Lurking in the shadows near the dhoby block

And everybody thinks how do they make

Cocoa kye and Madeira cake.

 

Well the fog rolls in and the cook he sneers

At a scran-bag birdie with his beret on his ears

He’s been back classed and looks corrupt

With his fingers all made from Bakelite cups

Still the birdie hopes the cook’s his mate

Or he gets no kye and Madeira cake.

 

Now a chippy with a pannikin excites concern

It’s twice as round as the cookhouse urn

The sprogs get to thinking it ain’t their night

And they jostle each other and start to fight

The cook wonders why his life’s at stake

Doling out kye and Madeira cake.

 

A fat kid’s ribbed when he turns up cute

Dressed in his slippers and a sleeping suit

His mother he knows doesn’t quite understand

And she wants him to play in the Mobi band

Night dress code you never can break

If you wanna get kye and Madeira cake.

 

The mob’s in a mood and the mood is hate

The cook stands up on an old milk crate

And he thinks he heard something said

About an O.D. chef and a mullet head

There’s only so long he can make them wait

For cocoa kye and Madeira cake.

 

Well the cook has a rage his face is red

And he orders all the Mobis off to bed

The seniors fume they were messed about

And they badger the sprogs well after lights out

The Reg staff plan for the next intake

As they clean up kye and Madeira cake.

                                                                J. O. White

Bakelite cup -   standard issue cup made of tough plastic.  Apprentices were given a cup as part of their kit.

Battle-dress -   clothing issued for wearing at night in winter (night dress). It consisted of heavy woolen black trousers and a waist jacket that could be buttoned to the trousers.  The jacket had two breast pockets and red Australia flashes on the shoulders.

Beret - naval apprentices wore a dark blue beret with a blue metal badge -  single anchor in a rope circle topped with the Queen’s crown.

Birdie - anybody belonging to the fleet air arm branch  -  aircraft apprentice.

Chippie  -  a shipwright.

Dhoby  -  to wash; dhoby block, bathroom.

Hook  - single anchor denoting the rank of Leading Seaman; picked up his hook -  got promoted to Leading Seaman.

Kye  -  a hot drink made from thick blocks of dark chocolate .

Mobi  -  name given to naval apprentices training in HMAS Nirimba  - used as an acronym for ‘Most Objectionable Bastards Imaginable’.

Mobi school - HMAS Nirimba  located at Quakers Hill, Sydney was the RAN’s apprentice training establishment from 1956 to 1988.

Mullet head  -  derogatory term for anybody of the seaman branch.

Nam - Viet Nam -  the Viet Nam war.

O.D.  -  derogatory term for anybody who is raw, inexperienced.

Poster  -  the person responsible for transferring personnel between ships and  establishments.

Reg chief / staff  -  regulating chief and staff responsible for administration.

Scran  -  food served up in naval ships and establishments  -  used as an acronym for ‘Shit Cooked by the Royal Australian Navy’.

Scran-bag  -  untidy.

Sprog  -  any apprentice in a lower term than oneself.