W. H. Auden - Fleet Visit

I wouldn’t say this is one of my most favourite poems, though it has got pedigree style – W. H. Auden’s, Fleet Visit.  I put it in my collection because it’s about sailors and ships and I’m reluctant to reject any poem that takes me some way out to sea.  Still, the poem does get my back up a bit, because Auden obviously viewed the life of the Naval man as a wasted, purposeless life – even disdain and contempt, verse 3, ‘The whore and ne’er do well ……… at least, are serving the Social Beast; They (sailors) neither make nor sell – No wonder they (sailors) get drunk.’  From that, I can see Wystan would never have joined the Navy.  The poem breaks up into two parts – comment on the sailors and what he thinks of sailors in general (first three verses), and an acknowledgement in the last two verses that a warship’s design is a beautiful thing to look at, ‘pure abstract design, By some master of pattern and line.’  A warship riding at anchor is an impressive sight and even though Auden admits this, he can’t help taking a final swipe at the wasteful purpose of the whole thing, ‘Certainly worth every cent, Of the millions they must have cost.’ …………. Not!

Fleet Visit

(W. H. Auden 1907 - 1973)

 

The sailors come ashore

Out of their hollow ships,

Mild-looking middle-class boys

Who read the comic strips;

One baseball game is more

To them than fifty Troys.

 

They look a bit lost, set down

In this un-American place

Where natives pass with laws

And futures of their own;

They are not here because

But only just-in-case.

 

The whore and ne’er-do-well

Who pester them with junk

In their grubby ways at least

Are serving the Social Beast;

They neither make nor sell –

No wonder they get drunk.

 

But the ships on the dazzling blue

Of the harbor actually gain

From having nothing to do;

Without a human will

To tell them whom to kill

Their structures are humane.

 

And, far from looking lost,

Look as if they were meant

To be pure abstract design

By some master of pattern and line,

Certainly worth every cent

Of the millions they must have cost.

Auden wrote Fleet Visit in 1951.  The sailors are American and I would say the port visit is around Turkey or Greece (‘…fifty Troys’).  If you can get past the somewhat Navy/military bashing mood of the poem, then there’s a discovery that the structure is quite good (very good, for me).  Two things I look for in a poem – ‘content’ and ‘construction’.  I forgive Auden the content because he didn’t have a clue, never been there.  But for the structure, I admire the neat rhyme pattern and meter.

Discovering Auden’s, Fleet Visit got me digging back through drafts of a poem I once wrote about sailors and ships.  I called it, The Ship’s Plans, and I think it makes a fitting link to Fleet Visit.  When I dusted The Ship’s Plans off, I was surprised to find that I’d actually written the original draft in a three feet meter (trochaic trimeter), same as Auden, and I wrote it with five verses – same as Auden.  That’s where similarity finishes.  My poem is a fitting counter to the suggestion from Auden’s Fleet Visit that the whole business of warships and sailors is not an ennobling profession.  I disagree with that suggestion and it’s what I try to convey.  One thing I do agree on is that a ship is but a cold, inanimate object without her crew.  It may be ‘pattern and line’, ‘abstract design’, but it’s those ‘middle-class boys’ through their daily human interaction that breathe into a ship all the emotions of success, laughter, struggle, disappointment, joy, friendship, failure, perseverance ……. they give her a heart.  And far from being an inhumane heart, one that simply and indiscriminately, ‘tell(s) them whom to kill’, heart comes from a brave, free world with all the organization, skill, knowledge and know-how to take a ship to sea

1999.  I was browsing through a second hand book shop in Sydney.  In the military section I noticed an old man, bent over, intent on looking at fold out drawings in a book.  I moved closer to see what the book was.  It was a historical, technical publication on a type of WWII destroyer or corvette – maybe the Tribal class or even the Daring.  I felt he was not going to buy the book.  His interest was in re-living memories.

 

The Ship’s Plans

Old man,

Looking at the ship’s plans,

Boy, but does it feel good,

Would you like to be there,

Living where you once stood,

Spray salt wind in dark hair,

Sun upon your back tanned.

 

Old man,

Were you once the third hand,

Standing on the deck plates,

In the after fire room,

Did you make it first mate,

Maybe in the wardroom,

Braided gold on cap band.

 

Old man,

Remember while you still can,

All the lines and detail,

Just the way you left her,

Sweeping bow to fan-tail,

The swell of ocean summer,

Ship’s side smartly manned.

 

Old man,

Together at Tapaktuan,

Sailed into the Black Sea,

Joined her in Southhampton,

With lads ashore in Sydney,

Shipmates and companions,

Skipping down the gangplank.

 

Old man,

The catapult and capstan,

Maintop, bridge and wheelhouse,

Before the bosun’s store,

Magazines and gun mounts,

Just as you had left her,

There on the old ship’s plan.

                                                                                          J. O. White

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 - Roll on my Time

Our ANZAC day has passed for another year.  There's a tradition I have with a few of my shipmates in the local area – we meet up at the local returned services club – Swansea RSL, and we drink a few beers and relive memories and tell the same old yarns.  Funny thing is we don’t see each other the rest of the year, but we all know we’re there for each other if needed.  That’s how it is, once in the brotherhood of the Service.  I’ve made it a personal challenge that I will have a poem ready for the next ‘do’ – something appropriate, Navy or nautical of course.  I could be wrong, but I think the boys like their poetry with rhythm and beat, preferably something that rhymes and has wry humour, and even better if it’s a bit earthy and risqué.  We all have fond memories of times in ports overseas, in dingy bars, got a few beers in, singing, no, roaring – belting out all those folk songs and nursery rhymes been bastardized by the British Navy before us.  For some songs, the words were what captured the soul of our existence – that is poetry.  One of the folk singers of the time who had served in the Royal Navy, so knew enough about sailors, was Shep Woolley.  Shep Woolley songs touched a nerve, and everybody knew the words when there was a good old sing-along.  In this post I include one of my Shep favourites, It’s Roll on my Time Boys.  I’ve seen the lyrics to this song on web sites and I can’t believe how much more bastardized it’s becoming since Shep first sang it.  I can assure you these are the true words to the song (taken from his CD, Shep Woolley Chips Off The Old Block).  Shep Woolley still entertains in the UK with stage shows, private and corporate events …. I would love to attend one of his shows.

It’s Roll on my Time Boys

(Shep Woolley 1940? - )
 

Chorus:

and it’s roll on me time boys…..roll on me time,

this is my last trip…..on the Grey Funnel Line,

so I'll say farewell to…..the wind and the brine,

and sing you a song called…..roll on me time.

 

well first we have Stokers…..that work down below,

they give us fresh water…..and make the ship go,

well the ship’s broken down boys…..don’t that sound fine,

but in the cold tap there's diesel…..and in the hot one brown slime.

 

and next we have RP's…..with hands on their hips,

with chinagraph pencils…..and puckered-up lips,

well they'll get us there boys…..whatever the cost,

well where are we pilot…..we’re bloody well lost.

 

and there stands the G.I……so tall and so proud,

his voice never made sense…..but God was it loud,

and now the old G.I……is all dead and gone

they’ve give him his brains back…..and christened him POM.

 

and next we have Tiffies…..a cool bunch are these,

if you want to be one…..you need G.C.E.'s,

and to be G.C.E.'s boys…..you need a brain in your head

it's amazing how much work…..can be done from a bed

 

well then there is Vernon…..I’ve heard the bell ring,

they do demolition…..and listen for pings,

but the Sonar men too boys…..are wearing a frown,

cos what can they ping now…..the Criterion’s down.

 

well me time it is rolled boys…..no I’m not glad,

sometimes they’ve been happy…..sometimes they’ve been sad,

so I’ll raise me glass boys…..drink your health with me wine,

and hope that you’ll join me…..with roll on me time.

I would like to have added an image of Shep Woolley, but something's gone wrong with the computer and I can't figure it out.  My link for the post is the Navy poem I prepared for the boys this ANZAC day.  It’s called Bombora (ballad of a greenie).  If you haven’t figured out why it’s called that by the end of reading, then ask me for an explanation.

2012.  Electricians in the Navy are called ‘greenies’ on account of the green colour signifying the electrical engineering branch and worn on officer’s shoulder boards.  Healthy rivalry exists between all the branches, though many love to pay out on the ‘greenies’ - perhaps because of their being more intelligent - well, not always all, as the branch will attest.

                                        Bombora (ballad of a greenie)

 

He was big and both slow and it seemed he must go,

Having failed every branch in the Navy,

But a psychologist said, I’ve examined his head,

And I think he would make a good greenie.

 

So E.M. he was made, finished half of his trade,

And was posted to sea from Nirimba,

Now it’s not a surprise when the lads saw his size,

That they went and named him ‘Bombora’.

 

But they didn’t explain why they gave him the name,

So he’s loud and he’s proud when ashore-a,

Bombora’s the name, green steam is me game,

And I eat roots and leaves like a whore-a.

 

Back on board they all fear, he’s no engineer

He’ll work on a circuit alive,

If a problem won’t focus he’ll polish with crocus,

And raise a T.S.M One Forty-five.

 

But he knows a bit more about Faraday’s law,

Enough to bluff his superiors,

So they leave him alone with freedom to roam,

All day on the decks of the uppers.

 

Neither stokers below with pumps running slow,

Nor cooks without power for scran,

Or even the skipper, broken down in the cutter,

Will interfere with the work on his tan.

 

A green canvas bag and a greasy old rag,

Is all that remains of his tool kit,

One key combination, rubber tube insulation,

And a mirror he might use like a dentist.

 

He can bounce a red-dick from up off the deck

Catch and twirl it about in his fingers,

While scratching like mad at his nuts and his butt,

Through a hole in his overall pockets.

 

And what he cannot do, with a roll of twin-flex or two,

Well you wouldn’t even be trying,

From telephone line to seizing and twine,

But the best was his magazine wiring.

 

With the test lamp he uses and eighty amp fuses,

He could black out the ship in a minute,

Then run like the hell so no one could tell,

He’d been anywhere near the burnt limit.

 

Bombora! they yell, why can’t you ever tell,

Ohms from the Amps on an AVO,

And what was your thought, when you meggered for short,

On the arse of the Deputy MEO?

 

But enough was enough, and the sea was up rough,

On the day they called out for Bombara,

Come in and sit here coaxed the ship’s engineer,

While I mark up your P.P One Alpha.

 

You’re too valuable lad, and it makes me look bad,

If I held you back here as a greenie,

So my recommendation is a change in your station,

And to hell with the naval psychology.

 

In a matter of time, having signed on the line,

The crew is down one in it’s number,

Though for reasons not given, efficiency’s risen,

And a blackout’s a thing to remember.

 

Now some nights in G.I. beneath still summer skies,

When the Ensign’s been put away dreamy,

And the rattle and din of the dockyard’s packed in,

Hark, the ghost of a big and wet greenie.

 

Bombora’s the name, green steam was my game,

But now I’m a docky-yard copper,

If you greenies are late getting out of the gate,

It’s because I searches your bags good and proper!

                                                                                                                        J. O. White