THE ROYAL NAVAL ASSOCIATION

Incorporated by Royal Charter

Patron: Her Majesty The Queen

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Registered Charity No: 1068408

LISKEARD BRANCH


Commissioned 20th April 1986

Full Recognition by The Royal Navy




The Bilge Rat


March 2010





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Issue No 259


COMMITTEE MEMBERS 2010

President                     Lt. Cdr. John Lennon

 

Chairman                    S/M Roger Grace                    01579 363357

Vice-Chairman           S/M Gordon Strudwick          01579 346484

Correspondence Sec.  S/M John Hunt                       01752 851689

Minute Secretary        S/M John Lennon                   01579 343823

Treasurer                    S/M Warwick Belfitt              01579 346606

Membership Secs       S/M Maureen Parker              01579 346667

                                    SM Terry Kurn

Welfare Officer          S/M Jean Lennon                    01579 343823

                                    S/M Marie Belfitt                   01579 346606

Area Delegate             S/M Gordon Strudwick          01579 346484

Social Secretaries 

Standard Bearer          S/M John Hunt                       01752 851689

Asst.Standard Bearer  

Slops Bosun                S/M Warwick Belfitt              01579 346606

Rum Bosun                 S/M Basil Chapman               01579 348286

Fundraiser 

Auditors                      S/M Ted Steele-Tyson            01579 343876

                                    S/M Alan Barry                      07770 455 730

                                    S/M Sandra Cole                    01579 347796

PRO Officer               S/m Ann Rochester

Branch Chaplain         S/M Pat Ambler                     01579 346760

Looe Members Rep    S/M Lee Hayward

Bilge Rat Editor          S/M John Bartlett                   01579 382780

                                    email   editor@liskeard-rna.org.uk

Branch website           www.liskeard-rna.org.uk

 


 

Would all contributors please note that the easiest form of text for the Editor to handle and place in the Bilge Rat is text submitted in ASC11 DOS Text {*.txt}.

Otherwise he finishes up having to type it out himself with his two fingers. This reduces the time allowed for drinking. Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Contents

 

Committee Members 2010

 

Happy Birthday

 

Shipmate Frank Beer

 

Book and Plant Sale

 

Poetry by Moonlight,

 

Lightening Conductors and HMS Fisgard

 

Social Calendar 2010

 

Liskeard Branch RNA Activities for 2010

 

Flag Kits.

Table Flags in kit form are available from Nancy or Gordon Strudwick 01579 346484.      Flags available are:-

 

            Union Flag     White Ensign            RNA Crest.

£3.00 for Ten. Everything you need, just add your own ‘Lick’

 

PICKLE CARDS      Shipmates.

Don’t forget our specially commissioned cards depicting the Schooner Pickle in Falmouth after returning from Trafalgar. These cards are unique to the Liskeard branch. They are blank inside and can therefore be used for many occasions.. Much nicer to receive than an email.

Costs to you at a very special rate of 75p each or 6 for £4.00

 

DISCLAIMER

Whilst The Bilge Rat is the magazine of the Liskeard branch of the Royal Naval Association, it should be clearly understood that the contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the Association, the branch members or the Editor and should not therefore be interpreted as such.


 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

 

Birthdays for April

 

 

            3rd       Warwick Belfitt           4th       Trevor Newbury

            11th     Gordon Strudwick      19th     John Lennon

                                    24th     Steve Roberts 

            29th     Nancy Strudwick & Margaret Jolley

                        

 

Membership:

            

Members total 53 3 life, 34 full, 26associate 31 gift aid

            

Forms are available if you wish to pay by Standing Order.

 

 

Members are reminded that subs are due at the beginning of the year and the Members Sec should not have to chase you up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shipmate Frank Beer

1926 - 2010

 

Frank must have been known to everyone in this part of Cornwall and to many others farther afield. Born in Plymouth in the less than luxurious area of Stonehouse he lost his parents early and was brought up by his Aunt and Grandmother. He also survived the blitz on Plymouth, one 500 pounder coming through his bedroom roof but failing to explode. He says his salvation came from the open air school, (the dangers of TB were very real in those days), where he qualified for a Royal Naval Apprenticeship as a Shipwright in the Dockyard.

 

In August 1942 Frank endeavouring to stretch himself up to the minimum requirement of 5' 1" joined the Royal Navy. He says that the recruiting CPO asked him if he’d come to join the Sea cadets.

 

After many adventures, including drinking whisky with Admirals and hacking through the jungle with the Army, Frank left the Navy in 1966 to train as a special needs teacher. This career continued until his retirement when he then took up writing, poetry and Town Crying. Frank liked to look out the unsung heroes and bring them to our attention. To this end he published a book on the St Ive lady, Emily Hobhouse, who did so much for the people in British Concentration camps in South Africa. His latest book, still in rough handwritten form, I read just a few days before Frank died. It was about a fellow Plymothian who designed and convinced the Royal Navy to fit lightening conductors to their wooden hulled ships, thus saving many ships and lives. This man’s home was thought lost but Frank found it. His grave had been destroyed during the war and Frank was hoping to raise awareness and funds to restore it.

 

In between all this Frank was Liskeard’s Town Crier, a member of the Royal British Legion and the Royal Naval Association. Another of his priorities was as a Navy Veteran to the Fisgard Division of HMS Raleigh. Frank loved this and transmitted his enthusiasm to the New Entries who were fascinated by him. The Friday before his death he and I attended the Passing Out Parade of ‘our’ class. It was a lovely day and watching the extremely fine guard drill Frank loved every minute of it. As he told anyone he talked to, ‘Once Navy always Navy’.

 

Frank was always giving me pieces for the Rat that he thought would interest people and I have enclosed his latest. One a poem remembering the blitz on Plymouth and the other an article on lightening conductors fitted to HMS Fisgard.

 

Ed

 

                        Book and Plant Sale

15th May 2010

 

This is our next public event and as such will need participation from the members. We will need members to man the sale but just as important we need PLANTS and BOOKS to sell.

The more of each the better. Do not worry if you think your BOOKS will not sell. You’d be surprised but even if we cannot sell them the Charity shops will always use them and buy them off us. So get sorting out those BOOKS and bring them along to the next meeting (the only ONE more before the 18th May) or arrange to have them picked up.

As for the PLANTS lets see who has the green fingers.

 

We need the merchandise to sell to raise money for our Association so please try and help.

Ed

 

Charley, a new retiree greeter at ASDA, just couldn't seem to get to work on time. Every day he was 5, 10 or 15 minutes late.

But he was a good worker, really tidy, clean-shaven, sharp minded and a real credit to the company and obviously demonstrating their "Older-Person Friendly" policies...

   One day the boss called him into the office for a talk. "Charley, I have to tell you, I like your work ethic, you do a bang up job, but your being late so often is quite bothersome."

"Yes, I know boss, and I am working on it."

''Well good, you are a team player. That's what I like to hear. It's odd though you're coming in late.

I know you're retired from the Armed Forces. What did they say if you came in late there?"

 

''They said, 'Good morning, Admiral, can I get you coffee, sir?'


Poetry By Moonlight,

Plymouth Blitz 1941

 

The bombers came rendering our city red

with crimson blood from the dismembered dead,

the moonlit sky took on a ghostly hue

as shot and shell into its bosom flew.

 

Those moonlight nights accompanied by cloud

revealed our city as a tempting shroud,

despite fierce scenes of burning down below

the rain of death continued in its flow.

 

Explosions rocked the ground as bombs did fall

the air was mantled with a lurid pall

of smoke and dust, whence death had many claimed

the lives of innocents, others sorely maimed.

 

We who remain are left to ponder and to rue

those dreadful nights wherein those bombers flew,

bringing forth those heinous acts of war

destructively to our very own front door.

 

Hostile conflict peaceful persons spurn

yet from such tragedies we seldom learn,

does Satan's hand divide our human race?

peace and goodwill-these acts do thus efface.

 

S/m Frank Beer (deceased)

 

This poem by S/m Frank Beer, won him a “Commended” with 86% in the Saltash Music Speech and Drama Festival on the 27th January this year.

 

Yorkshireman takes his cat to the vet.

 

Yorkshireman: "Ayup, lad, I need to talk to thee about me cat."

 

Vet: "Is it a tom?"

 

Yorkshireman: "Nay, I've browt it wi' us."


Lightening Conductors and HMS Fisgard

fisgard.jpg

 

During Frank Beer’s research for a book on the invention of lightening conductors by Plymothian Snow Harris, he came across this cutting and as our affiliated Division at HMS Raleigh is Fisgard and the fact that several of us are ex ‘Tiffs, he thought we may be interested.

 

Before Snow Harris convinced the Admiralty to fit lightening conductors many ships were lost or had their masts ‘shivered’.

 

 

 “In 1847, Snow Harris had met and spoken to a Lieutenant Dyke, R.N., who had been Officer of the Watch in Her Majesty's frigate Fisgard (42 guns) when she was struck by lightning on the 26th of September, 1846. Fisgard was lying at anchor at the time, in the mouth of the Nisqually River on the Pacific coast of America. Lieutenant Dyke was more articulate than most sailors. "The lightning-crash was most awful," he told Snow Harris. "Just as if five hundred broadsides had all gone off together. We had been exercising great guns that day before the Indians and were already half-stunned by the repeated discharges; but it struck us all how ineffectual had been our attempts to make a noise when Nature poured forth her dreadful artillery."

 

 The Fisgard's log was less exuberant: "Ship at anchor; 7.45 p.m., the mainmast was struck by lightning, the electric fluid passing down the conductor and out at both sides of the ship, with a very loud explosion, but doing no injury."

 

Fisgard was wearing one of Snow Harris's conductors”.

 

 

S/m Frank Beer (deceased)

 

 

 

 

A little known fact

 

The first testicular guard was used in cricket in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974.

 

It took 100 years for men to realise that their brain could also be important.

 

 

All a question of priorities.

Ed

 

 

 

 

 

Paddy & Mick stagger out of the zoo with blood pouring from them. "B****r that" said Paddy "That's the last time I go lion dancing"


 

NWS

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PLUMBING/CENTRAL HEATING

PLASTERING CARPENTRY

LOCKSMITH

DECORATING TILING

ALL ASPECTS OF PROPERTY MAINTENANCE

CONTACT NEIL ON 01579 320678

MOBILE 07966 381615

NO JOB TOO SMALL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still on the Wakeful. The Cox'n came up to me one day and said he had just read the latest A.F.O's. and we were both entitled to some salvage money. We were both on the Solebay on the way to the Far East and after going through the Suez canal into the Red Sea we came across a great lump of rust which had lost power and was floating aimlessly around. If memory serves me correctly it's name was Tse Fen. We towed it to Aden and forgot about it. Anyway our reward was £3/6/8. Not a lot but it would buy a few pints in those days, 1961. To put it in perspective when the annual Forces pay revue was announced that year it made front page news in the national papers. SENIOR N.C.O's. NOW ON £1,000 A YEAR. That's about two week's wages nowadays. Funny thing, the next time I went through Suez was on the Lion and we found another ship adrift in the Red Sea and towed that one to Aden. Never got anything for that though.

 

S/M Pat Vaughan

 

 

 

 

Social Calendar 2010

 

 

            

            Sat 10th Apr    Quiz Night & Supper

            Sat 8th May     Quiz Night & Supper

            Sat 15th May   Plant and Book Sale More Books Req’d

            Sun 30th May  BBQ/Skittles/Games 1400 RBL Club

            Sat 26th Jun    Quiz Night & Supper

            Sun 18th Jul    Falmouth Sea Sunday

            Sat 25th July   BBQ/Skittle/Games 1400 RBL Club

            Sat 28th Aug   Hog Roast Barn Dance

            Sun 5th Sept    BBQ Twelvewoods

            Sat 2nd Oct    Quiz Night & Supper

            Sat 23rd Oct               Trafalgar Night Dinner

            Thur 11th Nov           Remembrance Day

            Sun 14th Nov             Remembrance Day Parade

            Sat 20th Nov   Christmas Bazaar

            Sat 27th Nov   Quiz Night & Supper

            Sat 4th Dec      Christmas Dinner. Looe Holiday Camp. Approx £25/head

 

 

 

Suggestions for additional or proposed changes to events are welcome.

Bilge Rat Hon Editor.

Cae Gwer, St. Ive Cross, Liskeard, Cornwall. PL14 3LZ.


Open from 1930 meeting starts at 2000. You do not have to be ex Royal Navy to join. All are welcome.- Bar Open

 

Meeting Notes:-

 

 


LISKEARD BRANCH RNA ACTIVITIES FOR 2010

 

 

 

DATES


EVENT

TUESDAY EVENINGS

12 JAN, 9 FEB, 9 MAR, 13 APR, 11 MAY, 8 JUNE, 13 JULY, 10 AUG, 14 SEP, 12 OCT, 9 NOV.

COMMITTEE MEETINGS

 

THU 28 JAN,

 

AGM AND MONTHLY MEETING

 

THURSDAY EVENINGS 25 FEB, 25, MAR, 29 APR, 27 MAY, 24 JUN, 29 JUL, 26 AUG, 30 SEP, 28 OCT, 25 NOV.

 

MONTHLY MEETINGS

 

SATURDAY QUIZ

6 MAR, 10 APR, 26 JUNE, 2 OCT, 27 NOV

 

SUPPER AND QUIZ

SATURDAY 20 FEB

BURNS NIGHT SUPPER

SATURDAY 15 MAY

SUNDAY 18 JULY

PLANT AND BOOK SALE (RBL)

FALMOUTH SEA SUNDAY

SATURDAY 28 AUG

HOG ROAST BARN DANCE

SUNDAY 5 SEPT

BBQ TWELVEWOODS

SUNDAY AT 1400

30 MAY, 25 JUL

BBQ/SKITTLES/GAMES (RBL)

SAT 23 OCT

TRAF NIGHT DINNER (HFPH)

SAT 20 NOV

XMAS BAZAAR

SAT 4 DEC

XMAS DINNER (LOOE BAY HC)