Early Work

Royal Navy

1953-1988

1988 and on

WELCOME TO
The Reminiscences and Ramblings of an English Hannaford

From Schoolboy to Old Boy

Variously known as

Danny, Charlie, Lofty , or Stan

click on any era

Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society - RACS - branches at Lakedale Road - Plumstead,
The Links - Plumstead Common, Hare Street - Woolwich

Royal Navy 1940 - 1953

Boy, Boy Tel, O Tel, Radio Mechanic, LRM, PORM, POREL, CREL, REA3, CREA
HMS St George, Pembroke, Shrapnel, Mercury, Valkyrie, Westminster, Collingwood, Cossack, Solebay, St Kitts

Decca Radar and
Racal Marine 1953 - 1988

1-3 Brixton Road, Decca House Albert Embankment, 544 Purley Way Croydon

1988 and on

Crawley Lions Club, IAM - Crawley, Probus Club of Crawley Hawth Wood

EARLY DAYS AND SCHOOL DAYS

Just idle thoughts and fleeting memories - ring any bells with anyone?

Brookhill Road Woolwich - born there but no real memories.

21 Marmadon Road, Plumstead - terrace house - front door on pavement - no front garden. Backed onto railway embankment. Waving to neighbours going on holiday as train passed by. Grandfather, Tom Chamberlain, living with us, next door, Martins.

Woolwich Arsenal over the back - shells and guns being fired sporadically.

46 Conway Road, Plumstead - end of terrace house with only entry doors in Ingledew Road. Conway Road School from which gained scholarship with entry to a "secondary school" equal to grammar school today. Choice of St Olaves and St Saviours, Bluecoat Horsham or Woolwich County School, the latter chosen for various reasons.

Sketchy memories from this period include - in the very early days wearing Sunday clothes and walking to Plumstead Cemetery as a family - brick fields opposite the cemetery - going over the strawberry fields to Welling - walks along the Southern Outfall (known to us as the sewer bank) from near Plumstead Station all the way to Crossness via Abbey Wood with the Ford works at Dagenham dominating the scene - Shrewsbury Park where you could see almost all of London laid out before you - visits to both cinemas in Plumstead and about five in Woolwich - the AJS and Matchless Motor Cycle factory which took up a block between Maxey Road and Burrage Road. Every motor cycle that came out of that factory seemed to be road tested and the testers with caps, goggles and clipboards were the envy of many of us. Plus of course Beasley's Brewery which took up the whole of the Brewery Road, Lakedale Road and Conway Road junction. Mulberry trees in the brewery grounds overhanging Conway Road and staining the pavement a beautiful shade of purple.

Woolwich County School, Red Lion Lane, Woolwich - then Shooters Hill School - now Eaglesfield School - fives courts at the bottom of the grounds, rugby, not football, weekly cross country run, sports grounds at Avery Hill Footscray Road, Eltham. Oriole windows which you might manage to send a penny flying round.

At the age of fourteen I decided that Latin, French etc. was not fitting me to earn a living (what did I know) so arranged to leave school. This was one of the several choices which determined my future and I sometimes wonder where staying on would have led, but I have no regrets.

More on this period when it comes to mind.

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EARLY WORK

I did not just leave school and hope but had already been offered a place in the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society, which had numerous branches in South East London. Not exactly a high profile position - first task was polishing the brass weights used throughout the Lakedale Road Branch. And if I thought I was through with learning, us new entries had to attend "day continuation school" for double entry book keeping, shop practice and commodities etc. and we all signed up for night school to further this. At that time you had to know something about what you were selling, hence the commodities - the difference between Darjeeling Tips and Orange Pekoe and so on.

From Lakedale Road to The Links on Plumstead Common - quite a department store for those days. Memories of selling eggs out front with snow on them - eggs were loose and put into simple paper bags - paper tickets which were exchanged for tin checks, which in turn were exchanged for higher denominations for which eventually the customer claimed dividend .

Grocery orders could be delivered. Lists of provisions on a sort of laundry list, out on the trade bicycle to go on a selected round to collect these orders, harsh words when the Divi was down. These orders assembled and packed into neat brown paper parcels eventually to be delivered by horse drawn wagon driven by Jack Warner. These trips included the RACS abbatoir off the top end of Garland Road!!

There was a basement under the grocery shop with a rope-driven lift. Down there sides of bacon were boned and us lowly ones got the sugar detail. There was hardly any pre-packing then and sugar was weighed out in the basement from a wooden trough and our job was to open up blue bags and scoop in as near as you could, two pounds of sugar. These bags were then picked up by an irascible gentleman opposite with hand-held scales (a la scales of justice) with a little scoop like a shoehorn to make an exact two pounds, and woe betide you if he had to add or take out more than the tiniest amount.

This branch had a turret clock driven by weights which had to be wound up to the top regularly. Clock looked after by a man only known as Ticky and one unfortunate youngster would be detailed to go up and wind these weights. Terribly low gearing so you seemed to have to wind for ever - and there were weights for the bells as well as for the actual clock.

Half-day closing Thursday, open 'til late Saturday and all for 12s 6d a week.

Bicycle visits to Woolwich Dockyard where there were central stores of some sort, but I cannot remember why these visits were made.

Remembered names - George Bush, Jack Creed, Percival, Tommy Trayler - branch manager Mr Prigmore.

Haunted a cafe' in Plumstead Common Road with contemporaries and there got the name Danny. The name Hannaford is often mis-spelled as Hanniford, although I have never come across one spelled this way, and just as often mis-pronounced so Hanniford became Danniford which became Danny. Also haunted Rileys Billiard Hall just about under Woolwich covered market with Eddie Bone, a mate from Majendie Road - he was later on HMS Penelope and I heard emigrated to Australia.

The Common was not short of pubs and there used to be a rhyme about them that went something like - "The Ship" that never sailed the seas, "The Star" that never shone, "The Woodman" that never felled a tree and so on , ending with and "Who'd a thought it".

September 1939 came along and after a deal of thought decided to follow in my father's footsteps so went to join the Navy - I did not want to be in the Army! Recruiting station at the Yorkshire Grey on Westhorne Avenue where I was told "push off sonny and comeback when you are old enough" and then "on second thoughts we could take you if you join the regular navy as a boy and sign up for twelve years as from the age of eighteen" - and that is what I did.

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ROYAL NAVY

Just idle jottings to start - will tidy up later.

Early days at HMS St George. Quartered in Howstrake Holiday Camp. Never built for the snow piled up the doors. Sewing name in almost all kit, including blanket. Just my luck to be sharing with Hall and Harris, they finished long before me.

Instructors Chief Tel Doggett and Yeoman King. Names from that era - George Eady, Tom Green, Totty Glanville, Bill Cooper, Don Mitchell, Alfie Hammond, Claude Boshier, Bob Thompson, Con Rowland

Smuggling in reverse. Boys not allowed to smoke or have smoking materials. Inevitably led to some trying to get cigarettes and matches into the camp. Searched going in, not out. Woe betide anyone caught with cigs or matches.

Guildford Tech. Sent there to learn electronic circuitry. Being wartime, the lecturers did not know how these circuits were to be used. We went to HMS Valkyrie and found how they were used in Radar. Since we were to be Radio Mechanics trip to HMS Mercury to find out about wireless equipment.

Now Leading Radio Mech - change from C/JX 245646 to P/MX 125450

HMS Westminster - Rosyth Escort Force - East Coast Convoys. "Headache operators" listening for E boat transmissions in German. The almost inevitable German convoy spotter plane off Flamborough Head, affectionately (?) referred to as "Flamborough Freddie"

Interesting point - HMS Westminster was an old V and W boat, my father's last ship was HMS Versatile, another V and W circa 1918.

This is where I became Charlie as well as Lofty and picked up my PO's rate. On going aboard for the first time slung my kitbag (name C S HANNAFORD stencilled across bottom strap) down into the mess picked up by Paddy Dacey who immediately said "Ah Charlie" and it stuck. Other characters at that time - Jimmy Nolan, L/Sig Hinchcliffe - skipper Bowerman, Rosyth Dockyard canteen, runs ashore to Dunfermline, Edinburgh, using the Nethertown public baths on ladies day provided we kept quiet!!! Sleeping on a straw paliasse in some part of Waverley station run by volunteers. Boilercleaning leave - four days - one to travel home - bus to Inverkeithing, train to Edinburgh, Edinburgh to Kings Cross, cross London, train to Plumstead - two days at home - one travelling back. Never ever got a seat, only the suitcase in the corridor the whole way. Remember spending part of 21st birthday up the mast in snow on a radar aerial. The odd run ashore at Immingham - trip to Grimsby - back to Immingham to find the gangway almost vertical due to twentysomething foot tide drop - a few accidents after an evening at the Mucky Duck in Grimsby. At the end of the war, courier runs to Rotterdam, Oslo, Christiansand South, Bergen, Tromso with the forecastle piled high with potatoes and other food. We got a good welcome everywhere.

Then to HMS Collingwood. Change from PORM to POREL. Instructing on gunnery radars until decided to take a trade course to change to artificer. Made REA3 a week after made up to CREL so never did sew on the badges. Names from this era - John Henson, Jim Smithers, Tom Bainbridge. 53 mess, or was it 52?

Trooping out to Far East on Bibby Line Lancashire - Port Said, Aden, Colombo,Singapore and Hong Kong - and on to HMS Cossack . my home for the next 2½ + years.

HMS Cossack - Captain D 8th DF. Hong Kong harbour full of RN Ships, most out at buoys. Immediately on joining feet measured for sandals, only needed doing once in whole time out there, replacements whenever needed. Side party, Star Ferry everything strange at first but soon became natural and home. Liberty boats, China Fleet Club, Wanchai, Happy Valley. Then to sea for month's patrol off Yangtze awaiting escape of HMS Amethyst (July 1949). Evaporators dodgy, not much water, can still remember the pipe "Slope awnings, out buckets it's raining"
Transferred to Concord for radar problem in time to meet Amethyst leaving the Yangtse
First trip to Japan - Shimoneseki Straits, Inland Sea, Kure. Very first time ashore in Kure having walked quite a way out of town offered lift by Australian jeep back to their mess. Found I was sitting next to Colin Hannaford Sgt RAASC - other Aus was Steve Burke. Eventually became Honorary Member of their mess. Currency was Scrip dollars for American goods, BAFV's (British Armed Forces Vouchers) and of course Yen. At that time the yen was 1760 to the pound and a bottle of beer 400 yen!
Kagoshima - no one who was aboard there will easily forget Kagoshima. Just beginning to enjoy showing the flag where no forces had been before and the Korean War started so off to Subic Bay to join up with the 1st American Task Force - carrier chasing.
Sasebo, Korea, Cigarette route, sea frozen over. Mokpo. Canadian destroyer Athabascan alongside and managed to get a very up-to-date radar part not available to us.

More to come soon on Cossack but the future held taking working parties down the trot from Chatham to maintain equipment in mothballed reserve ships, a spell in St Kitts and a longer spell in Solebay.

HMS Solebay immediate memories include an arctic trip, Londonderry, Lamlash, Oporto etc. in addition to working closely with the OA to get the flotilla Staag mountings working.

More to come soon



RN PICTURES and MEMORABILIA

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1988 on

Just for a start

Crawley Lions Club, Institute of Advanced Motoring Crawley Branch, IAM

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