Last Sunday provided a voyage into my past. In the navy’s West Yard, I drove past old naval stores where I drew my first uniform, Simonsberg accommodation block (or whatever its current use, but needing repairs), past the small craft harbour to the Dockyard Chapel.
While doing basic training over 58 years ago, our “class” doubled up that very road to the chapel for morning devotions, conducted by a naval padre, after which we doubled back to the parade ground to be drilled by the POs, some using naval parlance of which the padre wouldn’t have approved.
I also passed the “House of many Chimneys”, a euphemism for the naval detention barracks where inmates, carrying sandbags or logs, ran constantly around small concrete posts, did hours of PT, and kept…
