Around the world - at sea with the navy

It was in Liverpool that I first really went to sea, as a reporter not a sailor. It was aboard the Royal Navy’s Leander class frigate HMS Scylla. A navy photographer shot the picture below as we headed through the Irish Sea.

And here’s a picture of mine from Scylla showing HMS Jupiter astern.

Not only was this a splendid introduction to a life on the ocean wave, it was a practical lesson in ‘sea power’, the need for protecting those sea lanes along which the bulk of the world’s commerce moves. No imports, no exports, and a country can quickly collapse as the British realized in two world wars. Without convoys, the bravery of merchant seamen and the strength of the Allied navies, both wars might have turned out much differently.

By the way, twenty years after my voyage on her, Scylla was sunk off Cornwall to create Europe’s first artificial reef. The old Falklands War veteran now hosts a variety of fish and occasional recreational scuba divers.

My time as a young reporter was also the time of the Cold War and I did a lot of stories on defence, some with the British Army and Royal Air Force, but most with the Royal Navy. Among my early television stories were the annual NATO exercises – ‘Northern Wedding’ – in the North Atlantic. With my cameraman and soundman, we would act as the ‘pool crew’, shooting on behalf of British and foreign networks.

I loved covering the exercises. We were beyond the reach of my – by then – London newsroom; the pictures were great and, in the evenings, hospitality in the officers' wardroom was generous. I was introduced to an old Royal Navy drink, ‘pink gin' (gin and Angostura bitters).

Here’s another shot by a navy cameraman. It shows the British aircraft carrier Hermes, being shadowed by a Soviet warship.

And here am I with soundman Jim Wall getting ready to be transferred from the warship we were on to Hermes in the background.

Next shot shows Jim and cameraman Leo Waller shooting refueling at sea. Note the 16-mm film camera!

And lastly from ‘Northern Wedding’, here’s one of the Warsaw Pact’s spy trawlers. I think she was Polish.

My experiences with the Royal Navy (and later with the Canadian navy) satisfied some of my childhood hankering for a taste of the sea, with the Eastern Bloc substituting for pirates. There was lots of action. Unlike sedate cruise ships with stabilizers, the warships crashed splendidly (and photogenically) through the waves and rolled most enjoyably. Soviet warplanes, tailed by RAF fighters, flew overhead. The ever-changing expanses of open ocean were as romantic as the Russian steppes (an improbable comparison which came to me at the time as I’d just had my first assignment in the USSR).

Next, the only way to Pitcairn.