HMS NELSON

I only spent a short time in HMS Nelson, or more accurately, the Portsmouth Fleet Maintenance Base after I left HMS Tartar in June 1984. I worked for the Shipwrights workshop and spent a good amount of time on Type 42 destroyers replacing the old ICABA with the newer BASCCA Breathing Apparatus sets. This was enough to convince me that I didn’t like Type 42’s, far too cramped.     

“MEM Atkinson ... ha!”       as I was brought to attention

“Quick March”

“Halt! ... Salute! ... Off Caps!”   as is customary at defaulters.

“MEM Atkinson sir, charged with the misappropriation of a government issue padlock and chain whilst serving aboard HMS Tartar on 19th May 1984”

“How do you plead?”

“Guilty Sir”

“This may not seem very important to you young man. A padlock costing around £5, but where will it end? Today it’s a padlock but tomorrow? Where will it end ? A Harrier?”  as he reached a crescendo

 

Dwelling a pause for dramatic effect, he concluded    

“Admonished. Now Get Out!!”

“Admonished Sir!”

“On Cap! .... Salute! ..... Right turn, quick march ...wait outside.”

LReg

LReg

LReg

LReg

 

Cdr

Atkinson

Cdr

 

 

 

 

Cdr

LReg

LReg

For some strange reason, I also decided to grow a beard. No idea why, but it soon disappeared when at 22 years of age and a MEM1, everyone was calling me Chief !! I had left HMS Tartar with a charge hanging over my head. I had thought this had been forgotten, but as soon as I joined I was reminded of it and told to be at the Commander’s Table on Thursday looking as smart as a Guards Van. The charge was nothing serious, I had ‘borrowed’ a padlock to lock up my bike and this had been spotted by a keen MOD ‘Plod’. I was subsequently charged with misappropriation of government stores. I couldn’t be done with theft as I left it dangling off a fence when I peddled off home in the evenings. So it was one sunny Thursday morning in  July 1984, that I presented myself to the Regulators looking very smart indeed but quietly petrified.

 

I was duly briefed before:

The regulator caught up with me outside,

 

“you got admonished son, you know what that means?”

“No Leading Reg” I replied.

“It means, you are as guilty as sin, but we’ll let you off”

 

It with a degree of relief, therefore, that I left HMS Nelson to join HMS Dolphin for submarine training a few months later.