Chatham Dockyard - Fighting Sailors and A Sailing Writer

We visited the Historic Chatham Dockyard in Kent at the weekend. Elder son wanted to compare it with a museum in Genoa, Italy, for a university project – and I’m a sucker for museums, especially maritime ones, so I was salivating at the prospect.

Chatham is the world’s most complete dockyard from the age of sail with docks, sail lofts, mast houses, a smithery, a wheelwrights’ shop, machine shops etc, with some buildings up to 300 years old. As early as 1588 shipwrights in the Chatham area prepared Queen Elizabeth’s fleet for action against the Spanish Armada. And Chatham Dockyard is where Nelson’s ship Victory was built and launched in 1765. 

It also has a fabulous collection of RNLI lifeboats, the longest ropery in Europe and three historic ships to visit; a Victorian naval sloop, a Cold War submarine and the Second World War destroyer HMS Cavalier.  

 

I was particularly interested in HMS Cavalier, a sister ship to HMS Carron, which was commanded in wartime by John, a brother-in-law of our elderly friend Joan. John earned a DSC and a George Medal, the latter when , though injured by flying debris and partly blinded by fumes, he tried three times, ‘with great fortitude and determination’, to take his ship alongside a burning merchant ship carrying high octane petrol, in order to tow her clear.

HMS Cavalier is at peace now, rooted in the concrete of a dry dock. But she looks like she could spring back into action in a minute. There is hardly a spare inch of space not taken up with some practical or deadly material. We gingerly descended the companionways and ladders and thought that the sailors must have felt like moles living underground, with the cramped quarters and the warren-like passageways. On the other hand, the bridge was open, without a top, it must have been wet and very uncomfortable in rough seas. Fighting is difficult at the best of times, but when you’re also cold, wet, frightened, trying to stay upright...     

(Incidentally, Joan’s husband Peter also served in the Royal Navy and twice had his ship sunk under him. First, in October 1939, when  HMS Royal Oak was torpedoed and sunk at Scapa Flow by a German U-boat with the loss of 833 lives. Next, when HMS Penelope was sunk by another U-boat off Naples in 1944 with the loss of 415 crew. HMS Penelope was also known as ‘HMS Pepperpot’ because of the many shrapnel holes in her caused by numerous bombs dropped from enemy planes.)

Thank God there has been peace in most of Europe for almost 70 years now. But our parents and grandparents endured horrific conditions and made heroic sacrifices to bequeath us freedom and material comfort beyond their imagining. And it wasn’t just the military and other war workers that made sacrifices, wives like Joan worried every time their spouses departed, never knowing if it would be the last goodbye...and yet, Joan believes these were the happiest of times, when she felt most alive. Maybe they just made people tougher in these days!    

Speaking of cramped working conditions, we toured the submarine Ocelot (which was built at Chatham) - and it made the Cavalier feel spacious and comfortable!

To end on a bright note, I walked round a corner and discovered the Pay Office where Charles Dickens’ father worked from 1817-1822. His job was to pay wages to the naval ships’ crews, and sometimes little Charles accompanied him on the Pay Office yacht. Now, that sounds like fun!