Og's Blog Pt. 09

He had the telephone because the landlady was too deaf to use it and he was a volunteer emergency response person. His main role was cave rescue. I could see why. He could get into spaces that would be impossible for me. He had a small car that he used to collect other volunteers if they were called out. He thought I could be a useful addition to the team.

I laughed.

"At my size? You're joking. I would block any cave we went into."

He laughed too.

"No, not for that. Some of the caves are in remote locations that we can't get close to by car. We have to carry equipment some distance and then lower rescuers by hand. You would be great for carrying the kit and as a heavy hauler to let people down and bring people back up."

Over the next few months I went out with him a few times and gradually became an essential part of the cave rescue volunteers but I never went into any of the caves.

But some of the cave rescue volunteers also belonged to another emergency response team - the South Devon Cliff Rescue unit, who worked with the Coastguard. When they found out that I had qualified as a surf rescue worker in Australia, they wanted me. So many of the rescues were for people who had been cut off by the tides and might be actually in the water. Someone who could do surf rescues and cliff rescue would be an ideal addition. Gradually I became a more frequent cliff rescue person than cave rescue. If there was a wind and high seas, I was the person usually sent down the cliff to pull someone up.

With practice I began expert at climbing cliffs, upwards or downwards but for going down I usually wrapped a bare rope around me and abseiled. We had no equipment that would be used today - no harnesses, no helmets, no carabineers, no abseiling hooks - just a bare rope. My anoraks had to be replaced every six months because the friction of the rope cut through them.

My worst rescue was to go down a cliff into surf to retrieve a dead body.

He had been a Spanish fisherman washed off his boat by a storm. He was wearing a life jacket but had been in the sea for at least six months. I was able to attach a line to a loop of the life jacket but he couldn't be lifted like that. His body was so decayed that it would have fallen apart. I had to ask my colleagues at the top of the cliff to send down a body bag into which I was able to insert most of him before the bag could be raised to the top of the cliff.

[Asides out of timeline]

My cliff rescue skills came in useful on two occasions.

First Part.

The first was a party, shortly after my move to Plymouth, that got out of hand.

One of the dockyard typing pools wanted to hold a November 5th beach party on a beach to the East of Plymouth. Although some had boyfriends, overall there were more women than men. I was one of the first 'spare' men they invited but they were still short so they invited the Royal Marines. Now they had too many men so they invited the other typing pools. Now too many women so they invited the Fire Brigade, then the Nurses' home and so on...

What had started out as a party for about fifty people would now have hundreds. Today we'd call it an unofficial rave.

The original idea was to have a bonfire with each party goer bringing some wood. Now the Fire Brigade and the Royal Marines wanted to compete to build the largest bonfire. Over the next couple of weeks they assembled massive heaps of wood on that beach.

As stated in my previous Blog part I had been on many training courses in the previous year. Each time I was away from my home base I was given a subsistence allowance, sufficient for a room in a mid-price hotel. But most of the time I had been staying in much cheaper Bed and Breakfast places because there were no mid-price hotels anyway near where the training was taking place. Each night away meant a small profit for me.

But the Civil Service unions had put in a claim, two years earlier, for the rate of overnight subsistence to be increased. In almost every city and medium size town the rate was inadequate for a hotel. Eventually the Treasury agreed that the rate should be increased, backdated for a year - the year I had been on so many training courses. That month's take-home pay, with the backdated increase, meant a doubling of my take home pay and was tax-free. I was temporarily rich.

I bought a motorcycle combination - an Ariel Red Hunter with a single seat open sports sidecar. I traded in my previous small motorcycle that would carry me, but was underpowered for a person of my size and a passenger. At the time I had a Provisional licence, unlike my Admiralty licence. The rules at the time restricted a Provisional licence holder to a solo motorcycle of less than 250 cc and any pillion passenger had to hold a full motorcycle licence. But a learner could drive a motorcycle combination with a motorcycle of any size and anyone in the sidecar (but NOT on the pillion) didn't have to have a licence. Also in my price range was a 600cc Panther single with a large double adult sidecar but that seemed too big and staid.

[Aside inside an aside - on Motorcycles]

My first motorcycle had been bought very cheaply from a fellow ANSO who was fed up with it and had bought a car. Soon I knew why he was fed up with it. It was a four-stroke 200 cc Ariel Colt with a worn out engine that kept breaking the kick-start return spring. A new spring was pennies but replacing it meant dismantling the whole gearbox from the other side of the bike. The engine was so worn that it wouldn't take me up any reasonable hill. I had to get off and walk beside it. Within a couple of months I replaced it with a BSA Bantam D5 - a 150 cc two stroke. The Bantam was much more powerful and reliable (except for the points slipping often) and would take me up any hill easily. I enjoyed touring Devon and Cornwall on it, and appreciated its very small fuel consumption - about 150 miles per Imperial gallon.

I wanted to pass the motorcycle test but the first two attempts were failures. During the test on the Ariel Colt I had to do an emergency stop. I fell off - instant fail. My second test was on the BSA Bantam in pouring rain. While standing outside the test centre the Bantam's electrics had been soaked in water. I couldn't start it - fail again! It took me half an hour of mopping with tissue and using water dispersant before I could ride it home.

By the time of the third test I had been riding the Ariel combination for six months. I was very confident that I would pass. The examiner sat in the sidecar and directed me where to go. After about a quarter of an hour I had a disaster. The clutch cable broke. I was able to continue making clutchless changes by matching the engine speed. Then the examiner had the final task - a hill start. I had to tell him that my clutch cable had been inoperative for the last five minutes and without a clutch I couldn't do a hill start at all. He was surprised that he hadn't noticed that the clutch cable had broken. My gear changes had been so smooth he wasn't aware of the problem. That demonstrated to him that I could control the bike properly - so, without the hill start - I passed. He then had to push me to ride off home where I put on a spare clutch cable.

But that successful test was months in the future. At the time of the beach party I had owned the Ariel combination for a week.

[End of Aside inside an aside]

I still had money to buy drinks for the party. I bought a couple of bottles of reasonable red wine and - don't ask how - acquired two litres of duty-free vodka and a litre of undiluted Navy rum.

We assembled at a public house about a mile from the beach and drank until closing time. I had been drinking pints of the local bitter and a large nurse had decided I was a suitable escort. She was nearly six feet tall, weighed about 200 lbs but felt small beside me. She sat in the sidecar as I drove to the car park at the top of the cliffs above the beach. I was carrying the drinks as we walked down the narrow path to the beach. There, she and I soon finished the wine and started on the Vodka.

The Fire Brigade and Marines lit their bonfires. It was a close call but it was decided the Fire Brigade had the largest heap.

I was enjoying the company of a substantial, well-developed woman but about midnight a dozen drunk people thought it would be a good idea to go skinny-dipping in the rough sea - in November! Most got out again within seconds but I had to use my surf-lifesaving skills to rescue three. As I returned to the beach I handed each one over to the firemen who took them to dry out and warm up by a bonfire. After the third I joined them before returning to my cuddly nurse.

About four am she was asleep with her head on my shoulder. One of her last coherent statements was that she had to be on duty at seven am and should be back at the Nurses' home at half past six. At six am I tried to wake her up but it was no use. She was unconscious. I thought I could carry up to my motorcycle combination but there was a problem. Both the Fire Brigade and the Marines had built their bonfires very close to the path coming down to the beach. Short of fire-walking, there was no way off the beach.

But I was one of the cliff rescue team and had collected three people from the cliffs behind the beach. They were about sixty feet high and looked easy to climb but they were made of wet, crumbly and unstable shale. I hoisted 200 lbs of inert nurse on to my shoulders, and watched by incredulous Fire Brigade and Royal Marines, climbed the cliff. They cheered when I reached the top.

I poured her into the sidecar and drove to the Nurses' home. I had to lift her out and carry her to her room. I knocked on the door. Her roommate answered, took one look, and said:

"Oh dear! You'd better bring her in and put her on her bed. She's in no state to be on duty. I've just finished a shift but 'll cover for her."

The roommate kissed me before I left.

"Thanks for bringing her back. She'll owe me but it looks as if she had a good time."

I drove to the centre of Plymouth and went into a coffee shop. The next thing I knew was that it was twelve noon and I had a pile of empty black coffee cups in front of me. It was the only time, ever in my life, that I was so drunk that I don't remember for hours - from about a quarter to seven until twelve noon. But the proprietor of the coffee shop told me I had been there all that time, drinking coffee and going to the toilet.

End of First Part.

Second Part (Two years later)

Through the YMCA gym and official contacts I had been accepted as a friend of the local Royal Marines. I often visited their local base, either as an officer in the wardroom, or playing games with the Marines themselves. I had completed their assault course several times and was in the fastest five per cent of any competitor. But two of the Royal Marine NCOs were part time instructors for an outward bound facility on Drake's Island in Plymouth sound. They had asked me, sometimes, to help out when they had more young people than the staff could look after at once. I was never a formal outward bound instructor, just a fit and skilled occasional helper.

But for the more skilled youngsters, and some of the Marines, there was a challenge to complete. It was to circumnavigate Drake's Island on the cliffs without touching the bottom or top. Most people took about forty minutes to do that if they finished. Most didn't. One of the Marine NCOs had done it in twenty-eight minutes, the record. It couldn't be attempted now. Health and Safety would have a fit. We had no ropes, no helmets, no safety equipment- nothing except our hands and feet. I had never done it but I had rescued several people who had become stuck on a cliff while trying it.

One afternoon we were drinking tea after I had rescued another hapless teenager who had been stuck on the cliff, unable to move, for about five minutes. He was drinking very sweet tea and slightly upset that he hadn't been able to complete the task. He had done well, about three-quarters of the course, and we were trying to cheer him up.

"You're a cliff expert, aren't you?" The record-holding NCO said.

"Yes, I suppose so. I've been rescuing people from them for about two years," I said.

"So, you should be better than the Marines, shouldn't you? Yes, we train on cliffs once a twice a year but you're on a cliff once or twice a week."

I could see where this was going.

"So why don't you try?"

A quarter of an hour later I started on the course. Apart from my experience I had two advantages. I was taller with much longer arms than the Marine NCO and I was significantly stronger than him.

Having rescued people from many parts of the Drake's Island cliffs I knew parts of them very well.

The Marines and the outward bound teenagers watched from the beaches. The NCO started his stopwatch. I had something to prove.

I flew around those cliffs at breakneck speed, reaching hand and footholds that would have been impossible for anyone smaller. When I finished the stop watch was pressed. I was cheered. The previous record had been twenty-eight minutes. I had done it in thirteen. That record will probably stand for ever as no one would be allowed to try it now and Drake's Island has been off-limits to the public for nearly thirty years.

[End of second part of Aside]

Security Devices

One of the responsibilities of my section was locks, safes and security furniture. Whenever a safe or security item was returned by a RN ship the item had to be opened by the dockyard locksmith while watched by an officer - now me. Almost every item was completely empty - as it should be. Once, stuck under a drawer in a safe we found a screwed-up French ten-franc note - about one pound in value.

But once, we knew the safe wasn't empty. While operating in the Mediterranean an old aircraft carrier had been in a severe storm, so severe that it twisted part of the ship. The ship's main safe, a small room in the bowels, had been made part of the structure as the carrier had been built but the twisting had jammed the safe's door with the crew's wages and cash to pay for oil fuel etc. inside. The carrier's captain had to get money from the British Embassy in Rome.

When the ship returned to Devonport for repairs the back of the safe had to cut with oxy-acetylene equipment while I and the locksmith watched. I had brought my two senior Clerical Officers with me. When there was an opening we had to go in and remove all the money and count it. I loaded it on a hand pulled trolley and escorted by the two elderly Clerical Officers, pulled it through the dockyard to the Finance Department and get a receipt for everything - one hundred and fifty thousand pounds in notes and coins.

The main door of the safe couldn't be forced so that safe room remained empty with a hole in the back until the carrier was scrapped.

Ship's captains were supposed to have spare keys to every security container on his ship. That could be a large bunch, more than practical to carry in a pocket. The Admiralty had an idea. If a small safe, operated by a combination lock and a key, could be fitted in the captain's sea cabin, he could keep all his keys in there and just remember the combination and have a single small key. They ordered the small safes from the manufacturers. Fifty were assigned to Devonport - to my section. The idea was that only the captain would have access. If, for some reason, the captain was incapacitated, that small safe could be forced with tools a ship carried but that forcing would be obvious and had to be done for a specific reason.

The instructions to the safe manufacturers were clear - small safes with ONE key. But safe manufacturers NEVER made a safe with one key, at least two. When the small safes arrived, they came with two keys. Just before they arrived I had an urgent message. Before any small safe could be issued to a ship, the second key must be destroyed by hand of an officer - me.

How do you destroy a key - completely? But I had the whole resources of Devonport Dockyard available. I could enjoy myself.

Across the road from my office was an annoying 300 ton steam hammer. When it was operating, my office shook. I walked across the road and asked to be able to put each key under the hammer. Fifty times the hammer descended on a small key about one inch long. I was left with fifty very thin dinner plate size sheets of metal. But, to my consternation the shape of the key was clearly seen as was the key number. If you had one of those sheets and knew the size of the keyhole, you could make a replica of the right size. Flattened keys weren't destroyed.

As I looked ruefully at the result the steam hammer operator laughed at me.

"I could have told you so," he said. "but - if you want them destroyed completely? How about the blast furnace?"

He was right. A few minutes later, with very long tongs, I threw each sheet into the blast furnace. Keys destroyed and I could answer the memo to confirm they had been.

End of Part 09