The great marquee used as a Mess Deck with its mud by day and its dark discomfort by night gave place to a fine, cosy, commodious French hut. A piano hired from Dunkirk and played upon by our several musicians, Bill Adams, Toby Hart and Jimmy Newing, gave memorable entertainment when flying hours were over - and ultimately, as a crowning glory, a great concert hut was erected and a deep excavation lined with balloon fabric and filled with water provided an excellent plunge bath for the officers.
Adjoining the aerodrome was erected the ship’s bell, which with its snow white Turk’s Head clanging rope was a continual object of interest and admiration to the numerous and varied types of soldiery who came to see the Navy fly.
We were very jealous of our Naval distinctiveness, set, as we were, in the midst of the Army. We told our time by the ship’s bell, we kept to our port and our starboard watches, we had our Naval grog throughout the whole year direct from Dunkirk, our ratings were naval and we had the naval “make and mends,” the half day’s rests which men actually and in fact used for repairing and washing clothes and doing any necessary cleansing acts, and we very reluctantly gave up our hammocks when at Serny we became No. 208 Squadron R.A.F.
We believed in the Navy; we believed it to be the Senior Service and we steadfastly insisted on our detached position. The mildest and meekest lorry driver caught by a military policeman driving in the wrong direction on a oneway road (a serious offence for a driver to commit, for he could hold up the war for hours if a convoy were met coming from the opposite direction) would lean over the side of his cab and (for the purpose of this respectable record substituting blessings for curses) would say in dulcet tones: “What's the matter with you, you pretty pet--. What, one-way road – who cares - you old darling. You can't touch us you sanguinary lump of earth - we’re the Navy, go to Heaven - and bless you.”
Our rating was always a mystery to the Army man. One R.A.F. officer persisted in calling a leading mechanic “Chiefy” - and after a football match when a Canadian team had been regaled with Navy rum there was an instance of a quarter-master or some such rank saying to a leading mechanic as clearly as the rum permitted: “I don‘t know what rank you are - but you’re a d-----d good sort. I wish I was in your crush."
Our Squadron prided itself in showing Naval hospitality and all our visiting teams went away with grateful recollections of Eight Naval. One picture I see before me.
