NAVY NEWS, JULY 2010


27


Who benefits from Navy Days?


AS Navy Days is approaching I would like to


know who is doing the organising? Navy Days used to be organised by the serving


naval personnel, assisted by ex-naval personnel. All profits after expenses were distributed among naval charities. Today’s events are run by civvies who do not know


what they are doing and charge huge amounts to enter the dockyards or air stations. A lot of naval charities are run by volunteers who do not get paid and who do it to help other ex-naval personnel.


The big question is this – why are naval charities charged over £1,000 to put a stand in the dockyard when they are trying to raise funds to carry out their work? Why rob the naval charities by charging them these huge amounts to have a display when the organisers are lining their pockets? – Allan Mercer, HMS Glasgow Association, Widnes, Cheshire


A spokesman for the Navy Days Planning team told us:


“Navy Days is not a core defence activity and cannot be funded by the MoD (ultimately the taxpayer).


“For the Naval Base to be allowed to stage Navy Days it has to guarantee that it can recoup the large costs associated with the event. “To cover the costs means unfortunately having to charge the general public for admittance and to charge to have stands including charities. “The Navy Days planning team understands that members of the public and particularly charities fi nd this disappointing. “However these are the rules that have been laid down by HM Treasury and we must comply with them.”


This year’s Navy Days are on July 29, 30 and August 1 at Portsmouth Naval Base. Navy News will have a stand, so we hope to meet lots of visitors – Ed.


Convoy medals came too late


IT HAS been my great pleasure to receive, through the Russian Embassy, a medal commemorating my service on Arctic convoys in World War 2. This medal, celebrating the 65th


anniversary of victory in 1945, joins those already in my proud possession commemorating the 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of our struggle through these northern waters. I find it very gratifying that Russia has continued to recognise, over


these many years, the


individual contributions we made towards mutual victory – even though virtually no-one now in office would have been alive at the time. My regret is that as a then


18-year-old seaman on board the destroyer HMS Middleton and now over 85, so few of us are around to receive these generous and thoughtful gestures from our wartime ally.


– Mike Alston, Association


Secretary, HMS Middleton (L74) Association, Maidenhead, Berks


...AFTER reading an article in my local paper about the Russians giving out medals for those who served on Arctic convoys I got very angry, not at those who received the medals, but at the Russian government for not recognising my father,


John, because he is


dead. I have tried for years to get them to send me a Russian Convoy


Medal but to no avail. My father served on a destroyer,


HMS Faulknor, which spent most of 1942 on Arctic convoys in some of the worst weather ever known. It was so rough, it smashed guns and railings. To go on deck, unless roped to the ship, meant certain death.


The sailors had to live in their sea boots because the mess was always flooded, and with the pumps and toilets out of order they were wading through all sorts of filth. The galley was nearly always out of order so they had to eat cold meals.


Despite all they went through, they still sank a U-boat, and helped sink another one. My dad was 32 in 1942, one of the oldest ratings on board. By all accounts he did his best to look after the 18-year-olds. He helped serve the rum ration – because of him and his mate there were always one or two bottles for birthdays and to cheer them up when they were really up against it. It’s just not fair that all those


sailors, British and American, who served as gunners on merchantmen, and all the poor merchant seamen who have since died, in some cases because of what they went through on the Arctic convoys, were not recognised before they could claim the medal and the recognition they deserve. – Brian Parkinson, Brownhills, West Midlands


● Mary Walker with the hooky mat she presented to HMS Newcastle in 1978


Mum’s mat DURING the 1970s,


HMS Newcastle was in build at Swan Hunters, I worked for the local BBC North-East television studios.


when


I directed a documentary film about the ship, from keel-laying to commissioning. Shortly before Newcastle left


the Tyne my mother, who was a keen exponent of the local craft of rug-making, produced a splendid hooky mat with the ship’s crest set in it which she presented to the ship.


When she was entertained on board and saw her mat hanging in


wardroom bulkhead she was somewhat puzzled and whispered to me: “Did you not tell these lads a mat’s supposed to go on the floor?” I have often wondered what became of the hooky mat. Could any of your readers shed any light?


a place of honour on the


LETTERS to the editor should always be accompanied by the correspondent’s name and address, not necessarily for publication.


E-mail correspondents are also requested to provide this information. Letters cannot be submitted over the telephone. If you submit a photograph which you did not take yourself, please make sure that you have the permission for us to publish it.


Given the volume of letters, we cannot publish all of your correspondence in Navy News. We do, however, publish many on our website, www.navynews.co.uk, accompanied by images. We look


correspondence which stimulates debate, makes us laugh or raises important issues. The editor reserves the right to edit your submissions.


particularly for


– Dave Walker, South Shields, Tyne and Wear


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