Hamburg, when tentatively inspected from the flight deck, proved to be cold, and rather misty. The ship has arrived alongside at St Pauli Landungsbrucken, right in the centre of the city and adjacent to the St Pauli area which, of course, contains the famous Reeperbahn. From the relatively elevated vantage point of the flight deck, it was possible to see a good deal of the city, mist permitting, and with the exception of a few church spires, it looked little different from any other city. In fact, I have rarely seen any city which looks in any great material way different to any other, if you remove the obvious giveaways, like the Houses of Parliament or Sydney Opera House. The only one which springs to mind is Hong Kong, which is unique.
It’s obviously not a secret that Prince Andrew is one of the pilots on board the ship, and so it was perhaps unsurprising that when we were moored in Hamburg we attracted the attention of the local paparazzi and newspaper reporters and photographers. They weren’t of course allowed on board, and simply clustered in suitable vantage points around the ship, aiming their long lenses at any sight of interest. And this led to an amusing incident.
All aircrew wear flying overalls or immersion suits if the weather conditions dictate, and flying overalls are a popular garment to be worn off duty when the rig on board the ship permits it. And, to further explain, these flying overalls or immersion suits are personal, meaning that each bears the name of the officer and, typically, his rank and blood group, so that in the event of an accident the identity of the individual can be established immediately. The name is always given as the surname first, followed by the Christian name of the officer, but on board there is one single exception: Prince Andrew. His flying overalls make it absolutely clear who he is. They are the same colour and design as all the others, but on his left breast his printed name is abbreviated, because he has a number of names, but shown very clearly: HRH The Prince Andrew.
Strangely enough, one of our other pilots on board, another lieutenant, has the surname Prince and the Christian name Andrew, so his overalls are marked in the usual way, and his name reads as ‘Prince Andrew.’ To kind of compound the coincidence, Andrew Prince doesn’t look unlike Prince Andrew: the two men are about the same height, both have dark hair and similar features, although face-to-face they are very dissimilar. However, through the long lens of a camera wielded by member of the German paparazzi, Andrew Prince, wandering about the flight deck wearing his flying overalls emblazoned with the name ‘Prince Andrew’ and not doing very much of anything, probably looked remarkably like Prince Andrew wandering about the flight deck wearing his flying overalls and not doing very much of anything.
Anyway, when the Prince’s doppelgänger was spotted by the reporters and cameramen on the dock, the sound of motor drives became almost deafening, and when Andrew Prince realised what had happened, he acted in the best traditions of the service, doing his best to convince the cameramen that he was the person they thought he was. And once he’d done that, he did his best to provide them with an interesting selection of pictures as he picked his nose, rubbed his groin and scratched his arse.
He had been, he told me afterwards, very tempted to walk close to the edge of the flight deck, find a secluded spot and then extract his todger and have a leak for the benefit of the cameras below, but decided that might be going a little too far.
We never discovered whether or not any of the hundreds of pictures taken that day found their way into any of the German newspapers or other media, but even a bit basic research would have revealed the Prince Andrew wasn’t even on board the ship at the time, having flown off – I think the previous day – to act as a representative of Her Majesty at some event on the Continent, I think possibly a funeral in Luxembourg or something of that sort, and clearly could not have been in two places at the same time. But the event did provide us all with a certain amount of harmless amusement.
We had the usual official reception in the evening in the hangar, with the usual collection of degenerate freeloaders on board to drink us dry. It was very boring, and was only relieved because I ran into John Heath and his wife Jess who are over here on an exchange tour. He is an Air Traffic Controller I met at Yeovilton when I was on hold-over between Invincible and Illustrious in 1982. I had quite a long chat with him, catching up on all the gossip in the ATC branch.
Then it was Reeperbahn time, and so a small group of volunteers assembled on the after gangway – Mike Vine (Met Officer), Peter Lavis (Confidential Books Officer), Steve Smith (Assistant Confidential Books Officer) and myself. The Reeperbahn was a brisk fifteen minutes’ walk away.
And quite a place it was. It looks much like any other street in any other city, really, but with rather more neon than usual. All the sex shops and clubs were on the north side (we had started from the eastern end of the street) and there were dozens of them. We poked our noses into several, but didn’t go in, saving ourselves for the ‘recommended’ Grosse Freiheit at the western end of the Reeperbahn. We looked in at the Eros Centre, where the prostitutes at the lower end of the market congregate and live. The Centre is in fact a very warm underground garage, now without cars, of course, and it needs to be warm, as most of the girls (who were far from unattractive) wear smiles and not a great deal more. The going rate, judging by the numerous propositions, seems to be about DM50 (about £12) for however long it takes.
Grosse Freiheit is a street running at right angles off the Reeperbahn, and it is quite literally full of clubs, all offering live sex shows. In a spirit of journalistic inquiry we entered one, were charged DM20 each for two drinks each (irrespective of what you actually drank), and sat through a two-hour show. That was interesting (as first experiences of anything are), but it did begin to pall after a while. I suppose the good thing about it was that all the performers seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves, and there was a good deal of humour as well – I’m sure that pure, straight, unrelieved sex can be as boring as anything else. The show lasted two hours, and by the time we emerged it was after midnight, and the Reeperbahn was really just getting into full swing.
When we were back on the street, we found most of the rest of the ship’s company of Illustrious had also stepped ashore, and I think there were more Britons than Germans there. We split the group a little after that, Peter Lavis and I going off on a gentle stroll and for a look in the numerous sex shops and peep shows; still, you understand, in a spirit of journalistic inquiry. I would hate anyone to think that we were enjoying ourselves!
Actually, the over-riding emotion after having visited the Reeperbahn, where whatever you want is available, and at not too high a price, either, is boredom. After the initial shock (caused by a sheltered and delicate upbringing) has worn off, the shops and clubs all seem to be much alike, and it just becomes a question of picking the one that is cheapest if you want to either buy anything or watch a show. I suppose half the appeal lies in the fact that here on the Reeperbahn everything that you can’t find openly on sale in Britain is freely available, and it all has a forbidden fruit appeal.
A long evening, though, as we didn’t get back on board until about three in the morning.
Friday 25th November 1983
A quiet day, more or less. The ship was working a Saturday routine, which meant that we were only required on board during the morning. I spent most of the morning in Flyco, in fact, giving the old ‘This is Flyco and from here we—’ spiel to a seemingly endless stream of German visitors, mainly VIPs, who were visiting the ship.
In the afternoon Mike Vine and I went ashore to have a wander round the Rathaus (town hall) area, where the best shops were. Most interesting, but there really were no bargains to be had, prices seeming to be more or less on a par with Britain, and in some cases far more. Particularly bad buys seemed to be the typical ‘tourist’ items, like bier steins, some of which were retailing for upwards of £20, which certainly seems a little excessive for what is basically a coffee mug. However, they were good shops, with an excellent selection of goods on offer. The most c
ommon shops were tailors (far more for men than dressmakers for women, for some unfathomable reason), shoe shops and hi-fi/camera shops. The streets were very clean, and well signposted, with typical German efficiency: I suppose the German genius for obedience being the main reason. I’m sure that if a German saw a notice saying ‘Don’t drop litter’, he wouldn’t drop litter – a typical Briton would probably make a point of obtaining further supplies of litter just to drop by the notice. We even noticed this obedience on pedestrian crossings, most of which are controlled by lights. If the lights were red, no one (except us mad Britons) would dream of crossing, even if there wasn’t a car in sight.
One of the most tempting things about the Rathaus area in particular (though most of Hamburg seems similarly served) was the vast number of large kiosks serving hot food and drinks (including mulled wine) – the aromas rising from the German sausages and so on were almost more than could be borne, and clearly we weren’t the only ones so affected, as they all seemed to be doing a good trade. We neither ate nor drank in these places, though, but entered a cafe where we had a cup of chocolate each – absolutely delicious, with a great solid chunk of cream floating on the surface. Excellent.
Talking of food, which we were, the German eating habits are worth a word or two. Apparently Germans tend to regard lunch as the main meal of the day, with breakfast and dinner being mere snacks. Dinner, typically, might consist of soup with bread or toast, followed by a yoghurt – not exactly a feast. They also seem to eat far more meat than we are used to, and some meals out that people on board have had, have consisted only of meat (usually steak) with no vegetables at all, only bread or rolls. Sweets are very popular, and in particular the very sweet, very gooey sort of numbers. We saw a lot of that sort of food on sale as well – very, very tempting.
And so back to the ship, with aching feet. A prolonged session of bridge followed dinner, and in the course of the game we obtained ‘official’! (i.e. from the Principal Medical Officer) permission to introduce the doctor to the dubious delights of the Reeperbahn. So, we wound up the game at about midnight, and got changed into suitable clothes.
Saturday 26th November 1985
We left the ship at about 0030, ‘we’ in this case being Peter Glew, Mike Vine and myself. Getting to the Reeperbahn took about twenty minutes, in a steady and persistent drizzle, and we stayed in the area for a little over an hour, during which time the doctor’s eyes opened progressively wider, his voice ceased to be heard, and he went into a kind of culture shock. Obviously his home town of Bath hasn’t quite got the same sort of attractions as this bit of Hamburg. We showed him into a couple of sex shops, where he showed a passing interest in the anatomical features of some of the people portrayed in the films and magazines, walked him through the Eros Centre (which I don’t think he really believed), and finally sat him down in a club on Grosse Freiheit called (appropriately enough, bearing in mind our shared Christian name) Blue Peter. This was not the most exciting experience in the world; the much-advertised ‘live sex show’ consisted in its entirety of one naked man (looking a bit like a bank manager) lying on his back smoking a cigarette while a naked woman (who had clearly seen better days, and probably better decades) played with him, to coin a phrase, at intervals, when she wasn’t smoking a cigarette, having a drink, or whatever. About as much sex appeal as a cup of cold sick, really. About twenty minutes was all we could stand, and so we departed, going straight back to the ship, the doctor still unusually quiet. We have hopes that the effect will wear off in due course.
After an all too brief time in bed, I got up and spent a couple of hours escorting a party of German Reserve officers round the ship – one of several groups of foreign visitors that will be looking over Illustrious while we are here in Hamburg. That task completed, a remarkably quiet day followed, terminating with a prolonged game of bridge in the Wardroom in the evening.
Sunday 27th November 1983
I had intended to purchase Sunday newspapers for the Wardroom today, but there were none available, due to a strike by the printers in Britain, or so I was informed when I arrived at the main station in Hamburg in the company of our German liaison officer. Not an entirely wasted journey, though, as I did buy a few postcards and some stamps.
I went out in the evening to a German fraternity house. This is something for which there is no direct equivalent in Britain: it’s a kind of combination of house at school and male club, and the closest similarity is probably either the American campus houses or the Freemason lodges. There were about nine of us in the party, and we were collected from the ship at about eight thirty, and driven out to the fraternity house. There was no entertainment as such, but there was beer in copious quantities, and Coke, some music and a good deal of conversation, as they all spoke very good English. Introductions were very formal – whereas in Britain you would just tend to say ‘Welcome to you all – I’m Joe Bloggs’ etc., here they insist on everyone shaking hands upon first meeting, and introducing everyone personally, which can get a little tiring and confusing.
The house itself was just like a club, with large and spacious rooms, in one of which was a clear area where the members of the fraternity duelled. This activity was clearly one of the lynch-pins upon which the fraternity rested, and was taken very seriously indeed. We watched a demonstration of the duelling during the evening, which was quite an eye-opener.
They use sabres, with sharp blades, and are entirely unprotected during an actual duel, though for our demonstration they wore full protective clothing. Unlike fencing, where movement is all-important, in this form of contest movement is forbidden. The duel starts with the two combatants at a sabre’s distance apart – measured by each placing the basket of his sabre against his own chest, and the two then moving together until the points of their sabres touch their opponent’s chest.
On a given command, both sabres are raised to forehead level, with the blades pointing upwards and touching, and then, again on a given command, the two combatants proceed to hack each other about the head and face. The rules are simple – you carry on until told to stop by the referee; you don’t move your feet; you keep your left arm behind your back, and you don’t let the hilt of the sword fall below eye level. The result of these contests – which are really nothing more or less than tests of courage – are cuts and scars on the scalp (usually) and on the face (occasionally). There is a complicated series of contests to go through before a person is considered to be fully a member of the fraternity. All a bit odd, really, not to mention bloody dangerous.
Monday 28th November 1983
And a very quiet day again, especially for me, as I did almost exactly nothing;
not even sticking my nose outside the ship all day.
Tuesday 29th November 1983
We were supposed to be sailing today in Procedure Alpha, but the weather was so lousy that we scrubbed that idea, and slipped quietly away with the minimum of fuss at about 1100 this morning. The passage down the Elbe took all the afternoon, and it wasn’t until early evening that we were able to turn south for Portsmouth.
I was up in Flyco for a brief spell in late afternoon, as the pilot was lifted off by helicopter. There are always at least two pilots for the Elbe – a river pilot, who covers the end of the river near Hamburg, and a sea pilot, who does the rest of the river. We had disembarked the river pilot by boat at about 1230, and the sea pilot was collected by helicopter at the mouth of the Elbe itself, when the weather was really getting quite rough.
We were recording winds of over fifty-five knots on the flight deck, but obviously the pilot was very experienced, and made light of the conditions – usually he winches the pilot (that’s the sea pilot) up and down from decks of cargo vessels, so I suppose to be able to land on a proper flight deck was something of a luxury for him.
The ship was supposed to be carrying out check test flights for 814 Squadron prior to their disembarkation on Wednesday morning, but the wind was so high and the sea so rough that flying was
scrubbed for the day.
Wednesday 30th November 1983
The plan was to get shot of all the Sea Kings at ten this morning, to Culdrose via Manston and Portland, but the reality proved rather different, as one of the aircraft succeeded in going U/S on deck and is still with us at the moment. We are now hoping to fly it off tomorrow morning, if the maintainers can get it fixed. There is, of course, a vast difference between a fault which prevents an aircraft carrying out a sortie – almost anything can affect it, like radar, sonar or Doppler problems – and one which stops it flying off a ship to a shore base, and the problem with this aircraft is with one of the engines, so it’s obviously quite important to get it right before the thing tries to disembark. The only surprise was that the offending aircraft wasn’t the ‘Hangar Queen’ (an aircraft which lives in the hangar and never flies).
The motion of sea has now fortunately moderated, as the ship has moved south and into the sheltered area between Britain and the Continent, and it really is quite comfortable again. Also, everyone’s happy now, as we are nearly home, and home for Christmas, which is just as important.
The very last Bad Taste Show of the year went on the air tonight, and was the start of quite a reasonable evening’s entertainment, with the CCTV network showing the full video of the Sods Opera, and the Wardroom showing The St Valentine’s Day Massacre – lots of blood and guts.
Thursday 1st December 1983
Well, the Sea Kings which were supposed to go yesterday didn’t, as already reported, and the duff one is still with us. They are now hoping that an engine change will do the trick…
H.M.S. Illustrious Page 16