Basic training for all trades back in 1970 included a grounding in a wide variety of disciplines. We learned to climb ropes, tie knots, row boats, shoot guns, master assault courses, fight fires, shore up leaks and of course to perfect certain manoeuvres on the parade ground. None of us would have claimed to be expert in any of these activities and certainly some were more enjoyable than others.

I was already a proficient marksman, having attained the RAF marksman standard while in the Air Training Corps. I was a little surprised when we first visited the range to find my old friend, the Lee Enfield .303 still being used for target practice. A fine rifle and standard issue for British servicemen during WWII, it was deadly accurate at distances up to half a mile and more in the right hands.

We popped away at the usual charging man NATO target from 200, 300 and 400 yards. I grouped well from all three firing positions and found myself dispatched to the butts to help with the patching along with a couple of other potential Wyatt Earps, where paste and paper was sloshed over the bullet holes our colleagues inflicted on Fritz. A thoroughly enjoyable morning as far as I was concerned.

Having never been one for messing about in small boats, I found the first session in the whalers a bit of a trial however. For the unknowing a whaler is a glorified rowing boat with room for 8 oarsmen and a cox. If you've ever watched Hornblower, you'll have some idea how proficient boats crews are supposed to be. The crew of the whaler I was assigned to was less that useless by comparison. We made a complete mess of tossing the oars, were incapable of giving way together, continued to travel down stream when feathering and managed to lose one of the long stick-things overboard when shipping oars. If these skills were handed out at birth, we obviously hadn't reached conception yet! This turned out to be a long and painful afternoon.

The day they taught us how to wear gas masks is one that will remain with me until I die. We tried the masks on, adjusted the straps and took them off again. We coated the screen with demisting agent and went through the trying on thing again. Next they took us to an old bomb shelter and locked us in. Poof! Off went a tear gas grenade and we all donned our masks. Very good. We assumed we were finished, but oh no, not a bit of it. A gunnery instructor explained in words of single syllables that we were about to experience the joys of tear gas. We were going back into the bomb shelter where more gas would be released, only this time we would already have our masks on and would have to take them off.

In we trooped and once more, poof! Off came the masks and a disembodied voice yelled “Breath in!” It was dark in there and I thought, why? I kept my mouth shut tight and held my breath. Time passed. My eyes watered. The voice shouted “Breath you bastards!” I clenched my nose between my finger and thumb and clapped my other hand to my mouth. Someone punched me in the stomach; hard. I breathed. I chocked. I breathed some more. I retched. The door opened and daylight flooded in. We flooded out, a bunch of little boys bent double and spewing their guts onto the grass. Tear gas has no lasting effect they say, so why can I still smell the stuff whenever I think about that day?

I quickly learned that in the modern navy experience was everything. They taught us how to use fire hoses, bulls blood and carbon dioxide because fire is still one of the most fearful events that can happen on a ship. The instructors were good, very good. We learned quickly how the apparatus worked and what nozzle to use in which situation. We created walls of water that we could walk behind. We directed high pressure jets into raging infernos. We put on breathing apparatus and protective helmets and were lead through burning buildings. Exhilarating stuff.

Finally, they took us to a four storey building with an external staircase. We were still wearing the BAs and helmets. We reached the top and entered a door. The building had no floor levels, just an open metal gallery around three sides at each level and with stairs leading to the level below. At ground level was a large oil pan filled with something volatile and already alight. The building was filled with smoke and flames: all we had to do was walk around each floor level making our way ever downwards until we exited at level one. Some experience, believe me. The heat was simply amazing.

I had no idea how useful the exercise in the burning building actually was until I had to face an oil fire on a ship at sea almost three years later. That was a real-life bowel moving experience.