YOMP

Jackspeak - A guide to Royal Navy and Royal Marines Slanguage.


Yomp - To Yomp - Yomping.

This image is an artist's mock up of "The Yomper." It's Royal wandering off to do his thing, off on detachment, complete with compulsory Jack Russell. Many of you will have seen the photograph of a Bootneck, Corporal Peter Robinson, with a flag attached to his radio aerial as he 'Yomped' towards Sapper Hill and on to Port Stanley. Yomper

Suddenly the inhouse slang of the Royal Marines was used by everybody, except the Paras, who call it Tabbing. Nowadays all the candidates on the Ten Tors, hill-walkers etc will tell you they are going off to 'Yomp' up that hill. Good on them.

BUT, if you knew what was really involved in Yomping you might reconsider utilising the phrase. Get rigged in all your gear, now put on your fighting order, clamber into the straps of your bergen and pick up your personal weapon. You have just added about 55 - 65 Kg to your body weight. Now some kindly soul will divide up all the spare ammunition, food and water then send you off for a wander across the local terrain, usually at night. It is no wonder that so many of us suffered multiple knee, neck and back problems. Poor wee souls.

One night, suitably encumbered I was being led through the dark depths of a village in Turkey. I realised that the dog which was attacking me was the same mutt that had savaged me 2 hours before. Our boss had taken us in a circle. My kindly Troop Sgt had allowed me to carry our anti-tank weapon, a Carl Gustav, weighing in at 16 Kg, it sat across the top of my bergen; but not for long. I lifted it up and hurled it at the dog. Now at 0400 in the middle of nowhere a conversation can be heard a long way. The noise of a 'Charlie G' bouncing down the lane was accompanied by manic giggling from my colleagues and about 50 blokes going "Shhhhhhhhhh." The boss went apeshit.

This statue is outside the RM museum at Eastney, Portsmouth, it is known simply as "The Yomper."

The Yomper Statue.