The Spinnaker

No not Dubai, jolly old Portsmouth.

On my birthday (last December) , daughter No2 bought tickets for her and I to pay a visit the the Royal Navy Dockyard at Portsmouth, some when this year for me to visit old stamping grounds before its too late! As it was we were also joined by Bryn my eldest grandson and his dad.

Although I have visited it again over the years, my main memories are of the visits I paid to it when it was all still a working navel dockyard and being accommodated on a real battleship, sleeping in hammocks, and the harbor was full of sleek grey warships. Learning how to row a naval whaler up and down the harbor, practicing seamanship driving an Admiralty MFV out around the Isle of White, practicing knots and splices, doing detachment training before joining HMS Gurkha, Navy days, taking ex President Eisenhower across to the Normandy were we sailed off the D Day beaches while he was making a film of how America won the war (just joking)

After a year spent in the Middle East it was to Portsmouth we returned with paying off pennant flying to be met by a RM Band and our friends and relations to welcome us back.

While HMS Victory and HMS Warrior are still as splendid as ever, the remaining public area is really a naval theme park full of food outlets and shops.

There were a few new modern warships to be seen but there were more that were there to be "disposed of" including HMS Ark Royal which has been sold to Turkey for scrap !

I am "old navy" and find it so sad that with the wonderful story story of Trafalgar and Nelson on show here, we have run down our fleet from what it was to just a handful of ships and carriers for which we can't afford to buy aircraft and reduced the Navy to a state when we do not have enough men to man the few ships we have.

For all that, I am very thankful for my daughter to arrange this for me and there is a great deal I enjoyed especially spending the day out with her. Thank you pet!