Sailors in the Royal Navy often get given nicknames. Some are traditional and some are of more modern origin. For example, if your surname is Long, you are called "Dodger", if it is Martin you are called "Pincher", should it be Morgan then you are called "Rattler".Those nicknames date back to the days of fighting sail. More recent ones ensure the following are applied if your surname is Parton (Dolly),Rogers (Buck),Cassidy (Hopalong),Smith (Smudger), Wright (Shiner), Wilson (Tug) and so the list goes on. Some nicknames are given because of incidents that occur to individuals and that was the case with me.

Like a lot of other guys my Dad was adamant that he would not sign any papers allowing me to join the Royal Navy. He had served in an Armoured Division in both North Africa and Italy during WWII and after seeing action at both Tobruk and Monte Cassino was of the mind that his son should do better than joining the military. So at age 14 with my big dream shattered I then decided to run away from home and managed to ship out on a deep-sea fishing trawler sailing from Fleetwood to the fishing grounds off Bear Island in the White Sea.

I did seven trips to those same areas and also off the coast of Iceland and into the Barents Sea. The life was tough and the bitter weather conditions often cruel up in those Arctic Circle latitudes. From time to time we would come in contact with Royal Navy vessels engaged in fishery protection wrangles with Icelandic gunboats. They would come aboard to check our catch and the net sizes to ensure we were not poaching undersized fish stocks. I used to look with envy at those smart RN sailors in the boarding parties and became even more convinced that there must be a better and less dangerous way to make a living than deep-sea fishing.

I eventually contacted home and made it clear that I would only return if I was allowed to join the Royal Navy as a boy seaman which still required parental consent. I guess that my mother put considerable pressure on Dad to finally relent and sign the necessary paperwork because that is what transpired. I finally got what I wanted and was able to join up.

Years later when serving on the submarine HMS/M Ambush we snagged the fishing gear of a trawler off the coast of Scotland and had to either surface or risk dragging the trawler down with us. Once on the surface our skipper was within hailing distance of the trawler captain who was naturally concerned about the retrieval of his expensive nets, bobbins and otter boards etc which were heavily entangled around our masts, periscope shears and fin.

The RN answer to such entanglement problems was to simply indiscriminately hack away all the equipment and get back underway a.s.a.p. which could prove to be a financial disaster to the trawlers owner and the crew’s earnings potential. Our Coxswain (COB) knew my background and suggested to our skipper that I direct the cutting away of the gear to minimize damage and loss. The skipper agreed and with the help of a party of submariners armed with knives, axes and heaving lines I was able to show them the appropriate sections to be cut away so they could be fully retrieved by the fishermen and then sewn back together by them.

They even got their cod-end section of the trawl containing their huge catch back intact although we lost a couple of big steel roller bobbins in the difficult transfers. The trawler captain showed his appreciation by sending over baskets of freshly caught fish, lobsters and prawns to the boat with a case of Scotch to celebrate as he said, “the biggest fish he had ever caught.”

A popular song of the day was called “Pedro the Fisherman” and that’s how I got the nickname of “Pedro” from our crew which stayed with me throughout my submarine service and it remains with me even today when in the company of old navy mates.


Peter (Pedro)

Where are you from? England

Peter,Good story,and I had wondered where Pedro
came from!


Bob

Where are you from? Ar