Memories - It Seems Like a Lifetime Ago.

 By this time next week, I shall have celebrated, or will still be, celebrating my sixty-second birthday. As for this week, I have been feeling quite rough with a cold, not near enough to be man flu, but there were times I felt all of those sixty-two years.

As I've been at home for most of this week, you would have thought I had plenty of time to think about what to write—no such fortune. I'm still here late into the week, wracking my brain on what to write. Nothing changes.

I decided this week to get a prompt from a picture and write about that. The first photo where I stopped scrolling was this one.

This is from 1986 and was taken by a Royal Naval Photographer; sadly, I can't remember his name. It is taken on the forecastle of HMY Britannia, The Royal Yacht. We were on a Royal Visit to China, and HMY is berthed alongside Shanghai; the buildings in the background are the famous Shanghai Bund. We had arrived there after a short stay in Hong Kong, where we frequented the infamous China Fleet Club. It was our second long trip of that year. We had been down to New Zealand earlier in 1986, and it is an entirely different tale.

Just before 0800, the Band and a few Yotties fell in for the Naval ceremony Colours. That is when the Union Flag is hoisted to start the day and performed daily in some manner in all Naval establishments and on vessels when alongside. We had been to the famous Cavendish Hotel the night before, where much Chinese food, beer and wine were consumed. To be expected, there were only so many bars and restaurants in downtown Shanghai, and we're more than likely to have fallen in with a hangover.

We're wearing our Blues; I don't think the Royal Party could have been onboard then, as we would have been wearing our Divisional Tunics. I'm proudly wearing my first good conduct badge. There were a few '3 Badgers' in that Band, so we youngsters, I was just twenty-four, had to mind our Ps & Qs, but they were the first to drag us ( yeah, yeah) out for a run ashore.

This photo pops up on FaceBook at least once a year, and it brings back many happy memories but, at the same time, is also a very sad one. 

Six of my colleagues in this photograph are no longer with us. Three died of Pancreatic Cancer; one was killed in the IRA bombing of Deal Barracks only three years after 'Snaps' took this photo. Another tragically took his own life, and only in the last few weeks, one has died of a brain tumour. One has also spent time at Her Majesty's pleasure and is now on a register. 

The power of social media means that I am still in touch with several of those in this photo, and some of them may read this blog.

This Band is made up of members of the Commander in Chief Naval Home Command Band members. We were based at Eastney Barracks in Southsea. In a couple of years I spent in that Band, I think I spent most of the time at either sea or in a field somewhere. Our Director of Music and also the HMY DoM was Captain Peter Hemming. Peter was a bit of a 'marmite' chap; if he liked you, you got on well; if he didn't, well, less said the better. His nickname for me was 'Bon Ouef', don't ask. It was a band that worked hard and played hard. We were all 'Chums and Chaps'.

Seventeen of us flew to Beijing on a plane from the RAF Royal Flight as part of this visit. Walking across the apron to our aircraft at Shanghai Airport was rather hair-raising. The Aircrew treated like lords, and we were greeted at the top of the steps with Buck Fizz. Newspapers were only twenty-four hours old, and Gin and Tonics were next before the stewards passed around the menu for the Luncheon. With lunch, we drank HM Queen's favourite red wine. We played for an event at the British Embassy and then had a whistle-stop tour of the city.

We arrived back in the UK in early December after completing further Royal Duties in Saudi Arabia and having to be escorted through the Suez Canal and up the Mediterranean Sea as far as Gibraltar by the US Sixth Fleet after the US had bombed Libya. For the rest of December, we travelled around the country performing Christmas concerts. We were nothing but busy.

That was a happy two years. I was drafted back to Dartmouth when Britannia went into for a £50m refit at Devonport for a year. I often think things might have been very different had I stayed at Portsmouth. I can't complain though.