Hi All ! Well I can only speak for the 1960's and the S A Navy but hijinks there were aplenty and the wardroom was often the scene of many a mad scene both aboard ship and ashore. One ship had the tradition that once everyone was well oiled the junior officers would have to leap overboard naked, on the starboard side swim round the stern to the port side and climb up to the quayside and go back on board over the brow and back down to the wardroom, the watch that came last stood the next round of drinks. One of the shore bases had a tradition of carpet races where some would stand on the two long edges fo the large carpet that was in the wardroom, the chosen runners would have to crawl under the carpet to the other side emerging as you can imagine disheveled and filthy, the mess kit especially if it was summer kit the white monkey jackets rather destroyed. The horses and riders game was also played and one senior officer on one shore base I served on could tie a bowtie extreemly fast and so he would run around ripping everyones bowtie loose and then the last one to get properly tied up had to pay for a round, needless to say I often had to cough up as I battled to get my bowtie tied usually landing up with it vertivcal instead of horizontal. On another occasion our wardroom visited another wardroom which was on a shore base and we junior officers landed up by taking the CO's car and placed it on the saluting dias on the parade ground. We also had many high jinks in Cape Town when the reserve base wardroom and the local Cape Town Highlanders officers mess got together and then many horses and riders, jumping off the jetty into the harbour and swimming around to the yacht basin and other silly games took place. Once after a rather wild wardroom party after exercising our right to march through the city with flags flying and swords drawn, things nearly got out of hand when some decided to have sword fights but fortunately there were a few sober heads who made everyone hand their swords over to the duty chief for safekeeping. I some times wonder if the crew imagined to themselves " And this is the lot that must lead us in battle!?" I don't know if such traditions still exist in the current navy here. Oh and speaking of GENTLEMEN when on our basic officer training course a lecturer told us " If you ever see a tombstone inscribed woith the words ""Here lies and officer and a Gentleman"" you know that there are two people buried in that grave"!!! Neville (who once had the dubious honour of being the senior midhipman in the navy because he could'nt pass the Astro Nav exam.) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Monks" <flyingarethusa@gmail.com> To: <MARINERS@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2011 9:48 PM Subject: [MAR] Royal Navy high jinks > Greetings, > > I have read of high jinks in the wardroom, especially involving the King > (King George VI ((?)) maybe). Playing 'Horsie, 'horsie, where the > lightest were jockies and the not so light were the horses and the object > was to unseat the jockie and rider. Frantic scrums and much heavy > activities in which His Majesty was reputed to ask how come he always got > the position of the horse and heaviest rider? > > Perhaps some GENTLEMEN can enlighten me as to title and activities, and > does it still take place? > > Many thanks, > > Peter > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > MARINERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >