AK: So here we are at Ron Thomas’s house in Redland, Waverley Road on the 11th of August 2015. And this is Andy King interviewing Ron Thomas about his time particularly at Portishead National School but obviously all the stuff that leads up to that. So Ron you were just talking to me just now about how you came to be at Portishead, would you like to just go over that again. I mean you can start right the way back and say where you were born and….

RT: Ok, well I was born in Plymouth in 1944. Er, lived there until I was, I think, 7. And then er, met my father for the first time when I was 5 and then we left there and went to work, my father went to work in Lymington in Hampshire. Erm, if I digress, the the [he stutters] my experience, the, one of my first experiences which was I felt was bad was I was in school in Plymouth in the nursery school, and I can remember this quite well, I was about 3. We used to go to sleep in the afternoon in cots, canvas cots and I can still smell it because it was, it was urine and milk that were on the cots and it used to smell terrible. But this particular day, I walked in a young child and I stood on the teacher’s foot, on her toes. This wasn’t intentional – I was 3, 3 or 4. I walked in, stood on her toes, she pulled me out, dragged me, threw me in a cupboard and told me everyone was going to come and get me; locked the door, no light and I was left in there for a period of time. Er, it was pretty grim, she did it to another boy a number of years later he was, he was very very ill. So we moved then, we moved to Lymington. In Lymington erm, I didn’t, I don’t think I fitted in very well. My mother was quite neurotic. We used to go to the cinema - Sunday Monday Thursday; the films would change all the time. This particular Monday we’d been to the cinema on the Sunday, the Sun…, the film was a bit late running or was longer film, went to school on Monday and I was late. And I got into the school and it was a teacher there by the name of Mr Horne, erm, and he said to me ‘where’ve you been, where’ve you been?’ I said ‘I’ve been to the pictures; I went to the pictures yesterday’. And his words to me was ‘you went to the pictures on the Sabbath?’ I didn’t know what the word Sabbath meant. But he said you went to the pictures yesterday and I presumed then that the Sabbath must be Sunday, I said ‘yes’. He turned around to me and he said a few nasty things, but then he called me Tom-arse. And arse in 1952 was a very strong word. And I was in that school for 2 years and I had hell for 2 years, everyone used to word Tom-arse; teachers included. So [he sighs] but then my father had a move of jobs and we came to Bristol. And by then I think maybe I’d sort of lost the plot, got mixed up with a few people – nothing to do with my parents. I got mixed up with some people, things happened, stole something, went shoplifting, er didn’t go to school very much and eventually stole a motorbike, er stole a car and erm from then on things just went downhill. So I, eventually I went to, went to the court er and was said that I needed, um, they needed to do erm, I can’t remember the word now, erm [pause] a a a an assessment of me. So I went to a place called Langport. Erm, at Langport er, something happened there – they gave me cauliflower cheese. I’d never had cauliflower cheese in my life, I tasted it, I didn’t particularly like it, but it was then served up for my next meal and my next meal and my next meal. It went on for about 5 or 6 meals and eventually I ate it because I was hungry. Erm, there was also another incident there which maybe should be said, there was a couple of boys who stole a police car. The police came; they arrived and left the keys in the car. And they stole the car. And they didn’t get very far but they, and they were brought back. And those 2 boys had to walk around with a pair of plimsolls and a vest and nothing else to wear. And that and there were women there and at that age it was grim. So, Langport they assessed that I needed to be taken into care, er and I was taken back to Bristol Court, and at Bristol Court I was sentenced to a year. Er, so the first thing I was, that happened then, I was taken away and I went to Kingswood Classifying Centre erm and there there was a few things that happened but one of them that I remember quite well was one evening it was quite a light night, we were told to go to bed, go to sleep. And there was a young boy who erm sort of whispered whatever it was ‘have you got a Mars Bar?’ or whatever he whispered I can’t remember, but he whispered something to me and this officer came in and said ‘I told you not to speak’. And he had his rather large stick with him and told him to get out of bed. I said ‘well you can’t hit him he’s young’, so he said ‘ok, you can have it’. So I had the cane for him. Erm I was then sent to a place in er, Banstead Surrey - er short sharp sentence for for correction. I was very West Country in my brogue then and [pause] [he stutters] when I’m there I I used to get beaten up quite frequently by the local London lads – it was mostly Londoners that were there. One particular day I was in er, in the shower, they came in the shower, they just beat me and kicked me and whatever, and I was black and blue. And this, an officer there, an ex-guardsman was standing there watching, he thought it was quite fun. That evening or the next day or whatever, I I knew they would come up to where we used to sleep like, and so what I did was I took my clogs to the bedroom with me, and when they came up I kicked and fought and I hit and whatever and there was a couple of broken limbs. And this officer who watched this in the shower came up and said ‘do you realise what you’ve done?’ and he started to beat me. Erm and eventually I ended up under a bed which he threw on top of me and he kicked me er he said ‘what happened in the shower was quite funny, it wasn’t, they weren’t doing it to be harmful’. So anyway I ran out, got out of a window, went down, stole a car, came back to Bristol, was here a few days, I got caught, I was taken back and the chief officer who was there (this was sort of towards the middle evening), he said ‘oh’ he said ‘we’ll sort this out tomorrow morning’. So, ok, and I was, as I was walking away this guardsman, ex-guardsman was walking beside me and he said ‘erm, we’ll sort this out a little bit later’. And I knew what he meant so the same thing happened again, I broke out again, went down, stole another car, crashed the car in Reading area – no motorways then, and went to court and they said that I was not going to be allowed to go back to Banstead, I was going to go somewhere else. And at that point I think I believed there must have been a god because I think if that, if I’d have gone back I think that man would have killed me. He was horrible. One other thing I’m just going to say about Banstead, we used to go out on Saturdays and Sundays to do cleaning for people or cutting lawns or whatever. And there was one there one Saturday it was a very nice hot summer’s day and I was mowing the lawn. And there was a woman there s-s-sitting on her lounger or whatever you call it, with a nice big pitcher of orange beside her. And she shouted over ‘boy!’, so I sort of ‘yes’. And she said ‘come here’, so I went over, I said ‘yes’. She said ‘would you like a drink?’ I said ‘oh yes please’, I was eyeing up the orange. She said ‘if you go round the side of the garage you’ll find a tap on the side of the wall’.

AK: Hmmm

[00:09:15] RT: No offer of a cup [he laughs] but there was a tap. Anyway that was a, I mean to me, I suppose I ought to finish that. I went back to the school, told the boys various things and on the S….. We used to go to church, it was 4 times a day every day, and on Sunday we went [he stutters] we had a church in the school. On Sunday we went to church outside of the school. And we were there and she was sitting on the pew in front of me, so I reached over, I took her purse, I took all her money out of the purse and distributed it amongst all the rest of the boys – and put her purse back. When it came around for the collection she pulled out her purse, opened it up and so surprise there was no money in there. And she looked at me, and she knew I had it - but it had gone. It had all gone everywhere. And [he stutters] when we got back to the school they asked all about it and ‘no not me I didn’t touch it’ I was standing there – sorry. So I felt I got it back on her, I thought it was a bit low. So from there I went to, back to Kingswood er Classifying Centre and someone said to me ‘your Dad was in the Navy, why don’t you think about things like that?’ That thought never crossed my mind. Anyway I said I’d like to go to Portishead Nautical School not knowing what it was or anything. And Captain Campbell came up to Kingwood Classifying Centre. Now I think [he stutters] there were, I’d actually forgotten this, I was reminded – you had to be interviewed to go to Portishead. You didn’t, you didn’t go there. You were, you were, you couldn’t be sent there, you had to be accepted. So I met him, er, said about me father, er and I said I didn’t really know too much about the navy but it could be interesting for me whatever, whatever, whatever. So he erm, he said ‘yes, you can come on board’. So whatever it was, a week later er, I was then taken from Kingswood Classifying Centre down to Portishead, erm, and that was I think that was somewhere round about 1958.

AK: Hmm hmm

RT: ..was when I went there. Erm, where do we go now?

AK: How much did you know about the place? You say you know, you didn’t really know what it was, you obviously knew of its existence.

RT: Not until a couple of boys had told me about it. Erm, one of them was one I met in a court, a guy named McLaughlin, and he’d been there and he’d been a bit naughty and he’d he’d lost his chance there, he couldn’t go back. But he said it’s you know, it’s it’s – we’re all wise after the event – he said ‘it was a really good place. I messed up’. So that’s what happened, that’s how I arrived in Portishead.

AK: So what were your impressions when you first got there?

RT: Erm, rather scary. Erm, it was quite military erm [pause] It was quite military, run on military lines. Erm, everyone was in the same uniform, what we call the number 8s, or number 1s. The number 8s was blue jeans, blue shirt, a jumper or a long sleeved jumper, short sleeved long sleeved jumper, and everyone was going about their business. And we had what they called was a ‘tug’ who stayed with you through your first month in the school. So you arrived, he showed you the ropes, where to go, w-w-what classes you attended. Erm, yes it was very big, dormitories that we were in. Erm, you received the laundry number, you received a number that was for your pay, erm, that, he did all that. Then the next, one of the first experiences then after that was going down to Portishead docks which we marched down there – erm didn’t make any difference whether it was a hot sunny day or whether it was two foot of snow, we marched down to the docks, and in the docks we got on board a cutter and we rowed up and down the docks. Now the first time you ever row a boat, I mean the oars I can’t really recall the size of them but I would say they were at least 10 foot in length or maybe a bit more. Erm, you’re 14 years of age and you’ve got this oar and you try to pull it and it just goes out your hand and it goes into the docks and the air gets quite blue by the commander who’s operating the boat. But, and then they had something that they called ‘toss oars’. So you’ve got the oar, you bear down on the inside part, catch the outside part and throw it up so it’s standing vertically. Er. the oar used to go over the other side, it would hit someone’s head, it would do all kinds of things, but over a period of time you start to master that. Erm, it was a challenge, I think everything they did in Portishead was a bit of a challenge, but nothing that you couldn’t do. It wasn’t like, in Banstead you had to run a mile and you had to be, you had to all more or less cross the line at the same time. If you didn’t, they’d hit you. Whereas in Portishead everything, you you were fed slowly and you were encouraged to improve. You know they might shout at you for catching a crab – catching a crab is when the oar goes a bit skewwhiff in the water. Erm he he’d say ‘well come on, you you should be mastering that by now. You know this is the third time getting in the boat.’ ‘Yeah, alright, alright’. And, but slowly but surely we would get better. And we would be improving. Erm, there was an occasion down there when…. We used to have what they called Admiralty Inspection. That used to happen every year. And Admirals from the Royal Navy and high ranking officials from the Royal Navy used to come to Portishead to inspect us. And they were offered to a cutter race. We would go either to Portsmouth or Southampton (I really can’t remember the time but I think we rowed up and down Portishead docks in under 7 minutes.) and the offer was declined. We were up for it, they might have beaten us I don’t know but we, we pulled our hearts out to make sure that that boat went up and down. Erm, you progressed then from, you went into Seamanship 3 to start with, which we learnt the basics of seamanship, then you went to Sea-seamanship 2. Then it would depend then which way you were going to go, whether you you had the opportunity to go into engineering, into painting and decorating, into carpentry and building, into catering cooking and erm, stewards, and then, or to go into seamanship. And then some of those that went into seamanship er, they went, some of them actually went on into the Royal Navy, erm, majority of young people went into the Merchant Navy, which is what I did at completion. So you went in there, Seamanship 3, Seamanship 2, some decisions were made then, and then if you were going to go on you’d then go into Seamanship 1. You also had other erm, you you did other classes there – not a lot – but we, I mean I think possibly there might have been a thought that Seamanship was, also included your English and your writing skills because you had to produce paperwork. But we also had a Geography, History lesson by a person called, or it was by the Chaplin commonly known as Chaps – er Wins, Winsey Richards who started the rugby team in Portishead. And we had a very good team. [Pause]

AK: So how many boys were there in your time?

RT: Eeeerr, I think about 120, 118,115, but I think each dormitory; each dormitory was 50 so there would be 150. So there was the Hood - the dormitories were Hood, Anson and Benbow obviously named after ships, yeah ships and Admirals. Yeah that’s right.

AK: And, what I know about Portishead towards the end was that the staff to boy ratio was really quite high, so there were a lot of staff there. Was it like that in your time?

RT: There were, there were, yeah there was qu…., I mean I [he stutters]. I’ve read about what you’ve just said and yes if the staff ratio, if the boys were down to 20 boys it would have been quite big but I can’t see where they would be any bigger when we were there. We had [he stutters] literally you had the Captain, his second or the second in command; erm there were the 3 division housemasters; there was the Chaplain and there was Mr Tuffrey (?) painting and decorating; erm Harry Horseman who did carpentry; Chiefie Charlton who used to do the boiler; er ‘Commie’ John Johnson and Mr Hefford Commander Hefford who took the 3 seamanship classes; I can’t remember right now his name the engineering officer who who took you for metalwork and and lathes or whatever but that; and Joe Brimley was the erm, physical teacher for PE er for sports. So the, and and then there were some women upstairs who did the er looked after the er, I don’t know the word now, needlework to repair your…. Yeah they used to do that. So, and then there, sorry Cakey Deals the guy who ran the catering department and there were 2 cooks. So you would need I would, yeah if you wanted to keep the the that level of service up then you’d need all those people which would be a lot for 20, 30 boys. But when there was 120 there erm….

[00:20:39] AK: Still not bad though, that number of people.

RT: Yeah.

AK: And were they all ex-Navy or Merchant?

RT: Mostly; the the the bulk of them were RN, MN but some of them had been in the Army erm, they’d had some attachment to a service somewhere be it Reserve; Merchant Navy Reserve in the Se…, in the Second World War or seen active service and whatever, but yes they’d they’d been, they’d been attached to things like that.

AK: So your days were pretty well mapped out for you all the time. Did you know what was coming each day? Was it just a matter of you know, did you have a timetabled week or did you just know your time was [they talk over each other]

RT: Yeah, I think if I remember, 7 o’clock we were up, I think it was 7 o’clock. Erm, breakfast then was between.., well you got up, washed, whatever, made your bed because then you’d have a, erm, a a dormitory inspection. You’d clea…, you’d, you’d buffer the floors, clean the floors. Erm, 8 o’clock was breakfast, and then I think about quarter to nine, 9 o’clock, quarter to nine there was divisions. So you would go into, depending; it could be out on the the the foreshore there, or it could be out on the erm it it could be in the gym. So the the 3 divisions would be in the gym, the Captain would come in on the gallery or he’d come down on the floor, there’d be any announcements if there was anyone thing gone wrong or someone’s run away during the night or anything like that. There’d be announcements and then you would erm, leave there and go off to your various classes – seamanship 1, 2, 3, catering, yeah your day would be taken up. You’d have a smoke-o I think was 11, quarter to 11 ‘till 11 o’clock. Lunch then, I can’t remember, I think it was 12 ‘till 1and then you’d be back into classes in the afternoon. Erm, there would be sports, you’d be practising for the rugby or cricket, or or rugby and football and then you’d be practising cricket. Erm, we used to go on camps. Erm there was one, I might call it a funny story that we went to Monmouth. And when we were in Monmouth, 3 boys went shoplifting; and they got caught. And the, Johno came up from Portishead, up to Monmouth to the camp and he obviously had seen the shopkeeper and he came on to the the on to the campsite and we’re all sort of watching. And he got the 3 boys and he said ‘right, I’ve seen the shopkeeper and he’s left it 2 ways. I can sort it out with you or he will go to the police. If you go to police you’re going to go to court. If you go to court and you’re not coming back to Portishead and that’s it’. And they didn’t want to leave Portishead. So he said ‘well you’ve been stupid but.’ and all those words but he said ‘right so you want me to sort it?’ ‘Yes’ they said. So he gave them a knife and he said ‘go in the woods, cut, cut, cut your own cane. And don’t come back with a twig.’ So off they went, cut their…. He said ‘yes, they’re alright’, and they had 6 cuts each. He then took them down to the shop to say sorry, and when they came back they came back with an enormous box of chocolates. We all said the shopkeeper must have been so unhappy for the boys he gave them these chocolates. But that, that really to me is the example of Portishead. It was…, I’ve seen the punishment book in the repository down in your…. And I had the cane quite a few times. I don’t remember it. I just don’t remember it. I’m not saying we ought to go round caning people, but I know I don’t remember having the cane. And 9 times out of 10, even 10 out of 10 in Portishead, be this the right way to say this, you knew you did something wrong and you knew you were going to get the ca… I’m not saying you deserved it, but other places I was at they hit you because they felt like it. At Portishead you got the cane for a reason. No one hit you out of the blue. They, that didn’t happen in Portishead. Erm, you felt a worth, you could join the band. We’ve [he sighs] in one of these pictures here there’s what we call a Breeches Buoy display. Erm, we did that for Prince Philip, I think it was in Taunton. We did a display down there for him. Erm, you, you, you went out, you felt part of something, you were doing something, you….. We used to go on Civil Defence er, manoeuvres, but we used to go down to Tiverton, to Taunton. We were guinea pigs. We were put plasters on, we had a bone sticking up here or we had a dislocated shoulder or whatever and they would stick us in all kinds of peculiar….. But, and then they would, the Civil Defence people would come down looking for us and they’d carry us out and…., but we were stuck in very…. So [he sighs] we were used, but we also felt that we were …

AK: Doing something valuable.

RT: Yeah, that’s right. That’s what it comes down to. There were things we did in Portishead. We used to, the the marching band used to go down there. We used to go to flower shows, we used to help people if they were setting up tents. There were things we did, as you say, you you felt a worth rather than just being pushed into a corner. I mean, I, you know I, I look at the schools in Bristol and you think well why should I say Portishead is special, because all schools are special, all kids are special. But it, there I think the schools in in Bristol or Nottingham or wherever are expected to turn out young people that are going to go on to university. Here they didn’t know what they were dealing with; there was all kinds of… Some, some kids, a lot of us said we think they should never have been there. They were there for care and protection, and maybe that was the wrong place. But they survived, and they went on to sea, a lot of lads went on to sea. I went on to sea, I was at sea for 10 years and I loved every minute of it, and - I still miss it. But erm, it it was something in Portishead that it was special. And they saved such….. I know in my records, in my records within, I don’t know 2 or 3 months, it says in there er ‘don’t really know what we’re going to do with this boy. We’re not sure if there is any hope.’ Erm, they saved me from prison, and they saved me and many many others, from…. Some boys did go to prison, they did, but the majority of them….; And the other really sad thing for me which I I do feel quite sad about this, is when I was leaving Commie John, a very rough old guy the one with the torpedoes very rough old guy ‘Now listen Tommo, you’re getting out of here now. Now get down to Avonmouth, get on your first ship and you clear off. Don’t want to see you again. Don’t forget, when you’re 18 all this will be taken off your record, you’ll be clear, you’ll have a fresh start.’ ‘Thank you Commie John, thank you da da da da..’ and off I went. A number of years later, maybe 15 years ago we worked with young people and I had to be CRB checked – and everything was on there – everything. I don’t believe Commie John told me a lie. I don’t believe that. I believe Commie John believed what he was telling me – as he told many other boys – that once you’re out of here when you’re 18 you will be clear, you’ll have a clean start. I th.., I think that was so unfair, to give that man that information, because I, for me Commie John was not a liar.

AK: Mmmm, yeah I guess though once you’ve got a record, you’ve got a record haven’t you though…

RT: Yeah [he stutters] we erm went to see, I don’t know if you’ve come across him, Chief Inspector I think he was, Chris Gould who was to do with Childsafe. Erm, I spoke, because we we spoke to him but when there was a-a-an issue in Bath a number of years ago and I spoke to him about it and he said ‘ no’ he said ‘people think that. It’s not true.’ He said ‘once there’s a record there, there’s a record.’ It wouldn’t ne.., it wouldn’t have come out if I was applying to be a lorry driver that had to go into a s-s-s.. in to the bank , that wouldn’t come out. But because you’re going to work with children erm, but then you think well stealing a car, don’t see what that’s got to do with children.

[00:30:18] AK: Yeah, yeah. Well I guess you know, perhaps what he meant was that your record wouldn’t be revealed if you were going for a job or something like that. You know, if you were doing anything criminal it was bound to come out again isn’t it?

RT: Yeah

AK: The CRB checks are, or were for criminal activity in the past.

RT: The other thing that is, recently this happened, we’ve got some ensigns a-at Portishead and they’ve been re-erected from where I’m not sure; but the guy who was looking after them is quite ill and he asked me if I would take them on. And I said that I thought they’d be better going back to where they belong which was the church. And so I took them back to the church erm, a few days ago. Er and they they’re on display in the church. And whilst I was there er, one of the people in Feddon Village said ‘oh how are you?’ And he said ‘oh did you see the buzzard up there?’ And I said ‘no’ and he showed me and there there it was, there was a buzzard up in the tree. Now I, I would really like this to be the truth, but I’m not sure. When we were at Portishead and we went to a camp, I think it was in Lynmouth, there were a couple of buzzards there that were injured. So we took them back to the school and a vet sort of sorted them out and whatever and we kept them in a like an aviary, quite a large aviary for a period of time, and then everyone said, you know, it’s not very fair caging them so they were let free – and they stayed. But someone shot one of them. We don’t know who, we had our thoughts but we don’t know who. And the other one disappeared, but they do say that they do come back and I would like to think that that buzzard up there was a descendant of the ones that we looked after, that would be so nice.

AK: Yeah, absolutely

RT: We’ll never know. But going back to Portishead, I can’t honestly sing the praises of that place enough. I just can’t.

AK: It obviously did you some good.

RT: It did. It did. I-I-It changed me.

AK: You say a few of the boys re-offended and got into trouble again - what sort of proportion do you think?

RT: As far as I can gather, the ones that I know, out of the 120 that were there when I was there, I think there were about 6 of them re-offended. Erm, it’s quite amazing how many people are dead - that I was with – and have been dead 20 and 30 and 40 years, which I was surprised. Erm, one of them, he he, not dead, but he was hit by a helicopter. He was in the RN this helicopter was manoeuvring or something he got hit by it, he’s now in a wheelchair and on support; erm, he’s not in a very good way. Another guy Blackie Hession (?) he died, he was in the Army, he was on a wherever he was going on this motorbike in the Army. Car came round the corner and hit him, erm, he died. [He sighs] Quite a few, as I say quite a few of the lads have died which is a, you know, which was a surprise to me – that they’ve….. We were all relatively fit there. We we, you know, we did play sports, erm we did run. We had a, and in today’s world I suppose it wouldn’t be allowed, we had an assault course there. We used to climb up this, we used to climb up over the mast at the top of the mast, down the other side, one turn around the field, up and then there was a sky, skyhook, we went down into a, into a cargo net and you did various things right through there. So that was something else that.., but that was all made, we made that. Nothing was bought in, it was spliced by us, it was made by us, the cargo net was made by us, everything was made there, and you felt part of it. N-nothing just walked in through the door –‘oh hang that up over there’, if you wanted it you had to make it. The breeches buoy, the breeches buoy that we used er that we we sewed it. We we made it. Erm, you know when you sort of think like yeah so what you made it, but it did mean something. It was something that was part of you, part of, part of, it belonged to the boys.

AK: So you were sentenced to the year in…

RT: Originally yeah.

AK: ….originally. Did you regard being at Portishead as a continuing sentence, or was that just going to school there?

RT: Well no ‘cause,I I mean, literally what happened, because of the the car I was then resentenced to 3 years. And then the second time I was resentenced to 3 years which was not added on which sto.., that then had finished and this was added on, or this was made a new sentence of 3 years. Erm, yeah, at Portishead you were, you were walk, working towards getting your licence to leave, that was what you were doing. Erm, I was stupid. I can’t remember what I did, we went through phases, you had, you you were, you were, when you arrived you had no stripe, after I think 3 months you could get one stripe. After 6 months as long as you behaved yourself and whatever, you got a second stripe and after maybe 9 months you got a third stripe and maybe a year or a bit less than a year you had an anchor which meant to say were leading hand or leading boy so you would, you would er take control of the parade. You would take control of the the meetings in the morning you, you, you’d give them, give out marching instructions – that is what you would do. And I can’t remember what I did, I got all the way up to an anchor and I got right the way back to zero, and I had to start again. Erm I met the boy recently who was quite proud of his record. He left there I think in one day less than a year so everyone said to him ‘oh you must have been a bit of a creep’. [He laughs] He got out in, in, in less than a year. I think the majority of people down there were maybe 14, 15, 16 months they stayed there. Erm, I mean, I must have been there that sort of period of time. Erm, then we used to go up in front of a committee er, to to apply for a licence. Erm I I know, I I think, I don’t know how this worked but I I could get my licence if I went to sea. And I had to agree to that. Erm, other people got licence and they could leave. I could only get, I erm, or else I’d have had to stayed longer, so that is what I did. Erm, but it was quite daunting, you used to go up, because there were, there were 4 dormitories, 4 divisions. You had Benbow, you had Benbow, Hood [pause] Anson and in here was a, was like a, there was like a games room in there. There was a couple of billiard tables, table tennis tables and that. But that also was a place where you went for your assessment for whether you were going to get a licence if you like. You were, normally you were dressed in your number 1s, your full uniform, your hat [he stutters] you sort of marched in - ‘off hats’ and standing there. Erm, they would sort of mutter amongst themselves on the top table, and eventually someone would then say, whoever the chair was would say ‘well erm, careful consideration, erm you know, we don’t think you’re ready yet to be licenced’ and your heart went on the floor because you thought you’d done it all right. So you walked out and erm, you know, tried to sort out….. The officers they would say, you know, some of them would say ‘well I thought you were ready. But obviously someone, you know, higher than me thinks not’. So….

AK: How long did you have to wait before you were able to go [they talk over each other] before them again?

[00:39:30] RT: I think, I can’t remember whether it was something like 6 weeks, 8 weeks. They would be, you know, you would start again. Erm,[he stutters] they, they were fair though. They were fair, which is I think the important thing for…. I mean a lot of people have said to me ‘it would be nice’, you know when I’ve spoken to people, ‘it would be nice if we could have a place like Portishead again.’ You can’t. You might have a new Portishead, but you can’t have that Portishead. That Portishead can’t come back. Erm, part of me, I think I would, I would pay more tax if we could have a form of conscription but not necessarily a military one. Somewhere where young people could, could feel valued again, because that it what that place did. That is what it did more than anything else. And I, in some ways I think it maybe it was a form of conscription. A different way of conscription as opposed to being 18 and running around in a field with a gun. Em, it was run on Na…, it was very Navy minded and I think when I was there (I don’t know about other Captains) Captain Campbell erm obviously ex-RN er, he could fly the Blue Ensign. Erm, I mean even that even something as trivial as that that that was erm…. You could, when a Naval vessel, do you remember the Venturer in Bristol?

AK: Mmm mmm

RT: Yeah, well we used to go on there. We used to do long weekends on there. Erm, and when she came up and down, or if there was any Naval ship we had to go out and and form a line on there, a bugler would come out and we would dip the Ensign to that ship. And they always responded. So [he sighs] how do you say er, at sea (I know this is, you know, a cliché of you’re all in the same boat) but it don’t make any difference whether you’ve got gold braid or whether you’re the cat, if you’re in the Atlantic and you’re going down …

AK: You’re part of the team.

RT: Yeah, you’re, you’re, you’re pa…, you’re a sailor. And I think there’s a sort of bond that’s there and it it started there. It started there. I did meet one lad when I was at sea and I didn’t get him at all. I shared a cabin with him this was my, I think third trip to sea. He was ex-Portishead, he’d been out a while, and he was stealing cigarettes – on the ship. And cigarettes were then they were, as in today’s world 50p, 10 shillings for 200 cigarettes. And he s-stole packets of cigarettes. He got caught: and he got a hiding. But I didn’t get that. I didn’t understand it at all. You don’t steal off your shipmates.

AK: No.

RT: You might walk down the road and find a tenner, and you’d put it in your pocket, but you, you didn’t do that with your shipmates. And it was the same with Portishead, you know, you didn’t do things like that. And if you did, er, you’d get a hammering from both ends. You’d get it from the Officers and you’d get it from you-your mates. You just didn’t do that. Going outside you would steal – but not inside. [He sighs]

AK: So you went to Portishead in ’58?

RT: I think it was ’58. Yeah, ’57, ’58.

AK: And then came out again and went to sea….

RT: Went to sea in ’60.

AK: When you went to sea, you say you went down to Avonmouth and found a ship

RT: New York City

AK: You went on City Line

RT: That was the first one.

AK: Where did you go?

RT: New York, Philadelphia, Newport News, Newark and then back. Yeah, and then the next one was the Bretwalda. The same old thing that a lot of sailors say, he said we were coming back at Christmas, he failed to tell me which Christmas, and it, that was one of those. We went away and whatever it was, November time, September, November time and we didn’t come back until the following year – just after Christmas. That was a very exciting voyage for me and er, I don’t know if we can say this, this year I’m going back to Cuba.

AK: Ah ha

RT: At Christmas. Yes, I was there then when the Missile Crisis. And 15, 16 years of age it didn’t really make a lot of difference to me, it was what was happening was happening. Erm, I met Raul Castro while I was there because there were, there weren’t that many ships because the Americans were putting embargoes on there. Er, and there were so many things that happened during that time on that ship. We went from, we went from Cuba to go through Panama to get stores to go on to China and we were stopped from getting stores. Er, we had to go to Cartagena Columbia to get half rations to go back to Pa, to Panama and we could transverse Panama but we had to go all the way up to Vancouver to get stores because the Americans wouldn’t let us have any stores because we were leaving Cuba and we were going to Communist China. So, and they buzzed every day with planes and it was, it was stupid. We weren’t carrying any contraband, there was nothing, we were carrying grain. But erm and, the amazing thing for me about that, about 3 years later I went to, I went on another ship we went back to the States and when I went up to get my form signed to to to go ashore, I was granted no shore leave. Er, and I said ‘why?’ he said ‘you’ve been to Cuba’. And on my Seaman’s Record there is nothing on there that says I went to Cuba. And I said ‘well how do you know?’ he said ‘well, we’ve got our means’. So didn’t understand that. But yes, I sailed then, I sailed out of Avonmouth, banana boats, erm I did one passenger ship, the Northern Star, around the world in 10 weeks and 2 days. Erm, and then I I came, I did another tramp after that went up to erm, Sunderland to join that, it was a Ropner ship. Can I tell you a funny story?

AK: Please do.

RT: Ok. I don’t know whether this is politically correct. When we were in, on on the, on the Romanby, the Ropner ship, it was a tramp ship. Erm, we were in (now this I’d have to speak correctly) either in the Powell River or Nanaimo I th…, I’m almost sure it was Nanaimo. But we met some people there, and the the old fella was from Birmingham, went over to Canada in the 30s. A little bit of a ranch and it was either his son or his daughter – can’t remember – or s-son in law and daughter or son and daughter in law. But we got pally with them and we, they took us out various places, having a look around and we also went for a drink. And this particular day, we were sailing er, Tuesday so we’d asked if we could have a couple days off the weekend and Monday off. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ So that was sorted. So these Canadian people said to us ‘whatever you do, do not buy us any presents. We don’t want anything from you. It’s been great being with you. We know what you’re thinking – don’t do it! We know what your wages are – which is nothing.’ So the four of us are going off the ship, and as we’re going off er, looked in the galley. And the cook had just arrived in the galley and he’d plonked a turkey down on the table. And he suddenly shook his head and he disappeared and the red light came on in the galley which indicated he’d gone down one deck and he’d gone into the freezer. So the red light’s on telling everyone someone’s in the freezer. Neither of us spoke, just looked at each other and just went str…, straight in, wrapped it up, under the arm and down the gangway, and off we’re gone with the turkey. So we get to these people and we said ‘look’; ‘I hope you haven’t bought anything’, we said ‘no no no no this…’ And we did tell them, in the end we told them and they thought it was quite funny and we had this turkey – we ate it. That weekend (I’ve got hairs on the back of my head standing up remembering) we went out horse riding with North American Indians. It…, you can’t get a holiday like that. It’ll never happen. It was absolutely brilliant. We had such a fantastic weekend. And we went back to the ship on the Monday….. ‘Did you hear what what …?’ ‘Yeah what happened?’ ‘Someone nicked the turkey’ ‘They didn’t?’ ‘Yeah’ ‘Dear that’s terrible’ ‘The skipper.. They had to go and do something quick. They were having, getting the mayor to come down to the ship’ [he laughs] because they were having a meeting. So…. We were never caught. We were never caught, and but ok it, it was naughty, it shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry. But when you look back now it wasn’t the end of the world and he managed to buy another turkey, it wasn’t the end of the world. But there was some really [pause] none of the, all the things that happened to me afterwards would have never happened if I hadn’t have gone to Portishead then and if they hadn’t have done things erm, to to encourage me to do that.

AK: So do you think that’s the structure that they brought to what might have been a fairly unstructured life before….

RT: Yeah

AK: … that? So a sort of place that you knew exactly where you fitted within…

[00:50:02] RT: Yeah, very much so. I mean I su…, I don’t, I don’t particularly want to blame my parents. They had, they had their own issues. My mo…, I think if I reme…, well I don’t remember, my mother I think was 15 when she had me. Erm, it was, it was, it was still the war years. My father, I didn’t even know this, I when I, well my father’s dead, I spoke to him maybe 10 years ago and I said to him, I said ‘did you mind if I…’ I didn’t know my father and he also admitted he didn’t know me. But I said to him ‘When we lived in Headley Park I found a death certificate.’ ‘What? You found… Where?’ I said ‘Well in the sideboard.’ ‘What were you doing looking in there?’ Oh dear. I said ‘well can I ask you?’ I said ‘I found a death certificate’ and I said (I can’t remember the name now) I said this name and he said ‘oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.’ I said ‘well, did I have a sister?’ ‘No. No, no, no.’ I said ‘What was it?’ He said ‘I was married before’ he said ‘you don’t need to know about that.’ And it’s true, why should I know about it? He was married before, s-so what? But I didn’t see it like that. I thought well w-what’s the secret here? So, so m-my father had TB twice. Erm, he was invalided out of the Navy. Er, I, as I say I was about 5 when I met him. In the meantime, you know, me mother’s claim to fame was me grandmother said to her ‘you made your bed, you lie on it.’ Erm, so, we, I I grew up in a 2 up, 2 down in Plymouth. There was my grandmother, myself, my mother, my auntie, my uncle, my cousin - tin bath on the wall outside. T-that’s not nostalgia it’s just everyone else lived the same as well. And my mother was very neurotic, and we used to go to the cinema all the time. Er I used to, I can remember going back home with my auntie, I used to be staying at my gran’s er, yeah and there wasn’t any structure there. But then I can’t blame them because a lot of kids didn’t have structure then. Erm, but then we went to, I say we went to Lymington. My mother’s famous words about Lymington – it was a place God started - forgot to finish. Er, she didn’t like it there. We were there, do you remember eeerr, Montague of Beaulieu the cars?

AK: Yeah

RT: Well he got, you know he was [pause] for messing with young children. Well [he stutters] across the road from us was a [sic] old bomb site, when we lived there in Gosport Street. There was an old bomb site over there. He parked up there; the women were out there pelting him with tomatoes and whatever whatever. Erm, we lived there for a period of time, er my mother hated it there er and we used to make the yearly trek to Plymouth. Go from Lymington to Southampton, Southampton to Bournemouth, Bournemouth to get the Royal Blue to go to Plymouth which would take you all day. Erm, and then we’d all be crammed in this place again. I can remember, I can remember the bed, my bed. It was a chair that fell, that flopped down, used to end up with my head stuck to the bar. Anyway erm, then we came to Bristol. And [pause] life wasn’t easy for them. My mother then got a job er, I don’t know, sometimes I think there were lies told. Erm, my mother got a job in a cinema so that she wasn’t around. Me father used to come home from work. He he he, my father used to drink, but he wasn’t a drinker. He’d go for a couple of pints or whatever, I was left to, I was left, I could roam, I was, you hear the old expression ‘latch key kid’. I had that, there was a key erm, and I could do what I wanted within, within reason. But the things I did erm, weren’t that clever. And so it went on from there. Erm, I mean I said to my father not long ago er, before he died erm I said that I used to send my mother….. My wages when I first started at sea was eleven pounds twelve, eleven pounds twelve and six a month. And I used to send five pound a month home to me mother, and I told him. He said ‘What? Your mother used to get five pounds a month from you?’ I said ‘yeah’. He said ‘I never knew that’. And it was like, it was, it was all lies, it was all little lies all of it. Erm, I just recently been digging through some stuff from my parents and I’ve been looking at that and it says in there that I had german measles ‘nearly lost him’ and then whatever. And then I had german measles again ‘we were lucky that he survived this time’. You know, and you think well what was going on then? But I wasn’t any different….. There was a boy in Plymouth, his mother filled the the the bath up from the copper and he fell in - but there was no cold water in there – his back came off. There was another kid in Plymouth I remember because so many people turned out for his funeral. His dad said to him ‘if you pass your 11 plus I’ll buy you a bike’. And where I lived in Plymouth cars were…. you did never saw a car. In the town you did, but where …..you didn’t see a car. He passed the 11 plus and he got a bike and he went down the hill and a car came round the corner – over the top and died. And the people that that [he stutters] we were standing near the Plymouth Museum, the whole of that street was full of people for this kid. It wouldn’t happen nowadays. I digress I think. But no I think those, what you said about the structure, yeah that’s right, it was. And really I like structure. I can, I’ve got a calendar on my phone and I keep, I do keep it up to date because I know what I’m doing and I like that. I…., if you said to me ‘can you come down with me now we’ve got a boat in the docks and I’d like to, I’d like to do some boat pulling with you’, I’d put on my shoes and I’d go with you – that’s not a problem. But I like to know what’s happening in October, and it’s it’s nice to have…. I’ve been accused sometimes, a mate of mine that I shipped out with for many years said ‘you’re still at sea’. You know you’re loading stores, you’ve got your stores on we’re ready to sail, you know exactly what’s going on and I I, yes I like that. The structure was good.

AK: So since you came back from sea – finished, you said you did about 10 years so that’s what seventy…?

RT: 79. Yeah. What am I talking about? 69, 69-70 that was

AK: So what have you done since then?

RT: Huuh! Erm first thing I went, I became a rigger which obviously has got some connection with being at sea. Er, worked all around the country on different installations, mainly sort of power stations. Er ICI in Avonmouth, I I, or Severnside I worked there quite a lot. Erm, I was on the Severn Bridge, er Severn Bridge! - the M5 bridge. I was the shop steward on there. [AK chuckles] Er, yes I worked on there. Eeer, then I’ve worked in power stations, nuclear power stations – Winfrith a-a-a-a experimental station erm and I was steel erecting. And I started to get afraid – at heights er, I was getting worried. So I went on a training scheme, can’t remember the name of them now but it was government sponsored training scheme and I went and did welding. Er, I did that for, well I did the course and I became a welder. And I worked in various places. Obviously I had to work slowly in different places to be able to get some experience up together, erm, but eventually I ended up working in erm, in in in Cherbourg for a while on oil rigs, producing oil rigs. Er I worked in Aldermaston erm, in some tanks; we had to make up there. We could only go in I think it was something like 8 o’clock at night and we had to be out of there by 6 o’clock in the morning. But even that was beginning to take a little bit of a toll. In the meantime we had people staying in our house – from ships. Erm, that was interesting. It still had a little bit of a connection with me at being at sea, meeting different people. Er, then – I can’t remember – we had a group here and the teachers stayed with us and I was quite disgusted the way that they were treated. Erm, it seemed that everyone took their money and they didn’t provide them with what they said they were going to do. So my wife, myself we, we took the teachers out and took some kids, took some kids out one weekend and took some kids out another weekend just to show them around Bristol. Erm to give them an idea of it and letting them see the things that they’d been promised. Erm and they we were asked, you know, ‘yo-you liked doing that, would you like to do it?’ So we organised a trip from Germany, then we organised another one, then we organised one from France, then we were contacted by a company in France – would we like to work with them. So we did that for about twenty, maybe twenty, twenty one, twenty two years, organising trips for kids from France and Germany and various other parts of the world. 1999 a dog bit my finger off.

[01:01:06] AK: I was going to ask how that went.

RT: That was…, we were looking…

AK: I thought it was something to do with your seafaring.

RT: No, I [he laughs] it was quite funny to be honest because I, we were putting leaflets through doors in Yate. We were looking for new families to host the students and [he stutters] I would always put paper through the letterbox, I would never leave it sticking out because of someone might see. As I did that the dog on the other side bit through all the fingers but he took my finger off and left the bone. And the funny side of it for me was I tried to, and I phoned 999. And I said, she said ‘this is the emergency service which service do you require?’ and I said ‘an ambulance please.’ And she said, repeated it ‘this is the emergency services’ and I repeated ‘ambulance please’. And she then said ‘do you want an ambulance or do you want the police?’ I said ‘I didn’t say police, I said please’.

AK: [He chuckles]

RT: So she said ‘can I ask the nature?’ and I told her and she said ‘can you make your own way to the hospital?’ I said ‘well I don’t feel very good, my finger’s bleeding a lot’ and I I I said ‘can I start again?’ ‘Yes’ So I st…. And I said ‘and I’ve also recently diagnosed, I am diabetic’, which had happened about 3 or 4 or 5 weeks before. ‘Oh’ she said ‘you’re a diabetic, I’ll send you an ambulance immediately’. So I got an ambulance and they went around to the house – there was no-one at home. Looked through the letterbox, the dog was there and the ambulance driver said you know ‘maybe we can get your finger back’. I said ‘well I should think he’s eaten it by now’. So that was it, I was, it was gone. No it wasn’t a seafaring accident, it was a dog. So we did erm, w-w-we stopped then because things were going wrong and I couldn’t concentrate properly. The finger, i-i-it’s not that I was moaning about the finger i-i-it, I was moaning to myself ‘cause why why was I so stupid? But then I didn’t’ know there was a dog on the other side of the door. So we got over this and there was a knock at the door and there was a guardianship company man and wife. And they said ‘we’ve heard that you’ve finished working with France and would you be interested in working with us?’ Erm, you know ‘who are you? How did you hear about us?’ and all the rest of those things. So yes we said ok, they came in here and sat here and we spoke about things. We said ‘well you know we’ll think about it’. They said ‘well we really would like you to come aboard’. So we agreed. We worked with them I think 10 years. This is quite recently now, this is something like 2000 maybe 2005, 2007 somewhere about there. Erm, and then we had a bit of a falling out. Erm, there was a new person came in to the office; er I didn’t get on with her at all. Erm, it wasn’t like the the old staff had gone; the new ones were in, new broom sweeps and whatever. But er, I I couldn’t get on with her and things got to a head so we, we called it a day. Erm, er and then the the kids, we were at that particular time, I mean it might sound excessive but we were looking after 80 young people. And the 80 young people were in various schools around this area. Er, they they would go home at half terms but we would be there if they needed any help, new pair of shoes, they wanted pocket money or whatever; that would be our role. Erm, and then whe-when we finished a a number of them wanted to stay with us but we were told because we had a contract er, we couldn’t do this. It turned out in the end we didn’t have a contract at all, what we’d signed was worthless. So erm, this was after a period of time, but some of the kids did stay and they’ve stayed with us erm and now we look after or we will be looking after in this September 32 young people. Erm, that’s about enough as well. Er, the Russians, we work with Russia er with an agency over there. Er we did say at one stage we were thinking of finishing and they sent us a letter said you can’t, you mustn’t. So er yeah that is where we are now we’re looking after these young people. Er, I think this is something else as well again with Portishead that what I’ve learned from it, form there or what I’ve, what’s still in my head is with young people now there are silly things. Erm, maybe not the best example but 2 students we’re still in touch with one from Ukraine, one from Russia. They were 17 years of age; they managed to get a bottle of vodka and a bottle of vermouth and they drank it, and they were drunk, they were drunk in our house. A couple of the students came running down ‘oh he’s fallen down, he’s been sick.’ So I went upstairs Jenya (?) was his name er, Vicky Vika was the girl. They they they were drunk. So I took him and put him in to bed. She took her to bed. Rose sat with her all the night; I sat with with the boy. Er the next day life’s got to go on; I was up there, I think I was peeling potatoes or something and they came and sat down here. And they said ‘y-you want to see us’. I said ‘not particularly, no’. Erm not in a nasty I don’t want to see you but you know I haven’t asked – no. So ‘about last night?’ I said ‘what about last night?’ And they said ‘well we were drunk’, I said ‘I know’. ‘Well don’t you want to see us?’ I said ‘well’. I said ‘can I ask you a question?’ I liked to try another way. I said ‘do you like it here?’ ‘Yes’, ‘do you like Rob?’ ‘Yes’, ‘do you like Rose?’ ‘Yes’. ‘Don’t do it again please.’ And they said ‘is that it?’ I said ‘well’ I said ‘do you want me to shout at you?’ I said ‘I can’ I said ‘what good’s it going to do?’ I said ‘it’s not going to do anything for us’. I said ‘I’m asking you what you do outside of this house is your business,’ I said ‘I can’t stop you doing anything’ I said ‘but I don’t want you to do it here.’ I said ‘because I like doing what I’m doing and I don’t not want to do it any more.’ ‘Oh ok.’ And they didn’t and I’m still in touch with them now. So I think it meant something – to them. Erm, we did have a phone call about 3 weeks later from the school ‘ah we’d just like to bring to your attention….’ And we said ‘yeah we know’, ‘oh you knew?’ ‘Yeah.’ I mean I think they expected us to say ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’, that’s the way the conversation… We said ‘no and we took the bottles away, you know, what was left and that was it. ‘Oh, ok, thank you very much’. Erm, I think that is what that gave me, that there is another way. You don’t have to hit people, scream at people or…. There are other ways to work with young people and I think it’s one of the things that helps us. I’m not saying that Rose didn’t have anything like my background at all, but she was brought up with a very very very Catholic house which she rebelled against and she had different issues in her life. Erm we say to the young people ‘if you’ve got a problem please tell us – we won’t tell anyone – we won’t tell your parents unless it’s really drastic. But normally we won’t until you say to us please can you come to the school I can’t do this anymore this boy’s been, he’s really bullying me or whatever. But you’ve got to make that decision. You’ve got to tell us what you want out of it. And that’s the way that we’ve worked and I’m sure somewhere along the line it’s come from Portishead. That attitude has come from Portishead.

AK: That’s great, I think that very neatly rounds things off, it’s been a really good conversation.

RT: Thank you Andy for coming up

[01:10:15 Recording ends]