HMS ALBION celebrates 250 years of The Marine Society
My adventure onboard HMS Albion! Lucy Parkers' account of a memorable week at sea.
Sunday: PO Wright and I were collected from Hemel Hempstead service station at 5pm (an hour behind schedule). By this time we were getting fed up of waiting around especially with the sun being so hot!
Stepping onto the “Eastern area coach” I soon noticed some old faces, as well as some new ones! We headed off down to Portsmouth to spend a night onboard HMS Bristol. This seemed to be an excitement to the cadets because of all of us being familiar with the ship, plus it added on extra social time!
After having dinner, we trekked up the steps with our kit which was a chore, especially in the heat!
After our safety brief (the good old Bristol video), we made our beds and were allowed some time to mingle with each other!
Monday: An early start was made my all, after marching to and from breakfast, we stripped our beds and began the long walk down the ship with our kit! This was to be loaded onto the coach and our 3 and a half hour journey down to Plymouth to meet our home for the week, HMS Albion!
With the coach along side the ship, I felt like an ant in a forest! The ship must’ve been hundreds times bigger than our little coach, and at that point, it began to hit me that, this must be a great opportunity for a 16 year old from London Colney, to be given the chance to go on something like this!
Standing at the side of the ship, saw many other cadets from around the country all unload their luggage from their coaches and begin to climb the steps up to the flight deck of the ship! Arriving on the flight deck was a fantastic feeling, to be actually standing on a Royal Navel Aircraft carrier! We were told that we had to line up in areas, so they could do a headcount and actually work out how many beds were required!
This I felt was a little unorganised, but fair play to the ships company though, they were only notified that under 400 Sea cadets and members of staff were going to invade their home three days before we came onboard!
The rain came down an hour later, and we were still standing around waiting to be allocated a bunk!
Finally, some shelter, we were told to go below deck onto the vehicle deck, where we would once again have to wait around for 2 hours for a bed!
We were given a safety brief by the captain of the ship and some random members of staff of the SCC! This took about half an hour, soon after, there was more waiting around!
We cadets began to think whether we would actually be allocated a bed that night!
Yay!! It finally came; the words we wall wanted to hear!
“Eastern area girls…follow me!”
We were taken up the steps to the deck just below the flight deck, where the 10 girls from our area were given a mess to sleep in! This was mess 2P2!
We were soon invade by other areas who were welcomed into our mess by grumpy faces, as we were all tired and just wanted sleep! However, 2 cadets joined our section of the mess from ‘up north’ which as the week went by, got given the name ‘adopted Easterners!’
We were soon told that the lockers in our mess were not available to us, because of containing the kit of the sailors…yay…living out of our bags for the week!
Bedding was given and it was time to make our beds and get into them!! I had the joy of getting a top bunk (out of the three in one line), which required a special skill to get into it, which by the end of the week, I had mastered!
Soon after everybody was given beds, we soon heard that the Marine cadets were put into a room and were to sleep on camp beds all weeks, we were happy that we had proper beds!!
Tuesday: 4 am brought the delightful sounds of the tanoy wanting the ships company to get ready to leave for London, thankfully this wasn’t us, and back to sleep we went!
We were awoken at 6am where it was a fight to have a wash due to the lack of washing facilities for females, as well as the toilets being blocked…woops!
When all dressed, washed and ready to go, we headed around the other end of the ship for breakfast! The queues went on for ever, but we finally got there! Sitting in the dining hall, looking around, I soon recognised some familiar faces, not only from our area, but from cadets all over the country! This made me feel more at home, knowing that onboard were cadets I already knew!
After breakfast, we were all mustered down on the vehicle deck where we were split up into duties, these were: Guard; Band; and Stewards – this included me!
We were individually briefed and were introduced to each other and to what we would be doing over the week! In fact, as stewards, we didn’t really have much to do until the receptions arrived which were on Friday and Saturday!
So all we really did was sit about on the flight deck and sunbathed!
Dinner time saw the delights of me being on pot wash duty, which seemed to go on forever, and ever, and ever...
But after that, we were given a bit of free time to have a chat with the other cadets, as well as head for the showers, before everybody else did!
Wednesday: Early morning duty for me! I was on wardroom duty where I had to help out in the galley, in half blues, in other words meant, POT WASH DUTY!
After having breakfast, I got changed back in no 4s and the rest of the stewards and I were taken to the vehicle deck where we were briefed on the day’s duties: CLEANING!!
After some moans and groans, we stewards were taken upstairs to clean! I and another girl called Ailsa, were given the amazing chance of scrubbing toilet floors, which became a laugh because this was nothing compared to the other stewards who had to scrub walls!
After our cleaning session, we were able to go into the officer’s wardroom to help arrange the tables and set places for their evening meal!
After eating our dinner, we got changed into civvies and took a Thames boat to the RN College where we were able to chill and play games. Then it was a boat trip back to the ship and bed time!
Thursday: Following from the early morning routine, we got stuck into some real work! This was loading boxes upon boxes of alcohol and lemonade up to the flight deck and vehicle deck, in time for the reception which took place that evening and for Friday and Saturday! This became a struggle and by the end of it, we were tired! Lunch arrived, and the same duties continued after!
We were all let off around 3pm, where the 10 of us who were doing the reception that night, were to get our uniform all ready! Dinner arrived, which was eaten quickly, you see, being a steward, we were allowed to push to the front of the queue, so I guess it wasn’t all bad!
Then it was to get changed and up to the flight deck for the reception, where we took round trays of food and drink to the guests!
The evening ended with the sunset guard, which were 12 blue jackets and a number of marines. This was followed by an enjoyable number of tunes played by the Royal marine band! This was a fantastic sound and sent a tingle down my spine!
And yep, as you probably guessed, it was a fight for the showers and bed!
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Friday: As awoken at normal time, we were all rushed through breakfast (after getting wash and dressed of course) as this was THE day! The day that HM the Queen was to arrive onboard! Along with 500 VIP guests from the Royal Navy! This was one of the days ill remember for the rest of my life! As the queen came down on the flight deck, she was welcomed by the first sea lord! We, the stewards, were given the duty of waling around the guests with trays of drink and food to be offered to them!
I was given the task, personally, of producing a drinking for the queen; this was double gin and due bonnet! There I was walking up to the queen with her drink on a small silver tray, only for the drink to be taken off me by a member of the ships company and was delightfully told that he was going to give it to her!
I was very disappointed – only to say the least! But ah well, I carried on with my main duty regardless!
The reception ended and the guests left! We were given the chance to take part in one of the best parts of my week away!
GLASS WASHING!! There must’ve been around a thousand glasses as this seemed to go on forever! However, we were soon let off and were told to relax…we is just exactly what we did!
The staff saw a lot of unhappy faces during the evening, as we were promised a trip on a boat up and down the Thames, only to be told that this was cancelled! However, a DVD was put on in the dining room, so I guess it wasn’t all bad! And yep, once again, it was a fight for the showers, and bed!
Saturday: Morning things were done as usual, and then it was to get changed into half blues for the second reception!
This was SCC VIPs and once again, they were greeted by the Band and the Guard! Our duties once again began, walking around the 500 or so guests with trays of drink and food! As soon as the food was brought out, you were almost attacked by people!! Was good to see some friendly faces amongst the guests, these being the St Albans wolfpack: OiC Sgt Lansdown, CPO Gosling and Unit 
Chairperson Frau Gosling! Another friendly face seen on both days was the Assistant area officer Stuart Watt, who thankfully remembered my face through visits to the unit as well as me ‘looking after him’ for the two days!
The reception ended in a performance from the window ladder display team and the RM band!
The reception drew to a close and we were greeted by the large number of glasses to be washed! However, we were soon let off by the staff and were told to relax! This consisted of a lay about in our mess for a bit as well as getting ready for the night’s events…a disco boat on the Thames!
The disco proved to be a success and was the best SCC discos ever thrown in our opinion, enjoyed by everyone!
The night drew to a close and we all went back onboard, for our last nights sleep! No messing about was to be had here, we had an armed Royal Marine patrolling our deck. I think the members of staff knew cadets antics and weren’t going to take any larking about on the last night!
Sunday: Packing and bed stripping was the morning duties, after washing and eating breakfast!
A lot of sad faces were shown as we mustered on the vehicle deck for our final goodbye!
We departed the ship and waved goodbye for a journey home from London! As imagined, the journey for me wasn’t too long and before I knew it, it was me waving goodbye from the side of the road to the people on our ‘Eastern area coach!’
The week was fantastic and I had the best time onboard the ship than I ever had on any cadet course or event! Everybody I met will be missed; however, I am sure I will meet them again one day!! If an opportunity like this was to come up again, I would recommend it to anybody!
Downloadable "band-cast" .avi file 18.8 mb
See Sea Cadets National Website Report Here
Lucy Parker, July 2006