It really is quite strange how relatively simple events can have a profound effect on one’s life, fate, karma etc.. Hence The English Teacher’s Advice!
The English teacher’s advice was just the first of a number of events that changed my life direction. Mother’s brother, my uncle, was a chief chockhead in the Royal Navy and had regaled me with stories of the many ports and countries he had travelled to during his service years. I felt this could be the life for me but although wanting to travel I wanted a more comprehensive training that I may be able to use in later life, engineering, electronics etc. A little research led me to enquire about life in the Royal Navy as an Artificer
Royal Navy Artificer, a highly skilled naval rating that has successfully undergone a five-year formal apprenticeship in skill of hand and specialist knowledge. My preference was the Fleet Air Arm , the elite force of the Royal Navy.
To that end I approached the career’s advice teacher. The alternatives to getting initial selection were to stay on at school to get the required 5 GCE’s including maths and English or to take the entry examination of the Artificer college and gain a year by already entering training. After researching the options the career’s advice teacher bluntly told me that I would have to stay on at school to get the necessary GCE’s to try to get any chance of selection. In no uncertain terms he told me that based on my past academic record I would have no chance of passing the Artificer entry examination.
Assuming that the career’s advice master knew best I resigned myself to another year at secondary school. Until!
The English teacher knew of my desire to join the Royal Navy as an Artificer and simply said is there any reason I should at least sit for the Artificer entry examination, what had I to lose? He said he would research the application requirements for me and he subsequently arranged an examination schedule. I duly sat the examination at the local labour exchange monitored by an officer of the Royal Navy. Incidentally, I was the only person sitting the examination in the east of England at that time!
You may have guessed, I passed with flying colours. I was actually advanced by 3 months in my initial academic training when I subsequently reported for duty just two weeks after my 16th birthday at the Artificer training “ship” in the south west of England. The advancement would go a long way to my getting in to the part of the Royal Navy that I so desired,. The Fleet Air Arm (FAA)
All thanks to “The English Teacher’s Advice!”.
Chockhead- named after the “chock” that was used placed under the wheels to stop aircraft moving. (Yellow and black in the picture)
