Ship's Ledgers

Back from lunch on a warm, sunny Monday afternoon, an instructor at the Royal Naval College Dartmouth, one Lieutenant Commander Patrick …, sat down at his desk and informed his ten or so student cadets that the next hour and a half would be devoted to the fascinating subject of the links between Service Certificates (SCs) and Pay Ledgers.  He droned on, and on, and the next thing the students saw was his head falling on his hands on the desk - he had lulled himself to sleep!  Embarrassed at first,  the cadets whispered very quietly among themselves, then more boldly with suggestions that they should all leave him there and escape - but would a punishment follow?  The noise level rose, and with it the instructor's head - he had only paused for thought.

At sea later in HMS Glory on passage to the Far East, one of these cadets, now a midshipman had cause to remember the incident when he was faced with a huge ledger sheet covered in columns and horizontal lines and told to invent a name and write it in the name space.  His mentor this time was the ship's Supply Officer (Pay and Cash), a warrant/special duties officer, named  Mr. B.  The midshipman chose Bear, Frederick, Acting Leading Seaman and then had to look up in his AFOs (Admiralty Fleet Orders) to see how much money to credit Fred with each day, his emoluments.  There followed all the other details for Bear, tax code, National Insurance number, and then the circumstances which affected this individual such as local overseas allowance, specialist pay, fines, mulcts of pay, responsibility grants, allotments, married quarters charges and so on. Bear was paid each week in cash, and the amount all depended on the result of the ledger calculations.  

In practice it was the job of Writers to do these calculations, or in the case of WRNS, Writers (Pay), but only ashore, for in 1955 they did not go to sea.  But all supply specialisation midshipmen needed a Ledger Keeping Certificate in those days to prove they could understand what was going on (or not!).  So our midshipman, whom we shall continue to call Fred Bear, was put to work on a ledger with real names, real people and real responsibility.

HMS Glory meantime had sailed from Portsmouth for the Far East through the Suez Canal carrying a cargo of aircraft replacements for the front line in the Korean War.  The hangar was completely full, but it was still possible to use the lift wells for playing volley ball.   The flight deck was pretty well covered with embalmed planes but space had been left for a couple of deck hockey pitches.  The ship refuelled at Malta, Aden and Trincomalee in Ceylon before finally arriving in Singapore some six weeks later.   It should be added that the ship actually went aground in the Great Bitter Lakes at the top of the Red Sea and was pulled off by three of the giant Canal tugs without damage, but that is another story...

Fred Bear meantime had completed his ledger work and had 'run-out' the totals for each of his charges and had cross-proved his accounts.  They now had to be prepared to be sent off to the Director of Naval Accounts (DNA!) in Bath and were bundled up with all the other folios, tied with blue tape and well wrapped.  Fred was duly 'certified' by Mr B and the Supply Officer, and received his 'Ledger Certificate'.

The planes on board were due to be off loaded in the Naval Dockyard at Sembawang. In preparation for the short stay in Singapore the Supply Officer had persuaded the Captain to pause briefly in Singapore Roads to allow provision of fresh produce and Singapore/Malayan Dollars for money changing, no debit/credit cards in those days.  Fred, having done his duty so conscientiously, was allowed to accompany the Supply Officer on the visit to the Bank to collect the local currency.  There were also two armed sailors acting as escort for the cash.  It was a huge excitement for Fred, going ashore in the Orient for the first time in a ship's boat.  And the approach to the coast from the Roads was spectacular: red sun just rising, glassy sea and all those tropical smells wafting from the shore, and the entry to the palm-treed Padang up the Sweet Water Canal, those other tropical smells…

The arrival in the Dockyard seemed to coincide with the end of the Korean War, which was good news on the one hand, but meant that most of the Glory's cargo was no longer required in the Far East.  It also meant that the War support train would be reducing enormously in the very near future.  Big decisions were therefore required, and it was decided that Glory would return with its cargo of planes to the UK and additionally load as much as possible of the stores and equipment no longer required in Singapore.  Several Dockyard staff private cars were also loaded on an 'indulgence' basis, and the ship took on a decidedly 'top-heavy' appearance.

She sailed, encountered a tropical storm in the Indian Ocean when light on fuel, and for safety's sake, actually had to ditch some of the top hamper - the cars of the Dockyard staff - just pushed over the round-down at the after end of the flight deck...

But Fred had his Ledger Keeping Certificate and already, aged nineteen, a good introduction to the sometimes bizarre life of the Royal Navy.

Donald PIke