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I served the Queen on Britannia
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| Charles Saxby at home with a model of the Royal Yacht Britannia |
BETWEEN her launch in 1953 and her decommissioning in 1997, Royal Yacht Britannia sailed more than one million nautical miles. For 164,252 of those miles, one of her permanent crew members was Charles Saxby.
Now 76, and living in Hockley, Charles was one of the first contingent of Royal Navy personnel to join in October 1953. He served until July 1961, when he made the choice to leave the Navy and try his chances in the engineering business on land.
In retrospect he says: "It was the worst thing I've done. They were the best years of my life and if I'd stayed I could have ended up working in Buckingham Palace."
Charles never did discover why he had been chosen from more than 3,000 applicants, particularly since he had a minor criminal record for a high-spirited youthful escapade in front of, of all places, Buckingham Palace. "They must just see some sort of honesty in you, that's all I can think," he says.
But one other quality the selection team may have identified is discretion. Only now, almost half a century after his departure from the ship and a decade after her last voyage, has he chosen to tell his tale.
His privately printed book, A Life, One up on the Ocean Wave, is the first account of an ordinary seaman's life aboard the Queen's floating palace. It is entirely devoid of scandal or gossip, but it full of fascinating details about life in that most rarefied of domestic environments.
Although built to penetrate to every corner of the world's oceans, Britannia is not a large ship, and her regular crew lived cheek-by-jowl with their royal passengers. About half of the ship was set aside as the royal quarters, but their highnesses did not necessarily stick to that section.
"We'd see the Queen all the time," Charles says. "You might be doing a job on the deck and she would walk past you. You'd stand up and she would just tell you to carry on. It was all just part of the routine aboard."
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| Charles, on the Britannia, with crew mates |
One regular task also took him into the royal sector. Early every morning, he would join the rest of the crew as they tiptoed on to the hallowed teak decking. All the surfaces would be given a thorough clean, "until they shone in the sun".
The crew used what Charles calls, without a hint of double entendre, "silent scrubbers", cleaning equipment designed not to wake the royal family. "We had to be finished and away by 9am," Charles says. "After that, you only went there if you were ordered to."
Crewmen tended to find their own niches, and Charles found one that suited him well in the ship's laundry. He handled the washing of everyone aboard the ship except for the Queen herself, who had ladies-in-waiting to do the job.
Charles still shudders when he recalls the Duke of Edinburgh's shirts: "He wouldn't have starch in his shirts. They were made of lovely stuff, but they were a nightmare to iron."
Later, Charles was promoted to quartermaster, a job that involved piping the Queen aboard the ship.
You share his agony when he describes the moment a piece of fluff became jammed in the end of the bosun's pipe, and despite desperate huffing and puffing, no sound emerged to greet the Queen.
The other great points of contact between royalty and crew were the Sods Operas, the shows and pantomimes put on by crew members during longer voyages.
Charles contributed a skiffle group act to these shows, complete with tea chest, wash board, and double bass. The group was consigned to the propeller shaft room when they wanted to rehearse.
Britannia's travels took Charles to some memorable and even dangerous places. In the 1950s, places that are now part of the long-haul travel circuit and visited by tens of thousands of people, like Antarctica, the Falkland Islands or New Guinea, were remote and in some cases unexplored.
The native peoples could be belligerent. In the Solomon Islands, memories were still rife of the slaughter of two tax officials and their entire police guard.
But Britannia worked her usual magic, and in common with people everywhere, the ferocious islanders were mesmerised by the presence of British royalty and the vision of the shipshape royal yacht moored offshore.
Britannia's far-flung voyages were also responsible for at least one first in the history of travel. In 1956, during the Duke of Edinburgh's visit to the southern oceans, two lady secretaries, Miss Stevenson and Miss Eadie, were aboard. Charles was there to witness the moment they became the first women to cross the Antarctic Circle.
Less pioneering, but just as memorable, was Princess Margaret's tour of the West Indies, following the break-up of her engagement to Group Captain Peter Townsend.
Charles recalls supplying the princess with his own Woodbines when her supply of cigarettes ran out. She puffed away happily on them, with just one refinement - they were stuck in the end of her long cigarette holder
Whether supplying cigarettes or supplying panache, the crew themselves were very much part of the royal act. They too did their bit to impress the rest of the world with British pride. Charles memorably describes his role as one of two boathook men on the royal barge, the vessel that carried the Queen from Britannia to the shore and back.
"We would stand, one on the bow, and one on the stern, with our varnished, gleaming boathooks held vertically in front of us.
"Then at a signal from the bow man, in the form of a wiggle from his right elbow, we would lift the hooks to a horizontal position above our heads, then in unison drop them to waist height ready to grapple whatever we were coming alongside.
"After a while we were very efficient at this boat drill, so it all looked quite spectacular."
Regular crew members formed a tight-knit community aboard ship and became part of a sort of extended family.
It is easy to see why the Queen, never before seen to cry in public, famously shed a tear at the decommissioning ceremony for Britannia.
Charles believes the failure to fund a replacement was short-sighted.
"That ship did so much for British trade and interests," he says. "She was a great representative of the country. She impressed people everywhere."
If so, much of the credit goes to Britannia's crew. Much of life aboard was quite a comfortable affair, for crew as well as royalty.
But, Charles says: "The pressure could be intense on official occasions. Then that mutual reliance became very valuable."
That spirit continued ashore, since crewmen and their families all tended to occupy quarters in the same section of Gosport naval base.
Now the old crew is dispersed, but the camaraderie continues in the shape of an association which meets for a reunion dinner every two years.
Members enjoy a privilege known to no other group in the land - the guest of honour is always a member of the royal family.
Charles now seems to have started a trend within this group. Expect a spate of Britannia reminiscences. "To judge from the website, everyone in the association now seems to be writing a book," says Charles. "You can blame me."
A Life, One up on the Ocean Wave by Charles Saxby costs £9.95. ISBN 978 0 948706 25 7. Copies can be obtained by writing to Charles Saxby, 2 Beaches Close, Hockley, SS5 5EG. Enclose a cheque for £10.95 made out to the author.
4:04am Friday 13th June 2008
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