It takes on an average of 230 new entries a week for an intensive ten weeks' course in discipline, drill, seamanship including boat work, and gunnery. There were about 2500 men there under training at, the time of my visit; but the eventual total. will Be larger, for the place is still being added to.
Likely men of all ages between 17% and 40, many of them volunteers, but same enrolled under; the National Service Act, have been taken- into the Navy for the war. I watched them at drill under arms on the parade ground, at gun drill with 4-inch and 12-pounders on the rifle range. and in the gymnasiums engaged upon those recreational: exercises which encourage mental and physical alertness. I noted the difference in physique between those who had joined 2 few days before and those about to leave. The good food, combined with the regular routine and exercise, had done marvels.
The men ander training represented a true cross-section of Britain's population. Practically, every. sort. of calling and profession was represented..- There were architects and surveyors, a sign writer, a music-hall comedian, an-operatic tenor, and a man who had been in an acrobatic troupe since the age of fourteen. A football player from a famous league team mingled with three undergraduates who. had been studying theology: at Cambridge University, and a man who had worked on the-fish dock at Hull There was a professional Tatcatcher from the. West Country; man who had earned the Polar-medal for Antafctic exploration; another who had been in the Black Watch, that famous Scottish regiment; for ten years and.had risen to the rank of sergeant; and a gallant- Canadian who had served in the: British Army in the last war, and bad joined the Navy for this.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.