The Cocktail Party
The officers had a cocktail party on the fo'castle whilst in Honkers and some nurses from the hospital attended. One of our officers (no names, no court martials) who was unmarried at the time, was taking one of the ladies on a tour of the sickbay. There was no one victualled into the sickbay at that time. Some of the sailors had noticed the officer and lady enter and felt that a little bit of horizontal folk dancing was uppermost in the officers mind. They gave him about 5 minutes to warm to his task and then slid the door open on him. Arms and legs were gong in all directions.

At the same cocktail party I was on duty watch and it was decided to make me a beer steward. Lt Young provided me with a cummerbund and a bow tie. I was very obvious as the stewards had on their little white jackets, so there was no mistaking who to call for a beer. During lulls in proceedings I would load up a bucket with four bottles of beer, throw a tea towel over it and deliver the bottles to my mates below. This I did about four times, returning the empties for the count the next day. The Mess President after tallying the beer consumption was amazed at how much had been consumed and would be charged to the mess bill. The moral of this story is never et a kid loose in a candy store or a sailor loose around beer.