The Great Sock Scam…. 

It would not come amiss to expend a word or so to describe the kind of living conditions that we young apprentices had for our comfort.  We were accommodated in a brick built hut that sported a corrugated, compressed asbestos fibre roof and which was heated by two coke burning stoves.  There was no other form of heating either in the hut or in the covered way linking the back door of each hut or in the ablution room serving the huts in a block.  Apart, that is, from the ‘drying room’ that housed the calorifier providing hot water to the ablution block.  The ‘drying room’ was a good place to be when the weather was exceptionally cold.   Luckily we did not, too often, experience really bitter weather in Cornwall. There were four blocks of eight huts and, in my day, only six of the eight huts in each block were used for accommodation.  The apprentice establishment of nominally 800 was divided into eight divisions, named after famous admirals, so this gave three huts per division each of which accommodated approximately thirty-three apprentices.   We slept in two-tiered, iron framed bunk beds and in the space between the beds were two stacked lockers which held our possessions.   (From the mid-fifties onwards the number of huts earmarked for accommodation was increased to four per division thereby allowing for single beds and reducing the number in each hut to nominally twenty-five.)   The floors of the huts were coated with a form of bituminous compound that, except for a small area around each stove, was smooth and polished.   It was one of the tasks of the apprentices to maintain the floor in a polished condition with the aid of cast-iron ‘buffing’ brooms and a black polish made to a secret recipe in the establishment factory.  Each hut had its own bucket of polish.  ‘Buffing’ was normally carried out on a Saturday morning with special attention being given to the floors on those Saturdays when the Captain carried out ‘Rounds’ of the establishment. 

I mentioned earlier that apprentices were expected to keep themselves immaculately turned out and anything that was remotely connected with this function was known as ‘Bull’.   To spit and polish boots for Sunday Ceremonial Divisions (a weekly parade) was known as ‘bulling the boots’ and polishing the floors was part of the ‘bull’ that had to be accepted by the apprentices as the price to pay for keeping the authorities off their backs.   But despite the existence of the laundry that helped with the starching and pressing of white shirts much of the bull was carried out by the apprentices in order to save money.   Because of the acute shortage of cash many apprentices were reduced to using a regulation laundry soap known as ‘Pusser’s Hard’ which was very cheap.  It looked like a brick, and felt like a brick, and produced as much lather as a brick.  Unnecessary washing was therefore kept to a minimum and confined to those parts of persons or clothing that could usually be seen on public display.  Socks did not fall into the display category.  In the late forties and early fifties rationing of all commodities was still in force and this applied no less to the services than to the public.  Thus uniform materials were not always of the best quality and socks, in particular, tended to wear out fairly quickly.   There was a limited amount that one could do with needle and darning wool and because socks cost money at the slops room apprentices tended not to do anything with them that would increase the wear and tear.   This included washing and thereby gave rise to one of the less laudable characteristics of apprentice penury.  Add the fact that many apprentices in the establishment had only one pair of socks and a picture begins to build. 

Wear a pair of socks every day for a month without washing and they appear as though they were developing a life of their own.   They acquire a shine, feel slightly oily to the touch and have an odour which increases in logarithmic fashion to a peak beyond which the olfactory organs are so overloaded that it is not possible to detect any further increase.  Continue in this fashion for two months and the socks have become so burdened with sebaceous grease and grime that they are almost impervious to further wear and tear.  When removed at night the cool of the floor and hut atmosphere quickly congeals the grease so that they stand like little woolly boots at the side of the bed waiting for the warmth of the morning feet to soften them up for another day’s activity.    This situation did not go un-noticed and, during the third term, stirred up an entrepreneurial streak.  I figured that here was a way to rise above penury.   By offering a sock laundry service I could, at a stroke, make apprentices’ feet more comfortable and healthy, reduce the olfactory burden in the accommodation blocks and, at the same time make a little cash and reduce my dependence on the goodwill of others.  I talked this over with a few of my colleagues and in no time found a willing partner who was prepared to work with me to get the business under way.   The logistics were dealt with first of all.    We located the whereabouts of a galvanised steel bath that could be liberated from its prison very easily.   The occupants of T3 hut were advised of what was in the wind.  Their lack of opposition was aided somewhat by the fact that we were in Class 3 and there was reluctance to antagonise those about to become senior apprentices the following term.  Not to mention the fact that my partner in this endeavour had more muscles in his index finger than most apprentices had in either arm.  The big stumbling block was lack of cash to buy soap with which to wash the socks.  However we carried out detailed surveillance on the ‘gobby’ (a civilian employee responsible for cleaning the covered way and ablution block) and established that he had a large box of soap powder in his cleaning locker.   After carrying out practice picking of the gobby locker padlock we were in business and covertly advertised that socks would be laundered in T3 the following Saturday for three pence per pair.   That was really big bucks! The conditions were that socks should be sewn together in pairs and carry an acceptable owner’s mark.  Amazingly we had a great many takers and after hut fatigues were over on the Saturday the pile of socks in T3 began to grow. 

The galvanised bath was partially filled with water and balanced precariously on one of the stoves which had been fired up so that both it and the first metre of chimney glowed red.  The gobby locker was opened and about quarter of the soap powder decanted from its box into the water.    When the water in the bath began to bubble in went the socks and the mixture was stirred from time to time with a dinghy paddle.   In no time at all the water took on a grey-brown discolouration through which it was not possible to see anything.   We took this as a sign that the dirt was coming out and continued to boil the socks until about three in the afternoon.  Not long after we had started our laundry the other occupants of T3 hut melted away and the hut remained empty until just before lights out.   The reason was simply that the smell was unbearable.  It is difficult to find words with which to describe how awful it was.  The only thing that sustained my colleague and I was that there was no gain without pain.  We were going to make about one pound each for our efforts.  Or so we thought! 

Just after three we removed the bath from the stove and carried it carefully down to the ablution block where we proposed to rinse the socks and hang them out to dry on the calorifier.   As we decanted out the sludgy fluid that had once been water we realised all was far from well.   The sock content of the bath did not look promising.  Some socks appeared to have melted because there were only shreds of wool left attached to the name tags.  Others had shrunk to the size of baby’s bootees whilst others had changed colour from navy blue to a variety of shades ranging from pale grey to mauve.  Out of all the socks with which we had started the afternoon only a dozen or so pairs had survived the laundering.   It was an unmitigated disaster.  When the owners came round later that evening to collect their socks for Sunday Divisions I had a feeling that it would be us that would be hung out to dry and that we would be lucky to get by without losing any blood.   It was a bit scary.  Nevertheless we carried on, rinsing and ringing out, until all the socks – or what remained of them – were plastered over the calorifier.   The amazing thing was that the smell, bad enough when we were boiling the socks, appeared to be even more appalling in the windowless drying room.   For that reason we chose to set up shop in the drying room figuring that our customer’s aggression would be significantly tempered by their urgent desire to escape to the fresh air.    As some kind of sop to those whose only pair of socks had been ruined by our efforts we offered a blob of black floor polish wrapped in newspaper with which they could paint their feet and ankles before going on parade.   Some of them actually did this and got away with it which says a lot for the quality of the polish.   So we survived execution and managed to collect a few laundry fees from those whose socks had not been ruined.  Oh, and did I mention that the soap powder from the gobby locker turned out not to be soap but bleach for putting in the toilets.  And that says a great deal for the quality of the socks that survived our onslaught. 

After distribution of what remained of the socks the next hurdle was preparing for the Officer of the Day’s rounds after lights out.  Even with the hut windows open the residual smell seemed to be as intense as ever and we lay there in the dark wondering what action, if any, he would take.   The sound of Rounds activity echoed up from further down the covered way as the Officer of the Day and Duty Petty Officer entered each hut to check that they were in order and that all beds were occupied.    Eventually the footsteps stopped outside the rear door of the hut, the door was flung open, and the Petty Officer entered blowing an alert on his bosun’s pipe.   Suddenly there was a strangled retching sound from outside the door and the OOD’s voice saying “Sorry PO but I can’t come in here!”   Lying in the first bunk inside the door I had the greatest difficulty in suppressing a giggle.  The Petty Officer turned about and exited back into the covered way without inspecting the rest of the hut and rounds proceeded down into the ablution block from whence we heard another explosive retching sound and the plaintive voice of the OOD saying “Oh my God how can anyone live with this stink?”   By this time we were almost weeping with the effort of suppressing mirth although I guess that hilarity would have been quickly extinguished if the OOD had demanded an immediate investigation.   That he did not led me to surmise later that the Duty Petty Officer had offered the explanation that, for once, all the apprentices of Exmouth and Frobisher divisions had decided to wash their socks for divisions.  Well, it would have been almost true!

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