Warship: Life in the Royal Navy (Channel 5)
Admiral Nelson’s last words as he lay dying at the Battle of Trafalgar were: “Kiss me, Hardy.” To which Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy did not reply: “I can’t, you’ll ruin my lipstick.”
As much as the British armed forces have become more aware, full make-up with rouge and false eyelashes is generally frowned upon. But presenter Julia Bradbury, a junior on the show Warship: Life In The Royal Navy, was clearly not worried about the regulations.
Joining a morning of drill practice aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Prince Of Wales, she was wearing an inch of eye shadow, lip gloss and foundation – very evident next to the fresh-faced sailors on either side of her.
Previous Warship series have gone on manoeuvres with the Navy, introducing us to some of the characters below decks and describing their daily duties. This three-part series is different, as Julia and co-presenter JJ Chalmers get a chance to get a feel for what life is like in all branches of the Senior Service.
Julia’s biggest concern was the pace. “There’s a reason I haven’t done Strictly,” she warned us. It turned out that she was able to keep up, but every time she was told to stand at attention, she was half a second behind the rest of the pack. You could almost hear Sergeant Wilson muttering, “Try to keep up, Bradbury.”
Julia Bradbury and JJ Chalmers get a taste of what life is like in all branches of the Senior Service on a warship: Life in the Royal Navy
Julia was exhausted after spending a day with the Royal Navy.
Julia experienced a day in the life of a junior officer aboard the warship.
And she was a menace with her training rifle. The automatic weapon, which weighed almost 14 pounds, was so heavy that she lost her balance every time she shifted it from one shoulder to the other. The steel bayonet in her mouth cut through the air alarmingly… They don’t like being raised, sir!
After half an hour of this, Julia was shattered. Real recruits can expect five hours or more of beatings a day and up to four hours of boot-shining. No wonder our sailors don’t wear makeup – when would they have time to put it on?
JJ, a former Royal Marine, saw commandos at Lympstone training base in Devon painting their faces with camouflage paint and decided not to join them. He also avoided the forced march with a 100-pound rucksack.
But he couldn’t avoid the challenge when he was ordered to prepare his bunk in a dormitory at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. He recalled how to align the folds of his sheets with millimetre precision and showed us a trick for measuring the hem of a duvet using an A4 magazine.
But his efforts failed inspection. “You ironed this?” the petty officer shouted. “With a chocolate ice cream?” The NCOs’ mood never changes. When JJ arrived at Lympstone, he was greeted by a corporal who sneered: “Chalmers? You’re not charming me! Age… 36? Older than time itself!”
All of this captured an aspect of armed forces life that is usually ignored in television documentaries: the underlying sense of enjoyment. The camera often focuses on the grueling aspects, the discipline and exhaustion, and the ever-present danger.
Julia and JJ also gave us a glimpse of the fun.
