Transcript
In those days you got posted to a ship for a posting and sea postings were often around two years. These days when doctors go to a fleet pool and they might go to one ship for a deployment and then come back and be put on another ship for a different deployment.
So, it was a different way of posting people in and out in those days … I didn't really get that much training. I'm trying to think if I got any. I learnt how to give an anaesthetic on my own and did some training for a doctor to be able to cope with emergencies at sea but I didn't do particularly sea training.
I remember I joined while the ship was waiting to dock. It was still at sea, so I got transported out in a boat, brought up into the vessel and then we came alongside, which I thought was a bit silly and, "Why didn't they just wait till the ship came alongside?" But I think it was probably to make a point and introduce me to the ship.
And it was a real learning curve because they'd often say, you know, "Doctor on the double" to a part of the ship and I'd have to go, "Where's that?". And I really didn't know and people would have to sort of take me to that part of the ship for a little while until I learned where I was.
