DD and Ganges reunions

We became involved with organising Ganges reunions mainly because no one else wished to become involved, Geoff writing many a letter to various holiday organisations and all three of us visiting quite a few – after a weekend on the Isle of Wight at Warners St Clare/Puckpool complex on this occasion accompanied by Robbie Robson, we amazed Mrs Sheila Starks Warners Group bookings manager with our thoroughness to such an extent, amongst other things we measured the beds to see if the were large enough for a fully grown man plus other detailed checks made, we came to the conclusion this place would be as good as any for our first event away from Shotley. Our findings on this venue were put to the committee, who agreed with our decision – leaving the whole task to Geoff and myself to make the arrangements with Sheila Starks. We then set about the task of making the necessary arrangements; booking forms were printed by Geoff on duplicating machinery given to us by one Jack Preece (Ganges 1938 – one of the few Boys to survive the sinking of the Royal Oak at Scapa Flow) by then the owner of a local bus company, Eileen and I (well you all know that would have been mostly Eileen) set about writing the envelopes by hand from the addresses provided by Mac – there being well over two thousand by this time – this exercise then became an annual task until the arrival at Mac’s first computer - by today’s standards quite a primitive beast – an Amstrad machine. There then followed a couple of weekend visits to St Clare (always at our own expense) to liaise with Warners staff to allow us to allocate cabins and devise a weekend programme – a task the young ladies there were not to keen undertake, the idea of putting two single men in the same room with out their prior knowledge – to achieve this we had to get together with Mac and pour over the various class and mess records – even to the extent, if known, shipmates of old to accommodate these lads in the same cabins – preferably without their prior knowledge – and seat as many as possible on the same tables, who had been class mates in bygone days, more often than not having met since leaving the portals of Ganges way back in the dark days! The girls at St Clare eventually relented and gave me a rooming list to bring home, leaving the task of room allocations to me entirely (with Mac’s input of individuals details from the then hand written list of members) this would take many hours of pouring over lists – making alterations as late bookings arrived – to insert one body would often entail moving three four or even five others – then to arrive on site a few days before the event, to write out all the ‘joining’ envelopes – once again all by hand (mostly Eileen’s) often to find that the odd cabin could not be used for various reasons and the whole charade of moving bodies would commence again – on one occasion we arrived to find that an entire block had to be reallocated the wind the weekend before removing the roof completely and another occasion to find an elderly gentleman had driven his car backwards into and destroying  two four berth cabins – all good fun! After a couple of years on the Isle of Wight, it was decided to move to Gunton Hall in Lowestoft – the whole procedure had to be started all over again with the Staff there, fortunately the manager was the same one as our last visit to St Clare. At this time, I was working in Kings Lynn just up the road making most of the necessary visits more convenient with a quick overnight stay making such arrangements as were necessary much easier to arrange – although at Gunton Hall one of our visits coincided with the place being closed for the weekend therefore no kitchen open – evening meal was provided from the wedding reception of one of the staff, in the main this was superb location although at this time it was at this time undergoing major alterations to update many of the cabins from  child size beds to adult size and fitting a heating system, Warners having just acquired the site. The entertainment at Gunton Hall was very good, with the popularity of the reunions growing the accommodation became insufficient for out needs, quite a large proportion of the cabins were designed for shall we say teenagers i.e. smallee beds.  The next move was again with Warners, this time to Seaton in Devon where the accommodation was adequate, the dining arrangements consisted of three rooms on different levels, leaving much to be desired as did the entertainment therefore listing this site an experience not to be repeated – Our next move was to Butlins, Skegness although the staff and dining arrangements plus the second year’s entertainment were fine the accommodation left much to be desired – another  draw back was we had to be present on site to make the bed allocations and watch very carefully that Butlins staff did not make any changes without our knowledge and constant falling out with the heads of departments especially the entertainment manager, when on one occasion I told him he was doing a good man out of a job. With our numbers being just over 300 and the whole site holding some 6,000 we were, shall we say, a little swamped and isolated in the areas allocated and generally not a suitable venue for our needs – especially to the other campers on site when we had been allocated the best ballroom there – causing quite a stir and commotion on the Sunday morning amongst the regular dancers who wished to use this facility resulting in quite a stir with the manager and an immediate reduction in the bill of some £2,000.00.

The conclusion arrived at after the event, was Butlins was not for us!

The following few months of late ‘94 and early ‘95 were again taken up with visiting many sites, including the Norbreck Castle at Blackpool – which after spending a weekend there an receiving many promises from the group booking organisers, which we knew from experience were unreal, rather than disappoint members who in the main had enjoyed their weekends at Warners we decided to look elsewhere, as a matter of interest we also visited Pontin’s Blackpool for a weekend only to find this was again too large for our needs, holding some 2,000 at that time. We also visited Pontin’s at Morecambe only to be billeted in the super cabins for our weekend together with bottles of wine and baskets of fruit, very suspicious – soon to change our mind when we were able to visit the ‘other’ cabins – we also looked at Haven at Cromer and a further visit to St Clare/Puckpool complex – by then one site. The latter visits were made with Carl Jackson – Haven was basically a self catering site using mainly caravans for accommodation – again we received many, shall we say unrealistic promises, by the site group bookings manager, decided against this venue – on the way home drove by Pontin’s at Pakefield – from where we had received many a letter over the previous couple of years to hold our reunions there. On impulse we called in and were treated very well by the manager David Gwynne – who made no promises gave us keys to quite few cabins and a young lady receptionist as guide to view the variety available – these as you well know are not up to Warners quality although clean and tidy, the meal we were given was well prepared the idea of self service did not appeal to us at first or the lack of facilities for such as a formal dinner – we thanked David for his courtesy and basically said thank you but no thank you – one thing to be said about David Gwynne is – he is persistent and shortly afterwards we received through the post an invitation for four to enjoy a weekend at one of their special events – we made this generally known to all and sundry, no one seemed to wish to take the offer up – we not wishing to be churlish took our son and daughter in law along and had a splendid weekend – during this period were able to visit all the various types of cabins also meet the section managers and generally discuss all that could be made available for us – only one thing against was the lack of a formal dinner – on return home persuaded Geoff to come along with me for a day to allow him to see how things could be arranged at Pakefield – the great attractions was exclusive use, close proximity to Shotley for both museum and old site together with at least two venues for entertainment with quite good and wholesome food on a CMG or self selection service -  the next move was to bring the whole committee along for a meeting and Sunday lunch this went off quite well and the general conscientious opinion of the committee – we will give a go and see how we can make it work – and that we certainly did to such an extent  we were able to shoe horn some 1,000 into the 464 cabins of various bed combinations in 2005 – there was always to be the vociferous  few who seem hell bent on penguin suits and dickey bows – the ladies could  wear posh frocks – and hold the speeches etc after dinner on the Saturday in the ballroom.

Would hate to compute the number of hours spend locked away from the remainder of the family – in recent years in front of this machine specially constructed by our Son Jeremy, using a programme written and devised especially for the task by him, this programme allows me to be able at the touch of a mouse be able to see the  total numbers booked how much money has been received and when banked, how many members are coming plus the total of guests, a list of all who have scrubbed and the amount of scrub monies the number of disabled or those with special needs and finally who is sleeping in  with who, as near as possible to their mates! Jeremy is quite a computer boffin having a BSC (Hons) in computer sciences.

While working out of town in olden days in many an exotic location! the time spent in the dining room or bed room allocated to me, of the house we were billeted in just compiling list of who was to share with whom, before technology came to our aid - using an A4 pad and pencil not forgetting the proverbial rubber and virtually a fixed line either home or to Mac plus  the current venue, to such an extent I paid the house phone bill – in addition spending time speaking with various sin Bosun’s the longest serving one being Rev Dick Thornley (a long time friend) Ganges 1949  together with many other ships including St Vincent, sorting out the Sunday services relaying such information to our original and long time organist the late Eddie Dent – Ganges Boy 1946 – should I have received expenses at the same rate as on site – there would be no money left for the current committee to squander and if I had claimed for lost wages the subs fee would have long gone through the roof! Leaving nothing for the incumbent committee to dispose of.

Dickie Doyle (Ganges 1948)

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