HMS Victorious Association Web Community

    A slightly slim lined F.T. has now gone out !!

    However, at this years reunion we obtained a volunteer editor, (one who knows what he is doing), our printer has again offered his services in printing the mag ! so hopefully we are rolling again.

  What we need is Victorious material, or material about Victorious men. There must be piles of stuff out there, please forward it in any format to either stoker Stan or Topsey. addresses and email in last Flat top.

We will see that it gets to the editor.
  What did you do after Vic ? what did you do on Vic. Do you remember joining Vic. What was good/ not good about the ship. Who do you remember on her.

     LETS HAVE IT PLEASE. 

 


Well we got it printed and out eventually. I thought it may get a couple of nominations for the old Pulitzer prize thing, but I have heard nothing from them yet !! there's time !!
 Ok. maybe not, I have heard it said that it rather looks like this edition was done by a stoker ..... hey ! anyway I have burnt out now and am suffering from writers block, so Dough Hotkiss junior
who I am advised is a skilled editor will don the mantle of FLAT Top editor. He will edit it and send the stuff to me on a memory stick, our usual printer will do the print job.
    Shipmates a heavy weight has been lifted off my tired shoulders, (it was the computer end that got me... I don't know how to use one ).

     I will be in contact with our new editor shortly,but have promised him that we will provide the material for him to edit ! Start composing chaps or you may get the rubbish I dished up and it would serve you right !!   Watch this space for instructions on how to get you hot material to me or Ed.   Stoker Stan signing off for now.

    Oh Dave there will be some "cross" old trawler men if it gets out that the RNPS museum has been nicked by Coventry, can't trust anyone these days 

  Last month we had a run to the Isle of Wight.Visited Osborne House on the Isle of Wight where Queen Victory liked to have her holidays.  The house is very interesting ,but I had not known that in 1903, a Naval college was established in the grounds for the training of officer cadets. It seems that boys arrived at the age of 13, and stayed for two years before moving on to Dartmouth.
There are some very interesting photographs on display which I tried to get snaps of, but unfortunately  I did not have much success. The pictures are in what is now the public restaurant,and to take my pictures required me to sort of lean across tables. People eating lunch seemed unwilling to cooperate !!However the signage for the P.O. instructors mess is still on display, its a good day out
   The picture collection is worth seeing, and I expect that the cadets pictured would almost certainly have been young officers who went to war in 1914.

  Time flies by, and we are eating up September. Reunion is the 5th October, and I hope that we are blitzing Britannia with room booking forms.Our mini-meet at Lowestoft went very well,and I think the charm of the town and the great people we met will be a life long memory. The Royal Naval Patrol Service members we met up with, and reminded us that we were not the only organisation that still drinks rum,also opened a small window into what fighting a war was like from the perspective of a very small ship.  I do not think that any of us who visited Sparrows Nest Museum could fail to be rather shocked that this history of sacrifice and courage and the massive loss of life,could be so little know about.

 

 The MINICARLO is Lowestoft's own sidewinder trawler. Built and worked from the town ! Looked after and preserved by members of the original crew. We had the privilege to meet her original skipper on our visit.

  Well worth the trip, a few of Crashes picture will be revealed . Friday at Sparrows Nest.run round about what the Royal Naval Patrol Service did in the war.

 Booking forms for October reunion at Coventry. I have posted out about 50 forms for this years reunion. Topsey has attached same to his News letters, so many more circulations
 and we will be in danger of falling foul of the save the whale/tree/no crisp packets brigade. However if anyone reads this and has still not got one, email me and one will flash out to you.
     There has been some small disruptions to our reunion preparations, this year, with some tonker in Coventry Council building a huge lump of flats on our car park,but we have got round that, and the Saturday jolly took a
bit of phone patience, but that is cleared up now, and should be a good day out. So think about booking your room, and don't miss out.
   Any questions or problems ring us.