NEWS UPDATE AND NEWSLETTER PAGE
1. News Upate
Treasurer - Sadly, Ron Davis our long time treasurer is having to retire from the post due to ill health. Dennis Patterson is taking over the role but the precess is complex so please be patient while we carry this out. A vote will be requested at the next AGM. You can contact Dennis if you have any questions but please give him time to settle in. His details are in the newsletter.
Membership List - Our membership list is now available on the membership page, go there and click the link. Unique and private information such as address and official number have been omitted. If you wish to contact anyone or you see a mistake get in touch with Brian Cox. July 2009.
Second appeal - If there are any members who are (or would like to be) golfers get in touch with Brian Cox. Maybe we can set something up in the future.
Charity - Since returning from the reunion I have been in touch with Rachel Cousins and as they are once again doing the Commando Run I have suggested that we pay the £1000 we voted to Help for Heroes (H4H) via the girls again. Rachel has agreed to have ‘HMS Collingwood Association' printed on the their team tee shirts this time so we will get some publicity from it. Also Rachel has made a very nice mention of us on their website so please visit it and if you like you can make a private contribution. The new website address for 2009 is www.justgiving.com/wivesdoitwetanddirty2
In the end its for the H4H charity which is a worthy cause.
Naturally I have kept your committee informed of all this and have their full support and agreement.
Membership - The committee has also agreed with a change to our membership rules, which I have been considering for some time. I have proposed that we offer an associate level of membership to our association. This will be by invitation so that we can bring our friends and colleagues onboard if we wish. The new rule states that:-
Associate Membership is open, by invitation, to persons who are in sympathy with aims of the association. Normal subscriptions are payable. Associate members will have full voting rights and can stand for election to all committee posts except Chairman.
We will ask the next AGM to vote on this matter but in the meantime I think we must start offering this Associate Membership to any interested persons. If you have any comments please contact me.
2. Newsletter
Our Newsletter 'The Shipmate' is published three times a year and the following articles are from the March 2008 edition.
Return to HMS Terror
A visit to relatives in Australia in 1997 gave my wife and I the opportunity to take a trip to the north of Singapore Island with a view to visiting the War Cemetery at Kranji and HMS Terror. In the intervening years since my last stint in Singapore in 1968, obviously much has changed, the north of the island much so. Whilst Kranji was easy to find Terror was not. With a new transport system which now skirts the north of the island but is situated south of the dockyard area. It involved exiting at the dockyard station and taking a bus to the dockyard area. Terror we knew had been taken over by the Malayan Military Authorities but they very kindly allowed me to enter their camp. While the buildings still remain they have changed their characteristics, most noticeably the CPO's Mess which has been turned into a museum with its attendant swimming pool filled with concrete.
The large accommodation block still remain, one remembers they had no air conditioning; in an attempt to keep cool the windows and doors were flung wide open and the large overhead fans brought little relief as they circulated humid air. The blocks were used by matelots while their ship was refitting in the dockyard and with the crews getting a living ashore allowance of 2/6 a day, it was considered a good thing to be based there for a while. For recreation there was always the Armada Club to down one's pints of Tiger beer and goffers and the Sultan cinema and its dockyard counterpart where you could sit and sweat as the latest epics and cowboy films were screened. In those days a foreign commission was about two and a half years and with being at sea for long periods it was a relief to spend a bit of R&R at HMS Terror.
The nine hole golf course which started at golf huts near the Fleet Training Centre and ended at Rubble Slope has gone with the dockyard having extended its perimeter to Terror, buildings and warehouses dominate the course where many a golf ball was lost in the Sungei Sembawang Creek. Half sets of golf clubs, comprising eight clubs could be purchased from the Sports Store for 104 Singapore dollars, which equated to around £13 quite a bargain, especially at today's prices. The Armada Pavilion remembered for its Friday night whist drives still stands, but is no longer in use, indeed whist drives were the order of the day in the sixties with the Attap on Johore Bahru, involving a trip across the causeway, hosting one on the Monday and during the week, whist drives were held at the CPO's, PO' Junior Rates messes and the Armada Pavilion.
Whilst runs ashore were taken in Singapore, Sembawang Village, Nee Soon and the Dockyard cinema, the whist drives attracted many, not only the serving personnel but many of the dockyard workers and their wives. It even enticed the late Ken Elsy and Mattie Stoves on occasion, although it must be said that games of bridge on both the Berry Head and Triumph were in greater demand and often ran over the stipulated stand easy breaks.
Jack Bell, Penrith, Cumbria
