Sea Daddy Observations by Gilles Poirier
The Square Part
The collar was not part of the jumper; it was attached to the inside of the jumper with buttons. Now that collar was supposed to be a real dark Navy blue, with a crisp white trim. Here the name of the game was to look like an old tar as quickly as possible, so you washed this collar as often as you could, till it became almost pale blue…! You then looked like an old salt! |
Black Silk
Port and Starboard Hat
The Gun Shirt
Kit Muster
The Dreaded Red Thread You were issued also with a large rubber stamp and had to stamp your name (first initial and last name in full, along with your matriculation number under it) on all pieces of your kit. Once that was done, you had to go over each of the letters with red embroidery thread which was quite tedious. Blessed was the sailor who had a short name like J. Smith; I had a friend whose name was J.F.R. Tranchemontagne, it took him hours to sew his name. By the way, I still have my shoe shine bag here. |