Royal Marines Band East Indies Station
Reflections of HMS Gambia 1957 - 58

by Michael Hutton

The commission started for us on the 15th October 1957 when we joined HMS Gambia at Chatham, unfortunately without our Bandmaster D.A.Haigh who at that time was completing the Director of Music Examinations in Deal. Two days later we sailed to relieve HMS Ceylon, then the East Indies flagship. The usual stop at Gibraltar brought out the early 'rabbit' collectors, and much to our dismay there was no stop at Malta to meet up with old friends.

At last, through the Suez Canal and via Aden, we reached Bahrain and of course had the 'Ceylon' band on board to give us the low down, plus a few 'big ship' stories, but they left for home the following day so not much was learned about the dreaded Gulf!

A month was spent there visiting such places as Um Qassar, Abadan, and Basra where the ships concert party gave its first performance, then back to Aden for Christmas.

On the 18th December Bandy and Musician Terry Collier, who seemed to have had a couple of months' extra draft leave, joined us! Over Christmas we were kept very busy with many concerts of the carol variety, but I think everyone ate and drank very well over the festive season. Here I must mention the Bandmaster who has turned out quite a sizeable dance band for the concert party. A fourteen piece is on stage to open the second half of the show and seems to be very popular with the ship's company. That's not bad when you consider there are only 18 of us altogether.

Christmas over, we set sail for Ceylon calling first at Berbera (British Somaliland) where the band did a rather 'sandy' Beat Retreat on the beach which went down very well with the locals. Then on to Trincomalee for three weeks where half the ship's company went on leave. The Band left to do minor chores, 'colours' and plenty of sport, but more of that later. From Trinco we did the Indian Cruise consisting of Madras, Vizagapatan and Calcutta with plenty to keep us busy in each port. On returning to Colombo the ship had to be in dry dock for a week (minor repairs) and the Band, with some of the RM Detachment and concert party, packed their bags and thankfully moved to the mountains for a well earned six day leave. All you ex-East Indies travellers will of course know the rest camp at Diyatalawa, so there is no need to say that we all had a rather restful and quiet time! Most of the band were billeted out with Tea Planters families, but guess what? Bandy, Dan O'Connell and yours truly had to contend with the Reverend Tom Arnold! He played a mean piano, but Doug and Dan were a bit short on the hard stuff!

All good things come to an end - so once again we were on the move. We left Ceylon for the West coast of India and called in to the Maldive Islands on the way. The ship called at Male, the capital, and the Admiral made a call on the Sultan who returned the visit. The Band did numerous concerts and Beat Retreats as this was the first visit by one of HM Ships since the war. On to Bombay, where we were all disgusted to find the place 'DRY' so ended up with a very sober concert party and Beat Retreat. That ended the Indian Cruise so it was back to Aden for Easter, where we stayed for some time due to local trouble. As it turned out we were rather lucky. The second trip up the Gulf was cancelled, so after six weeks in Aden we set off for Trinco again for the annual JET exercises, stopping off for a week in Karachi en-route. Here there were many engagements to cope with, cocktail parties, dinners ashore at the High Commissioner's residence and return visits on the Gambia. Once more the Concert Party was in demand. We did an open air version with the band alongside the stage where we had a narrow escape. During the first half part of the staging collapsed and the Bandmaster, a couple of violins and myself found ourselves fiddling on the grass! A final Beat Retreat occurred and then we set sail for Ceylon.

J.E.T. was fairly hectic for all concerned. Not much music was produced, but everyone can honestly say he's an amateur SBA. One must add that while on exercises the band took part in all activities, mainly as lookouts on the GDP at defence stations - experts at seeing anything but music! J.E.T. dragged on for nearly six weeks. The last seven days were spent ashore rehearsing with the Indian and Ceylon Navy Bands for the combined massed bands Beat Retreat. We had previously met Bugle Major Eric Close at Diyatalawa whilst on leave. He was there training the Ceylon Navy Band. This time he came down from the mountains to do a 'Charlie Bowden' on us, and he and Doug Haigh organised a very good show. Also Doug had the pleasure of meeting CPO Tex Dhumaratum who had just returned to Ceylon after his successful 18 months at the RMSM completing his D of M examinations. Another surprise came on the big day. Bandmaster Smith and his Band arrived in Trinco to join HMS Newfoundland, one of the Far East Fleet, so we saw a lot of 'pale' and new faces just fresh from Deal about to start their commission.

Now we are on the best and busiest part of the year, the East African Cruise, lots of work ahead but plenty of pleasure too. Mauritius, Seychelles, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Mombassa, back to Aden before leaving for Chatham.

The Band's hockey team has been well to the front in the ship's sporting programme, even Ken 'Shacks' Prince has been dragged out from behind his moustache to wield a stick. Some of the guys have never played before, but after learning the gentleman's game of golf whilst on leave in Diyatalawa, they show certain promise as St Trinian's followers! We have Ian 'hacker' Langford, Graham 'daredevil' Dench on the wing, and occasionally Clive 'killer' Kesterton has been among the forward line. While ashore in Trinco we were lucky enough to receive some tuition from the Pakistan Navy Team (who apparently were most of the Olympic side!) We actually played a match against them and only lost 14-1. Dan 'lightning' O'Connell (sober at the time) will never forget the day he scored a goal against the Pakistanis. We managed to get through to the final of the ship's interpart competition but were just beaten 1-0 by the lucky Wardroom. Our overall aggregate has been played 10, won 7, lost 2, drawn 1. As for other sports, a couple of the band have played in the ships football and cricket teams. Pete Westaway being an up and coming bowler, and yours truly scraped into the ship's hockey team and an occasional cricket place. The Bandmaster is one of the ship's star swimmers in both distance and water polo matches.

Time is running out and we shall soon be on our way home, the ship sails from Aden on the 4th September so should arrive in Deal in time to catch up the winter concerts and MGRMs! For some of there will undoubtedly be the usual drafts to other bands around the world. We are now looking forward to an early reunion with wives and sweethearts. For some there will be the first sight of 'additions' to the family, while two of our members are to be married in October. Roll on FS Leave.

1 September 1958 B/Cpl MG. Hutton.