Fireships and flares

A story from the Dockyard

From a dark and silent night, you’ve wandered into one of the few remaining pubs in Medway. After a hard shift, you join a roomful of men enjoying the misery of Gillingham FCs latest dismal performance. There’s a pleasure in consistency, in knowing what’s what. As the currents and tides of conversation swirl around you, like the bittersweet cider in your pint glass, conversation turns to hospitality and football to fireships. The miniature kind, employed at Chatham Dockyard before it was closed for good in 1984. One of the old boys starts up:

Occasionally, hard to believe this I know, the occasional apprentice would skyve off work and hide there. To stop the malingerers the dockyard would employ fireships. Yes, you read that right. They would fashion a small item, perhaps a role of toilet paper, and dip it in something flammable. Perhaps some paraffin. In a replay of Drake’s finest tactical strike against the invading Spanish in 1588, the fireship would be launched upon the tide, shaking up the lads and scattering their forces. Ready to be picked off. No strike that! deployed in a more constructive way.

Is this a story known to you? It’s the kind of tale that falls through the cracks, a slightly naughty tale, one that a few pints after would I’m sure lead to other tales. The kind we need to preserve - a few of these may even be true.

I love this kind of story - one a little spicy that keeps our histories from being bland. The high and mighty tales. I like to connect with the details, the humane side of our history. The kinds of stories that remind us of our fantastic follies, our frailties, our sense of fun. What’s the best story you’ve heard lately?

Perhaps they employ this method at the historic Dockyard to this day; this close to Samhain tradition of all kinds must be honoured after all.