Captain Brian (”Bumble”) BAYNHAM Royal Navy

‘Bumble’ was one of the Divisional Officers in Devonshire in 1952, where he was the Quarterdeck D.O. (or was it the Maintop?)  He was a submariner and a very large man – how he fitted into the Captain’s bunk in an ‘S’ boat, I do not know. 

I have two tales about him from that time – one which I did not witness, so it may be apocryphal, but the other I did.  The former concerned Seaboat drill at Evening Quarters, when it was the practice to drop a lifebuoy and then to call away all four seaboats,two cutters, two whalers, each manned from one division of cadets, with the appropriate DO taking charge.  Forthe first half of the cruise, FX and FT divisions manned the two cutters abreast the bridge, MT and QD manned the two whalers at the gor’ard end of the quarterdeck.  In the second half of the cruise, these were reversed, resulting in organised chaos as the FX and FT poured aft and so on.  This incident occurred in the second half of the cruise (Summer `52, it would have been).  “Away Seaboats’ crews”, and as the QD division poured forward, they were followed along the waist by ‘Bumble’ roaring “Turns for lowering”, Start the falls”, “Lower away”,  “Out pins” –  “Er . . . .”  as he arrived at the davits to realise that he had not ordered “Slip the gripes”.  (Or if he did, the order hadn’t been heard.)  The story goes on that he then gave the order, but the falls having been slackened, the boat fell a considerable distance.  That, at least, was how the story went the rounds of the cadet messdeck that evening.

The other story concerned a childrens’ party the ship gave at Stavanger.  It was a great success, and when the time came for the children to go home, it was necessary to call out the duty part of the watch of cadets to form line abreast and sweep down the ship for’ard to aft, herding the children in front of us, down the the QD, where the boats lay alongside.  (I was one of the duty part).  All went well till we reached the QD where a part of our herd broke away to form a ring round the OOW,  ‘Bumble’, standing there in all his glory, sword belt, telescope and all.  They danced round him, singing ‘Monkey-face, Monkey-face’.  (They must have been pit up to it, but by whom I do not know).

The rest of his career was rather more distinguished.