20 NAVY NEWS, DECEMBER 1999
1500 POSSIBLES ON
Ll HISTDRIC VESSEL LIST
40T*>HS/40F£ET FAIRLY IMTACT&. STIU.IHUK.WKTERS
"We ought to be short-listed forlhisT"
SHIPS OF 'PRE-EMINENT SIGNIFICANCE' IN CORE COLLECTION
Pride and prejudice he Navy has made some strides lately in tapping into the potentially fertile recruitment base afforded by our ethnic minorities, but it is still battling against a massive bulwark of prejudice. Through an illuminating discussion with ethnic advertising specialist Jared Hussein, whose company is currently engaged by the Navy, we learn that this comes from within his own target audience. It seems it has to do with class aspirations, language, traditions and cultural expectations. Well, these are all things the Navy can readily understand. As to class, the Hindu and Muslim communities in particular are extremely class-conscious. Their young people take their lead from parents, grandparents, uncles and other members of their strongly unified extended families who have a preference for business or the professions. To counter this, Jared Hussein imagines a line-up of ethnic mothers, in a variation of the classic TV satire sketch with John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett (" I am upper class - I look down on him" etc).The first mother says proudly: "My son's a lawyer." The second one says: "My son's a businessman - doing very nicely." The third says: "My son's a doctor - and he's a Naval officer, too." His message is clear - the Navy can accommodate all of these, and many more besides. Turning to language, this was a real eye-opener. The Navy's own patois is baffling enough - it is notoriously bedevilled with jargon so that, with the current pace of change, serving personnel have trouble getting to grips with that of their colleagues in other departments, while people only recently 'gone outside' subside into despair. The language of the ethnic minorities is something else again. An English language newspaper in India speaks a different sort of English to ours - with subtle nuances of inference and humour that are lost on a white, homegrown audience in the UK. So the Navy's PR and recruiting message needs further translation, maybe, if it is to hit the spot here.
T
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n the other hand, the Navy's deep-seated respect for its traditions is something the people Jared Hussein seeks to address can empathise with. Traditions, as with matters of uniform, styles of address and correct form, are perfectly in tune with their mind-set. The worst problem we have to deal with, though, is the fact that many first generation immigrants to this country have come from countries where uniform is identified with oppression, where even a casual approach to a police officer for information is likely to be met with a swipe from a baton cane. Where the military are prone to take charge at the drop of a hat and are usually regarded as being in the vanguard of state corruption and graft. No wonder the average honest man, coming here from that sort of background, advises his sons and daughters to have nothing to do with anyone in uniform - be he sailor, soldier or policeman. This is the sort of prejudice we have to overcome. In the meantime, Jared Hussein identifies a key item the Navy and the ethnic minorities have in common. It is one British society at large seems to have lost lately - a sense of family.
BRITAIN'S historic ships have been graded in levels of importance to help promote their long-term
preservation. Admiral of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald, Chairman of the National Historic Ships
Committee set up in 1992 with the support of the National Maritime Museum, last month announced the creation of two specific lists drawn from over 1500 on the National Register of Historic Vessels built before 1945. The first is the Core Collection - 46 vessels deemed to be of "pre-eminent national significance in terms of maritime heritage, historical association or technological innovation". Forming the second division are the 162 Designated Vessels, comprising those of "considerable significance but perhaps of more regional interest". "Never before has an audit of this magnitude been carried out on the nation's Historic Fleet," said Sir Julian. "Deciding which vessels should feature in the Core Collection proved far from easy - for it to be seen as the real 'core' meant the number of vessels featuring had to be kept small." The NHSC and the National Historic Ships Project - established in 1995 to provide management information to help develop a national policy on preserving them - expected a lively debate on the selections. Compilation of the lists had been funded by a grant of £152,335 from the Heritage Lottery Fund but Sir Julian made it clear that there would not be nearly enough money to fund all the individual ship preservation projects. "There is no magic beanstalk with a pot of gold at the top which we can draw down as
required," he warned. "Some people may be disappointed that the NHSC has not researched the smaller historic vessels (less than 40 ft or 40
in:
Historic Fleet1 divided in two
needed," Sir Julian concluded. To qualify for the Core Collection, vessels had to satisfy the triple requirements of "preeminent national significance",
"spectrum of achievement" and "changes in construction and associated technology". Vessels were also left out of the lists if they were not built or based in the UK - which accounted for one of the most significant ommissions, HMS Trincomalee, currently under restoration at Hartlepool, which was built in Bombay.
Under its later name Foudroyant, moored in Portsmouth Harbour, the 180year-old frigate was used as a
training ship for generations of youngsters. Fighting ships
in the Core
Collection are HMS Alliance, Belfast, Caroline, CMB4 Gannet, HSL 102, Holland I, Landfall (LCT 7074), Minerva (M33), MTB 102, T3, Unicorn, Victory and Warrior. Those on the Designated Vessels list arc
HMS Cavalier, Golden Galleon, HDML Medusa, ML 293, Navigator, President, Vanessa, Wellington and Western Lady III. During the next nine months
the NHSC extensively selected Collection. will
visit
will be consulting on those vessels for the Core NHSC roadshows Belfast,
Bristol,
Dundee, Ipswich, Liverpool, Newcastle and Portsmouth in the first half of 2000 and a conference will be held at the National Maritime Museum on April 8 for invited representatives from maritime and ship preservation organisations. Q The complete lists of his-
• CORE SHIP: HMS Minerva, a shallow draught monitor armed
tons) which survive, but that is a mammoth task for which sub- http://www.st-and.ac.uk/instistantial new funding would be tutes/sims/ukcore.htm
Belfast in 1915 and based at Portsmouth, she saw service at Gallipoli and in the White Sea.
toric ships have lished on the
been pub- with six-inch guns for coastal bombardment, is included in the National Historic Ships Committee's Core Collection. Built at Internet at