Diesel and Shale, Tom Lewis

[@delirieuse]

This song was written by Cyril Tawney, so it’s actually a tale from *his* career with the navy as a submariner.

[@joeturner1597]

During a Med patrol, the Captain piped hands to bathe. Luckily we were on the surface. No land in sight. We spent a while jumping off the forward hydroplanes (haha yanks) and climbing up the rope ladder, chillin' out etc when someone said "Aren't there Great Whites in the Med"? Well that put a bit of a crimp on proceedings. So there we were just kind of standing there Great White spottin', when a sparrow crash landed on the casing. We all became ballet dancers trying not to stand on the poor bloody thing. Knackered it was. Obviously having a bit of a migrate South for the winter. Well it must have sat there for about 20 minutes and then without a by your leave, got airborne again and buggered off to Africa. I can tell you, one or two of us wanted to go with him.

[@jimblue39]

That's funny Joe. I always got the "shark watch" whenever they had swim call on the ships I was on. I often thought that if I had to shoot one of the sharks that would not be good. Because the bleeding would draw even more sharks! Thankfully I never had to shoot one. Take care, thank you for the comment.

[@tonycarey9731]

When I first joined the Royal Navy in 1966 and started singing shanties and folk, people would ask, "Do you know Cyril Tawney?" Years later people would ask, "Do you know Tom Lewis?" Shep Wooley too, all these characters learned their basic skills as lower-deckmen in His/Her Majesty's Britannic Navy. I doubt anyone will ever ask a young songster, "Did you know Jan Carey?" But if anyone who does remember me ever reads this - give me a call via WAFU's FB pages.

[@jimblue39]

Thank you very much for your replies.

[@eliasblum753]

Interesting that both Cyril Tawney and Tom Lewis were tiffies.

[@SchrodingerDeeps]

Awesome 😎