Sea Your History - Social life 11 - Differences in the way women treated by sailors

Social life 11 - Differences in the way women treated by sailors

Pat Fish

Pat met her husband Roger in 1966 when he was an Officer's Chef on HMS Londonderry. Following their marriage in 1967 they had two sons. Like most naval wives Pat often had to spend periods bringing up the children alone when Roger was away. When her son David died in infancy the couple found the lack of support from naval welfare, which kept them apart, made coping with their grief even harder.

Roger retired from the Navy in 1986 but their son Paul decided to follow in his father's footsteps and joined the Navy in 1989. When Roger died in 2003 Pat found the support the Navy provided her and Paul a complete contrast to her experience in the 1970s. Pat remains proud of her association to the Navy as well as the achievements of both Roger and Paul.

Pat comments on the way in which sailors behaviour towards women has changed.

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Extract Text (Duration 1.39)

In my husband's time, I think the guys then were more aware of women being around, and take, for instance, if they were using bad language at the time, they would say, "Lady present," and all this sort of thing, and automatically the language would stop because you had a lady present. And when they would be ashore with you they would always make sure that you... nothing rude was ever spoke about and that you would always... they would come and pull your chair out if you were in a restaurant, or they would walk... make sure that the lady walked on the inside.

Where today I don't think they do so much because I've seen, as I go to work, I've seen the young Matelots about, and it's... you know, there's bad language flying about whether you're a lady or not present, you know, so... and I don't think there's so much politeness where women are concerned. Whether it's to do with this equal rights, I don't know, whether it's because Wrens are onboard ship now and they're treated like one of the guys, I don't know, but I don't think there is so much politeness towards a woman now because of this. I mean I personally don't agree with women on ships but there you go, that's me, and I think that's caused a little bit of a snag, you know, a little bit of a problem.