HMS ROOKE.The Royal Navy in Gibraltar What a wonderful little peninsula, I was working inside the Rock in the Royal Naval Communications Centre, Watchkeeping, and it was whilst here I picked up my first Hook. I did most of the jobs whilst there, but my favourite was on the W/T pulling the Submarines in with morsecode. One job that was very interesting but a panic for my new wife, was the Radio Operator on the Emergency Tug Confident. When the weather was bad in the Straits of Gibraltar, we used to get many SOS's, and Confident would sail. The bell rang and away I would go with my steaming kit, A pussers holdall, with clean underwear, shirts, two hundred dutyfree fags, and an illegal bottle of Scotch with a six pack for backup. It was appauling weather obviously or the boat we were heading for would not have put out an SOS. The most annoying thing about it was, we went to their aid and they would not let us put a line on (A line on gives us salvage rights).BUT as soon as they knew we were in company with them they felt quite safe, so would refuse assistance. The Confidents Skipper 72/74 was excellent, He did his job and respected me for mine, so there was no bull, and the first time in my naval career, I was not subserviant. We attended one SOS and came upon this small ship, that was really in a bad way, again once we were close too, he waved us away (an Arab), So we went away and when on the horizon, he put out a call again, We eventually boarded, and got a tow. We took her into Ceuta a local port, she was carrying fertilizer, or to be correct Camel Dung. Anyway six-months down the line, I get an envelope from Her Majesty's Government informing me to report to Head Office, where I recieved my salvage share Fourtyeight cans of McEwans Export from the Prudential insurance company :-)