Warship: Life In The Royal Navy (Channel 5)
Admiral Nelson’s last words, as he lay dying at the Battle of Trafalgar, were, ‘Kiss me, Hardy.’ To which Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy did not reply, ‘I can’t, you’ll ruin my lipstick.’
However woke Britain’s armed forces have become, full make-up with blusher and false eyelashes is generally frowned upon. But presenter Julia Bradbury, a junior rating for the day in Warship: Life In The Royal Navy, clearly wasn’t worried about regulations.
Joining a morning of drill practice aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Prince Of Wales, she was wearing an inch of eyeshadow, lip gloss and foundation — very apparent beside the fresh-faced ratings either side of her.
Previous series of Warship have gone on manoeuvres with the Navy, introducing us to a few of the characters below decks and chronicling their daily duties. This three-parter is different, sending Julia and co-host JJ Chalmers to get a taste of life in all branches of the Senior Service.
Julia’s biggest worry was the marching. ‘There’s a reason why I haven’t done Strictly,’ she warned us. As it turned out, she was able to keep in step, but every time the order came to stand to attention, she was half a second behind the rest of the squad. You could almost hear Sgt Wilson murmuring, ‘Do try to keep up, Bradbury.’
Julia Bradbury and JJ Chalmers get a taste of life in all branches of the Senior Service in Warship: Life In The Royal Navy
 Julia was exhausted after a day spent with the Royal Navy
Julia experienced a day in the life of a junior rating on board the warship
And she was a menace with rifle drill. The automatic weapon, weighing almost 14lb, was so heavy that she kept over-balancing every time she shifted it from one shoulder to another. The steel bayonet on its muzzle sliced through the air alarmingly… They don’t like it up’em, Sah!
After half an hour of this, Julia was shattered. Real recruits can expect five hours or more of daily square-bashing, and up to four hours of boot polishing. No wonder our sailors don’t wear make-up — when would they have time to apply it?
JJ, a former Royal Marine, watched the commandos at Lympstone training base in Devon daubing their faces with camouflage paint and decided not to join them. He also dodged the forced march with a 100lb pack.
But there was no wriggling out of the challenge when he was ordered to prepare his bunk in a dormitory at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. He remembered how to line up the creases on his sheets with razor-edged precision, and showed us a tip for measuring the turn-down on a duvet with an A4 magazine.
But his efforts didn’t pass inspection. ‘Have you ironed this?’ barked the NCO. ‘What with, a choc ice?’ NCO humour never changes. When JJ arrived at Lympstone, he was greeted by a corporal who sneered, ‘Chalmers? You ain’t charming me! Age — 36? Older than time itself!’
All this captured an aspect of forces life that is usually ignored in TV documentaries — the underlying sense of enjoyment. The camera usually focuses on the gruelling aspects, the discipline and the exhaustion, and the ever-present danger.
Julia and JJ gave us a glimpse of the fun too.
