And there was this beautiful cruiser Belfast - not HMS, just Belfast.
I introduced myself to the skipper that was there and he said 'ah, you're Harrison'.
I said 'that's right, sir'. He said 'you're ordnance artificer, you are responsible only to the
guns, sights, directors - nothing else, is that
understood?' Listen, I mean what else can you say?
When I first joined the Belfast, it was like going into a house which had just
been built, renovated, everything was sparkling new and you was just like, well
heaven to a gunnery man, which I was. It was a responsible job because when you
come to think of it, that's the only thing that these ships are for
carrying guns around and when they're wanted those guns had gotta be perfect.
It was our job to make them perfect. I was in charge of A-turret, that's
the one right at the front. I thought, 'that's very nice - if
anything happens that's gonna be terribly difficult to get out in the
dark'. And it was. I was down in my working area.
Suddenly my head went into my shoulders, I could feel it and the deck
bounced about a foot. I thought 'well, that's not normal'.
The bouncing gradually faded away and it all went very very quiet and I came out
on the top and I open the hatch and water pouring on our head. I thought, 'oh my god,
we've sunk'. Well it turned out that there was a fire hose which had been distorted
by the blast It was directed straight on to this hatch
which I was coming out of. We weren't sinking at all but we realized then that there
had been an awful lot of damage. We were towed back to Rosyth and if we hadn't
been an all welded ship, we would have sunk because the welding was torn apart but
it held so there's great credit to the welders of Belfast.
I've seen the Belfast when it was not commissioned and I followed its history
right the way through and I'm very proud of the old girl. There's something about some ships
you love as soon as you go on... from the moment I went on it when it was just
ordinary, an ordinary ship called the Belfast there was something...I don't know what it is but it was, it's there
you can feel it, I felt it, it was lovely.