Steve Gower on Clubhouse

Bio

Hi my name is Steve I live in uk. I am ex Royal Navy of
of 38 years service. I started as a navigator and reached Master Navigator. The Royal Navy don't have a rank system, but use a rating system. My Rating was Petty officer(PO) A None Commisioned officer, but known as a Senior Rating. A Petty officer isn't referred to as Sir, but just PO, only commisioned officers were addressed as Sir, as they are commisioned by the crown and on seeing them we had to salute them. NCO is not entitled to a salute. Why cos they are not yet commisioned and some never wanted that promotion. I will say the po's and cpo's ran the ship and without there experience the system would collapse. Commisioned officers however gave the orders, and they were college graduates that had no first hand experience other than what they where taught to give orders from above. With due respect they could advise commisioned officers to do things a certain way to best get the job in hand done successfully. Not all comissioned officers agreed and still did things by the book. There way wasn't always successful and a lot of men died because of there poor by the book management. I worked my way through the rating system, starting as an ordinary seaman, then promoted to Able seaman, to Leading Seaman and was a Petty officer for the last years of my career.