Eric C. Hill

Lieut. Cdr. E. C. Hill, M.V.O., R.N. aboard Britannia

A Mixture of Memories (Part 1, Chapter 1) 

by Lieut. Cdr. E. C. Hill, M.V.O., R.N.

I was born on 10th June, 1910, in one of a block of four very small terrace houses, then called Brookside Cottages, situated at the foot of Mickley Lane, Totley Rise, near Sheffield. They no longer exist. My parents proceeded to produce four more boys in the next five years, the last child, however, died at birth, together with my mother. She was thirty-one. Father was hurt whilst working at a quarry, sustaining a broken leg and internal injuries. He died within one year of my mother of peritonitis.

I have not been able to gather a clear picture of these early years, despite the fact that our grandparents, numerous aunts and uncles lived within a few miles of our cottage. By the time I was old enough to understand and I became free of the confines of the local orphanage, some of my relations had also died and most details of our early years were lost. The only thing I remember of my mother was of a tall fair lady, wearing a long dress and a frilly white high-necked blouse, standing at a window putting a pad of some description on her head and forming her hair around it. Her hair was very fair. I do remember seeing a four-wheeled vehicle, drawn by two black horses outside the front gate. A long box was being loaded into it. This was likely to be my mother's funeral.

Of my father I remember a little more. After his quarry accident my father's health deteriorated and I was sent to take a note to the doctor's house at Totley Rise, asking him to call quickly. For reasons unknown he could not attend until the following day, which was too late. I was told of this years later, and also that my father's last words were, "My poor boys." He used crutches for a time, but this did not stop him from showing us how to kick a football. Before his accident he had constructed a sledge. This he had hauled to the top of Mickley Lane as far as the old Mickley Pit, a distance of three-quarters of a mile, and brought us all back at break-neck speed to the gate of the cottage. This must have been during the last winter of his life. I, at least, must have been a damned nuisance; I was the only one of a 'gang' of four who was caught rowing a boat on the lake of Brinkburn Grange. I was overtaken by the owner's man. A policeman came to the cottage. My father apparently told him not to be so daft and he departed after seeing the size, and noting the age of the culprit. According to a cousin, anything to hand we threw into the river, chiefly crockery, knives and forks, etc.

Our entry into Cherrytree Orphanage was agreed by the elders of the family who thought it better to keep us all together rather than share us out among the aunts and uncles, who had large families themselves. A tall lady in black took us up the hill to Cherrytree, only a few hundred yards from the cottage. I remember helping to push a 'pram' presumably containing the youngest, 'Leslie', up the lowest part of Mickley Lane. From the moment I remember the pram, life was a complete blank! I can say nothing of events in the Orphanage for an unspecified period of time, possibly two or three years. My mind seems to have commenced recording round 1918 because I can well remember a man running around shouting "War's over", so maybe that is as good a time as any to record what I remember of the Orphanage days from 1918 to 1924.

The staff consisted of a matron, who was a large imposing lady with red hair. Looking back I would now say that she progressed along the corridors like a ship under full sail. Her daughter, Margaret, also red-haired and pretty, appeared at holiday times, so was probably at Boarding School. No man ever appeared on the scene. Their name was Haig.

A second lady, Miss Carr, a mousy little woman, was our teacher. She was a marvel in all respects, because to control twelve boys and thirteen girls, ranging in age from 5 to 14 years was no mean accomplishment. Miss Carr eventually disappeared, and we found ourselves trailing over a mile twice a day to the local school at Totley.

The kitchen staff consisted of a lady who I think was the gardener's wife, who had under her command three senior girls. These girls were over 14 and were retained for training for service with some of the local gentry. One of them, a lass called Sally Horton (as I found out some years later) was actually ear-marked to serve as housekeeper to a Mr and Mrs Hudson who lived in Totley and owned a very popular small restaurant in Sheffield. The gardener had his work cut out because the grounds were extensive and most food was produced by him. He had two boys (one of whom was myself) to dig plots for vegetables, collect leaves in autumn, and stoke the boiler - more of the latter later.

I particularly relished the task of climbing fruit trees in the orchard and collecting fruit for jam-making. The two Victoria plum trees, however, were too much of a temptation and I was quickly relieved of the collecting task. So much for the resident staff and assistants.

Once a month two ladies of the Orphanage Committee paid an official visit. One was a Lady Bingham. They appeared in a beautiful four-wheeled trap, drawn by a couple of splendid horses with a uniformed coachman sat up front. We boys had the privilege of taking turns holding the horse's head reins during the visit. These ladies interviewed the inmates about to leave, plus those of us who had been misbehaving. I regret to say that, later on, I was one of the latter, together with my brother Graham.

Outside the school, the boys' duties included sweeping up the playing areas, tipping coke down the boiler house coke chute, carting rubbish from the kitchen to compost, cleaning lower windows, while the girls changed sheets, cleaned bathrooms, peeled potatoes, washed up dishes, etc. We obviously were not stuffed with food, being War time, but I cannot remember ever being hungry. Bread, porridge, rice pudding, potatoes and spinach formed our staple diet. I hated spinach and just could not eat it, and was punished accordingly - a rap on the head with a wooden spoon! We did, however, find ways and means of supplementing our rations; for instance - some apples were 'keepers' and could be cached in any of the dry stone walls surrounding the establishment; potatoes could be roasted in the boiler house, although it required a certain amount of expertise to slide down and get back up the coke chute, unnoticed, to get at the boiler furnace. A shovel full of spuds placed inside the furnace door was a 'piece of cake'. We had many a barbecue, after the gardener had gone home of course, and the bakes were always meticulously shared out. The potatoes, incidentally, were filched from the farmer's adjoining field, and despite the fact that he (a Mr Wint) noticed bare patches in his field of spuds at the nearest point to the Orphanage boundary, never complained (Bless him).

Few can resist the smell of new bread. The bread room was situated in the first floor adjacent to the communal dining hall and could, we discovered, be entered through a window by means of a ladder. Because I was the gardener's help I knew where the ladders were kept so was the obvious choice for the bread pinching job. Quite a number of loaves disappeared through the window before the inevitable happened and I was hauled up before the Matron and subsequently the two Committee ladies. I was threatened with banishment to a school of correction, but this did not happen (This I learned from Sally some years later).

Sunday, I remember best of all, with porridge for breakfast and rice pudding for lunch. We dressed in our best clothes-boys in Corduroys, boots instead of clogs, girls in striped gingham dresses (white and blue), and marched to Church, which was St John's, about two miles distant towards Beauchief. A few of us were press-ganged into the choir. After the mid-day meal (which was invariably rice pudding for the sweet, we were all in turn required to recite the collect of the day, having learned (?) it during the week. This I hated. I just found it extremely hard to absorb more than three lines of any, and some of those collects are as long as grandfather's recipe for making elderberry wine.

Sunday afternoon found us knitting socks; this was girl's work we boys thought. Nevertheless we did it. Four thin steel needles, and balls of grey wool; always grey wool was in the fists of all who were considered old enough to knit. Incidentally, some sadistic child discovered that a knitting needle tied to the end of a willow or beech branch made a good arrow. I have a scar above my right eye as a result of playing 'Cowboys and Indians'. At teatime a couple of girls collected our knitting efforts in a cardboard box to be kept until the next Sunday, or wet day. It was not uncommon to find one needle pulled out and the onerous job of 'picking up' was necessary.

I cannot remember a Christmas but this was possibly because I did not understand what it was. None of us celebrated birthdays, and I didn't know what money was until one day a man gave me two coins for opening his drive gate, thus saving him the bother of getting out of his car. The local butcher's boy who delivered to the Orphanage, told me what I could get for two pence, and from where. I clearly remember what I bought - two horseshoe creams and a few gob-stoppers. Some days later I visited the same shop (which incidentally is still operating to this day) and walked away with a handful of toffees without paying for them. I just could have had no idea that it was wrong, despite the fact that I had given money in exchange for goodies on my previous shopping spree. However, again I was up before the Matron but cannot remember having to stand shaking before the two awesome-looking Committee ladies.

You will have noticed that I have very seldom mentioned my brothers. Having talked to Graham and Leslie since those days, we none of us knew the meaning of brothers but because we all appeared in one heap together at the Orphanage, we had a tendency to stick together, but only for that reason. What is more, and very sad, none of us missed our parents. Too young to understand the mystery of life, no doubt.

Bath nights, I vaguely remember, were boys on Saturday, girls on Friday, and I have not the faintest idea how they were supervised. I do remember that two at a time occupied a bath, that our towels were numbered and hung on hooks also numbered. In fact we all had a number for almost everything. Mine was thirty-nine, and curiously that number has been with me throughout my life - coincidence, no doubt - and too many to mention except perhaps one - the start of the Second World War and my service on HMS Sheffield. There was a library in the staff sitting room from which I drew my very first book. This was The Last Mohican'. I must have liked it because my second was 'Eric, or Little by Little', and I can remember no other, if indeed there had been any.

At some point the Orphanage School was no longer used. On our way to the local one at Totley we discovered that 'someone who knew us' lived only a few steps away off our route. This we learned from an Aunt Ella who on her way to and from her work passed the comer of a rather obscure part of the Orphanage grounds and would look for us occasionally. On these occasions she invariably had a bag of toffee, and did we love her for the present. She was very poor and it must have been a sacrifice. She told us to call at two houses, one where our Aunt Mabel lived, and the other was the house of our grandparents. I have a recollection of the daughter of Aunt Ella taking us to these houses on the first occasion. Phoebe, the daughter and our cousin, was about my age.

From then on until we in turn left the Orphanage, we began to learn something of our origin and family connections. The Matron got to know about our visits, which she frowned on, so we took it in turns to call, and not very often, hoping to escape detection. I personally was to cause more trouble for our Matron before my final departure - next stop Scarborough.

I have previously mentioned the butcher's boy, whose main attraction for me was that he drove a horse and cart. On one of his visits, I begged a ride and proceeded to fall off after travelling only a few yards, and sustained a dislocated elbow. This accident shaped my future because a Dr Mary Andrews was called in to deal with it. She was obviously given a vivid account of my misdemeanours and on my recovery, decided to 'take me in hand'.

Her decision caused a revolution of sorts at the Orphanage; the first effort being a request to the Committee to allow me to join her Boy Scout group,
the 85th Sheffield group, operating on Thursday nights from her own house at Beauchief. As boys became eligible they too joined and included Leslie, Cecil and Graham. In the meantime Dr Mary convinced Matron that swimming was the best method of getting my arm working again, so down to the swimming baths I went. I calculate that at this time I was in my thirteenth year and after being escorted to the baths once or twice, went on my own.

By the time I left the Orphanage I could swim very well and this was to give me a great advantage on joining the RN some two years later. Dr Mary, I think, paid the swimming fees and I think supplied the Scout uniform. It was during my Scouting period (in my fourteenth year) that she took her troop to Filey on a camping exercise. It was a great time for me. The Filey cobbles (sturdy open-decked boats) - used for fishing parties chiefly -fascinated me. I was allowed to steer one and from that moment was hooked to the sea. Dr Mary noticed this, and to cut a long story short, arranged for me to go to the Sea Training School at Scarborough prior to joining the Royal Navy when I became old enough - i.e., fifteen and a quarter years.

Before I close this chapter, a few more words about these formative years at Cherrytree will not, I think, come amiss.

I now think that the decision to keep us together was a good one. The Orphanage must have been a cut above the average. We were cared for, taught to look after ourselves and, above all, experienced discipline which paid enormous dividends when I joined the Royal Navy and my brothers the Merchant Service. During our stay we learned a little of our relatives, but as we lads all virtually disappeared at the age of fourteen, we had not sufficient time to get to know them better. Although love and affection was, to us, an unknown quantity, what one hasn't had one doesn't miss - until a few more years had rolled by anyway.

I cannot remember anything of the actual process of leaving. How I got to Scarborough, how I was dressed, and amazingly, my introduction to train travel. I don't think that I knew where in fact I was bound. Dr Mary, no doubt, was my escort for I later found out that she arranged my lodgings and entry into the Maisie Graham Sea Training School - a day school run by the local Education Authority.

So ended the first fourteen years of my existence - and the sea beckoned.
I never saw my brother Cecil again, and only met up with Graham and Leslie twice until 1980 when we had a Hills' reunion party in Sheffield.

Cousin Eric Hill (after Cherrytree)

taken from his autobiography "A Mixture of Memories"

When Eric and his three brothers were receiving help from Dr Mary Andrews she took them to her scout camp at Filey. It is worth while reading her account of these adventures in her booklet 'Oh! Little Filey'. During these camps he was introduced to the Filey fishing vessels which are called cobles. Dr Andrews noticed how keen Eric seemed to be on these small open boats and interpreted this as being an interest in the sea in general. To that end she assumed command of his career upon him leaving the orphanage.

The following is a brief summary of how he climbed from being a 'Boy - 2nd Class' to Lieut. Cdr. E. C. Hill, MVO, Royal Navy. He only encountered two impediments along the way. The first, which Dr Andrews removed, which was when he wanted to leave the service; and the second when he had to take measures to make good his lack of secondary education in mathematics in order to receive a commission.

Before starting his career proper in the Royal Navy Dr Mary arranged for him to attend the Graham Sea Training School at Scarborough. He took to this with relish and particularly enjoyed sailing in a sloop called Bonaventure and a schooner named Maisie Graham. All his spare time was taken up by doing unpaid voluntary work on maintaining these boats after Dr Mary had signed papers exonerating the owners from any liabilities regarding possible accidents. The Master of the school allowed Eric and another boy to sail his own yacht 'Cymbeline' in the Bridlington Regatta of 1925. This was the highlight of this formative period of his life. In October of this same year Dr Mary took him to Manchester to enrol in the Royal Navy. After a bath with carbolic soap and the burning of his clothes he was fitted with a uniform which, in different guises, he was to wear for just short of 50 years.

At this early stage of his training he established himself as goalkeeper in the football team, a place in the 'tug of war' team and a keen rower. These activities added to the strenuous and nationally watched field gun competition, held at Earl's Court, filled a great deal of his time.

Eric did not suffer homesickness as did the other boys and he very much enjoyed all the introductory training. His first leave was spent at Dr Mary's where he helped her clear out as she was closing her practice. He returned to start his sea training on HMS Benbow. He learned the art of tying knots, splicing and boatwork. He also found out that the more serious misdemeanours were punished by receiving 'cuts'. After being medically examined they were secured to the gym 'box' and caned by a petty Officer.

Eric started his career as a 'sight setter' for one of the 6" guns. After 8 months on Benbow becoming familiar with all the necessary duties around the clock he was given a white uniform and drafted to HMS Valiant based at Malta. On her he found himself in the presence of mainly adult sailors. The fleet was engaged in all the activities to prepare for war. These included escorting convoys around the Mediterranean, landing guns and marines, bombardment of an unoccupied island and ship towing. On 10th June Eric was automatically promoted to Ordinary seaman thus becoming a 'man'.

Another leave helped him to discover that Graham and Cecil were in a training ship 'Conway' at Birkenhead on the first stages of their progress to be captains of Merchantmen and Leslie was still at the Maisie Graham at Scarborough.

As a crew member of HMS Canterbury with the Home Fleet, I made a friend who invited me to spend a series of long leaves with his family. This was the first time that I experienced what it was like to share time with a mother and sisters. Regular changes of ship, visits to Scapa Flow and an extensive sporting programme became the norm for Eric as he made the necessary climb up the promotion ladder. At this time he made an allowance of 5sh a week (Half his wage) to his grandparents who were trying to live on the OAP 'wage' of 10 shillings a week. (I remember my mother saying that, frequently, there was nothing left after the men in the family horticultural business had been paid - these were the days of the Great Depression).

Eric proceeded with his training in Gunnery, pursued his activities with a serious 'tug-of war' team up to the AAA finals and sailed in 1932 in the Ardent with the 3rd destroyer flotilla of the Mediterranean fleet. Back home again he was to play a leading part in the Royal Tournament at Olympia in the Field Gun Crew races. A home leave saw him meeting his wife to be, Alma, at a dance at Green Oak before, after getting engaged, he went on a three year service with the China Fleet. In 1937 Eric was confirmed in the position of Petty Officer which gave him much more responsibility. He also thought, almost absent mindedly whether or not he was passing his brothers as they sailed the oceans. After his marriage to Alma in 1938 Eric received his next draft and joined HMS Sheffield in October 1939.

His experiences in HMS Sheffield were extraordinary. It was the first ship to fire at a German target in the war. It escorted Lord Mountbatten back home in his damaged ship. It conducted many escort duties into the Arctic Seas, it played a major role in the sinking of the Bismark. It escorted the Empire Trooper to Gibraltar after it had been damaged. It turned out to be his brother Leslie's ship. It carried an early form of Radar. It assisted in the Salerno landings and took American troops to the North African theatre.

It is quite obvious that Eric conducted himself with commendable bravery during his six years on board HMS Sheffield with him being mentioned in dispatches. He witnessed a great deal of damage to his ship. Nearing the end of hostilities, he left the destroyer and proceeded to qualify for commissioned rank with the help of an RAF schoolmaster specialising in mathematics.

For some ten years he held various positions as a Naval Officer before, in 1955, gaining the post of Boatswain on the Royal Yacht Britannia. Invitations to Pauline and me to visit the ship when the Royal family were not in occupation were turned down because of the daily responsibilities of our nurseries.

Eric's time on the Britannia included the voyage round the world with the Duke of Edinburgh and visits to many countries. He, along with the Duke and senior officers, wore beards for the duration of the voyage. When in Australia for the Olympic Games Eric saw cousin Sam Pinder (See Albert Pinder - Totley Independent). After his maximum time on the Britannia he was given the award of MVO - Member of the Royal Victorian Order which is at the sole discretion of the Queen - in 1958. I am sure that Eric could have written a book solely on his time on the Royal Yacht. He received the promotion to Lieutenant Commander.

Alma died in 1960 but Eric received much support from his daughter Pat. In 1963 Eric married Jean who hailed from Scotland. With the help of cousin Victor, Eric organised a gathering in Sheffield of many of his friends and relatives in 1980. At the funeral of my mother in 1989 the same Victor arranged with my son Simon to have a similar gathering but to include members of the younger generation. Sadly Victor died before their plans reached fruition.

Michael Hill