"EX LIBRIS" 1951 THE CRUISE OF THE VENGEFUL

Clear in my memory , the dust jacket I was amazed to find via Google!

Truth to tell, the first book I ever read was Robert  Louis Stevenson's "TREASURE ISLAND" which I received as a Christmas gift around age 7 yrs or maybe 8yrs. I found it difficult to concentrate on initially but came back to it successfully some time later. My appetite for seafaring adventure had been whetted.

In an earlier post I mentioned that I was not balloted for National Service in the birth date lottery, and that, whilst standing on Berala Railway Station one morning , waiting for my train to the City, I decided that I should so some form of volunteer service instead. For me, that would have to be the Royal Australian Naval Reserve.

Other than my elder Brother's desire to join the Navy during the War( which as I have already recorded he was not allowed to do) the family had no record of Naval Service. But I had a fascination with the Navy and Naval History from a very early age. I can recall reading in 6th Class (Age 11 yrs) at Marist Brothers Lidcombe a book from the School Library called 

"The Cruise of the Vengeful"and being enthralled.( In an effort to find out more about it I have found that it is on Google Books, was written by Gordon Stables and is set in 1908 when the Royal Navy's latest warship is instrumental in frustrating a French and Russian plan to conquer England!! Classification - "Juvenile Fiction" well, I was 11 ! The Internet never ceases to amaze me. I remember the Dust jacket well!)

So, I enlisted in the R.A.N.R. which involved spending 2 weeks each year on a training cruise as well as attending weekly training parades at H.M.A.S. RUSHCUTTER ,a shore establishment on Rushcutter's Bay on Sydney's Southern Harbour shore in the Eastern Suburbs.