By JASON TURNER
IT was 1963 — almost 50 years ago exactly — that Gary Saunders signed up for the structure and rigour of navy life, but to him it still feels just like yesterday.
The memories came flooding back for Mr Saunders, of Dandenong North, and his fellow Royal Australian Navy apprentices when they gathered at the Dandenong Club for their 50-year reunion last month.
Since holding their first reunion in 2000, the group of about 20 men get together every six months, swapping stories and revisiting old tales. As Mr Saunders says, it “keeps the comradeship going”.
Mr Saunders and his future mates first met in 1963 at the Quakers Hill base in New South Wales. About 800 men were based at the self-sufficient quarters, with men spending four years completing an apprenticeship, then another four in service.
They travelled the world, some of them seeing active conflict in Vietnam and Malaysia. Mr Saunders joined the navy to follow his childhood dream of becoming a boatbuilder. He remembers the structure and routine of military life, but also the lighter side.
Another colleague, Bruce Lewis, recalls the time first-year apprentices upset a duty officer after a prank went wrong. All his roommates ended up spending the early hours evading the senior officers by running laps of nearby airstrips, kilometres in length.
Mr Lewis said those sorts of memories were unforgettable and “it bonds you together.”
“You develop affiliations and friendships with people and at the time you don’t really accept the concept that these are people you are going to remember, from time to time, for the rest of your life. And it’s just nice to see them again.”
Fellow apprentice Eric Shaw, originally from Penguin in Tasmania, recalls the time he arrived at the base.
“It was a big adventure,” Mr Shaw said. “At 15, coming from a small country town to go to a large navy base in Sydney. The base itself was like a small town.”
The former commission engineer said the chance to catch up with old comrades was great “to renew old friendships”.
“Because we were together at very formative years from 15 to 19 you form very strong bonds and those bonds have lasted throughout.”
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