LAND & WATER 
November 29, iqiy 
have fDiintl it a hotter wot-wpatJicr Rame than football. 
In all of these sports inter-ship and intcr-squadron rivalry 
]■, encouraged, principally because it stimulates tlie minds of 
«<o many outside the actual participants. 
"Many of the officers have their f;olt clubs and tennis racquets. 
and though our links and courts would hardly satisfy the 
critical eyes of St. Andrt>\vs or ' Queen's ' professionals, they 
have been a big help to vis. Cross-country runs and pa])er- 
chascs, up anil down the steep hills and over the soggy peat 
bogs, are taken part in by both men and officers, and for 
flesh-reducing, muscle-hardening and chest-expanding are 
about the best thing we have. The tug-of-war is a tra- 
ditional Navy ^p^rt, for it can, if necessary, be enjoyed on 
shipboard as well as ashore. . The great pride which the 
men of a ship take in the success of its team makes this also 
a very useful sport for its ' psvchologic ' value. 
" Amusements pure and simple — the kinema and thea- 
tricals '. — are a new thing with us (at least while on acti\'e 
service) and the scheme is still in process of de\'eIopnient. 
I-'or a number of reasons it is impracticable for professional 
trotipes to visit the Grand Fleet in the same way as they have 
been going to France to entertain the Anriy. The greater 
distance is against it, as is also the fact that we have no place 
to put them up. Again, as there is no place where they could 
])erform to more than a thousand men (at the outside) at one 
time, it would obviously take swne months to make a round 
of the Fleet. The fact that the visitors might awake almost 
any morning to find themselves on the way to a seafight is 
also a deterrent. All of these things have made it necessary 
for us to shift for ourselves in the matter of entertainment. 
" Each shij), of course, has always had its band and 
orchestra, and concerts and rather crude theatrical shows 
have been features of Navy life from time immemorial. Tlie 
trouble with the shows, however, has always been the amount 
of improvising that they entailed, especially in the matter of 
a stage, footlights, seats and the like. Before the war the 
men usually managed to find time to paint and rig ' flies ' 
and ' drops,' devise lighting effects, and even to fi.\ up some 
kind of auditorium. Here, with the whole ship standing by 
for orders to put to sea, all of this was out of the question. 
I'nder these circumstances, the man who first conceived the 
idea of a special ' theatre ship ' deserves a monument as a 
benefactor to the British Navy. 
" The suggestion was to provide a steamer on which a 
permanent stage, complete with sets of scenery, exits and 
entidnces, footlights, sidelights and dressing-rooms, had been 
installed ; also sufficient seats to accommodate as many of 
the crew of a battleship as could ever be off duty at one time. 
The thing would have been worth while a dozen times over, 
even if it had been necessary to detach a three or four thou- 
sand-ton steamer for no other purpose. I.uckily, the plan 
chanced to, dove-tail to a nicety with the functions of a steamer 
which, in carr^'ing frozen beef to the Fleet, laid alongside 
each ship for from tU'enty-four to forty-eight hours. The 
stage, auditorium and the rest were built without interfering 
in the least with the steamer's regular work, nor have the 
some hundreds of performahces already given aboard been 
responsible for tlie least interruption in our supply of frozen 
beef. As for the shows, she is discharging to the ' X ' 
of our squadron to-day, ancH'ftu can go over to-night and see 
one for yourself. , 
Kinemas and Films 
" The trouble with the ' theatre ship ' idea is that it is too 
long bctw-een show-s. Between the battleship and the endless 
auxiliaries, it may easily take from two to three months for 
the beef-cum-theatre steamer to make the full round of 
the Fleet, an interval which we had to find some way of 
bridging with other entertainment. It was a difficult problem 
in many ways, and it is only within the last month or two 
that we have found— through the kinema— a satisfactory 
solution. Fvcry ship in the Fleet has now its projector, ancl, 
through an organisation formed in London for that purpose,' 
a continuous supply of the latest and best films is sent up 
and circulated at a cost to us that is almost negligilile. Tlie 
films on arrival at the Depot Ship which houses the Post 
Office, are listed and filed, to be distributed to the various 
units in accordance with their demands. 
"Each ship has a daily bulletin of the liew films arriving, 
and at once sends in an application for its preference, with 
two or three alternatives should the first choice have gone 
to a prior claimant. The scheme has been successful beyond 
words. Each ship has a nightly performance, the projector 
being at the disposal of the men during the week, and of the ■ 
officers on Saturday. All share in the cost of it, which 
only comes to a .shilling or two per head a rnonth. With a little 
larger supply of the more popular films, the development of 
this kinema scheme promises to give us everything we could 
possibly ask on the score of evening amus'ement. About 
the only thing left to do would be to. buy a few picture-taking 
machines, let the officers and men write the scenarios, and 
start making films on our own account. If it turns out that 
we're to be here another year or two, I don't doubt that's 
what we will be doing.'.' 
The Theatre-Ship 
•There is not a great deal that I can add to this compre- 
hensive summary of the way work and play have been 
administered with such success in maintaining the moral of 
the men of the (irand Fleet. The show on the " theatre- 
ship " that night I found well worth the wet launch trip in 
a sloppy sea. It consisted of two parts of varieties and one 
of burlesque. Most of the numbers had been under rehearsal 
for several weeks, and the whole affair went oif with all the 
aplomb of a London Revue. No " accessories " — from 
posters to programmes — were missing, not even the Censor. 
An officer sitting next me, calling my attention to the blank 
back of the programme, said that lie had written some 
" advertisements " to fill it, but that the Censor had banned 
them at the last moment as " not proper." As a matter of 
fact, there was far less in the whole show played by men to 
men, as it was, to " bring a blush to the cheek " than in the 
average London revue. A certain ^' chilliness " in the atmos- 
phere of the auditorium, due to the fact that it was situated 
immediately over one of the refrigerating chambers, was 
more than neutralised by the warm reception the packed 
audience gave the show from the opening chorus t6 "God 
Save the King." 
I managed to spend a few minutes at the nightly kinema 
show on several battleships. All of the available seats were 
invariably packed, with the enthusiasm tremendous, especially 
for the " knock-about " pictures. Charlie Chaplin appeareil 
to be a ten-to-one favourite' over anyone else — both in the 
Ward Rooms and on the Lower Decks — and the demand for 
films in which he figured was a good deal greater than the 
available supply. The " sentimental " Mary Pickford sort 
of films were rather more popular than the men cared to show 
by their applause, but the harrowing " suffering-mother-and 
child " subjects they would have none of. A rather poor 
film of Rider Haggard's SJw which I saw was very coldly 
received by both men and officers. The Official War films of 
all of the Allies were always sure of a rousing reception. A 
special treat was the picture of the King's recent visit to the 
Grand Fleet, which offered men and officers the exciting 
sportof" finding " themselves on various sectors of it. Travel 
films were in little demand, the reason for which was perhaps 
supplied by one of my coaling-mates, who said that the only 
kind of travel " movie " that he was interested in was the 
woods of Scotland running north at sixty miles an hour past 
the window of his homebound train. 
Besides the more or less organised forms of work and play, 
many of the men in the Fleet have some sort of a hobby to 
w^hich they turn in the rare intervals which might otherwise 
be spent in " thumb-twirling " and " thinking," those twin 
enemies of " The Contented Sailor." Thousands of men 
" make things "—not the old ship-in-a-bottle seaside bar orna- 
ment sort, but objects of real usefulness. One officer had 
become a specialist on electrical heating contrivances, and 
had equipped the Ward Room witli cigar lighters to work with 
the ship's " juice " and save matches. "Another was making 
his own golf clubs, and I heard of a Captain of Royal Marines 
of noble lineage who had fabricated a very " wearable "pair 
of Noi-wegian ski-shoes. There are so many skilled artisans 
among the men that one is not surprised to see them making 
almost anything ; nevertheless, the gunner of one of the 
battleships who— with the sole exception of the lens— made 
a complete kinema projecting machine, did a very creditable 
piece of work. 
Some of the Senior Naval Officers have gone in for stock- 
breeding, overflowing to the land in their endeavours to find 
room to expand. Pig-raising is the most popular line, and 
there is great rivalry between the several " sty proprietors." 
A certain distinguished sailor— his name is a byword to the 
Enghslte people— discoursed learnedly to me" for fifteen 
minutes on the strategy of the Battle-of Jutland, and then, 
turning to a visiting ofiicer, spoke with equal facility, and 
even greater enthusiasm, of his success in crossing the " China 
1 oland ' with the " Ordinary Orkney " to increase (or was 
It to reduce ?) the " streak " in the bacon. He called the 
new breed the " Chinorkland," or something like that, and if 
the fact that he was planning three or four generations ahead 
conveys anything as to the view the Navy takes regarding 
the duration of the war, my readers— with tlie Censor's 
indulgence— are welcome to the tip. 
<=,^r^!i rl"??'''' ''''"* ^ '='"^"'' ^o"" £^°° as a donation to the 
'vMr A tI "^l^PP^"*' '■'^^'''^^ '« t>eing made on behalf of the 
m'ini„„' „; ,• '" u^'^ ^'^ ^'"'^ ^P'^'^'^l appeal a sum of half a 
million sterhnc will te raised before the end of tlie vonr. 
