Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on June 19, 2003 at 13:56:48 from 212.134.226.216 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: ". What Commander Walker did on leave." posted by John Wilson on June 19, 2003 at 04:52:11:
The spacing of the Walker family is entirely logical.
To be appointed as Commander of HMS Ganges (Shotley), responsible for the training of the next generation of Naval Ratings, Commander Walker was clearly recognised as one of the highest potential highflyers in the Navy.
During the War such an officer would have pulled every string to make sure that he was appointed to the Grand Fleet, probably a Flagship or a Battle Cruiser, to ensure that he had the greatest chance of distinction when ‘Der Tag’ – confidently expected by both sides – arrived. He would have been able to take leave from time to time and be able then to get home fairly regularly.
By the 1920s the Grand Fleet had been reduced in size and the only priority of the remaining ships was achieving perfection in paintwork and polished brass. The keen young officer would then have sought an overseas posting, probably in smaller ships where there was still some chance of action and where command would come sooner, and this explains why Ted Walker was serving in destroyers in the Mediterranean and Far East at the time of the earlier books. But the flip side of this, certainly as far as family life was concerned, was that the cost – both in money and time – of coming home, especially from the China station, would have been such that he probably could only return to his family at the end of each Commission and would be away each time for two years or more.
We know that he didn’t get home during the two years between SA and WD.