Royal Naval Association Brightlingsea
“UNITY, LOYALTY, PATRIOTISM, COMRADESHIP”
On Tuesday 7th June we had a fish and chip supper at Mac's Plaice, looking at the empty plates it went down well
​On Saturday 19th March a contingent of shipmates travelled through Essex to visit a distillery where they brew a sailor's favourite.
Here we see the Stills used for distilling the spirit to make the sailor's favourite drink amongst others, they have their own brand on sale. They will also visit groups to give talks about their distillery.
A wide range of Rum and Gin to taste
So much choice difficult to know what to pick.
On Sunday the 15th of August a small contingent of our members attanded the annual VJ Day service at the memorial. We were pleased to help the RBL with our latest recruit Viv' who carried the Brightlingsea RBL standard.
The service was followed with refreshments at the RBL Club where we had a toast to Tom Blair.
The photo on the left is of our two standard bearers carrying the RNA and the RBL standards.
The photo on the right is our President Ron with his Son.
Our visit to Brightlingsea Museum on 22nd of June
Members perusing the displays in the museum all looking very engrossed. Notice they are all wearing regulation masks and social distancing in force.
Whilst there they had complimentary refreshments; they haven't told us what it was, tea and biscuits or a tot maybe.
We would like to thank Margaret Stone and her team for opening the museum just for us. No doubt we will return.
Our WW2 Veteran, President Ron Underwood, discovers a photo of himself as a 17 years old cadet.
Black Tot Friday anniversary 31st July 2020
Around 12 shipmates managed to attend over a period of 3 hours and between 3 and 4 bottles of rum consumed. During the ‘meeting’ the Secretary managed to sign up two new recruits for the Branch, not a bad effort and even in these restricted times we have met our recruiting target for the year. As these occasions do, the Shipmate Vice-Chairman met an old shipmate from 45—50 years ago, a member of the Harwich Branch, he did not remember me but did remember 2 of my brothers, such is life.
One of our members is a search dog handler and trainer and at our meeting they were brought along to show us what they could do.
Hello Hello Sam what have you got in that bag
I've found the stuff boss
We were pleased that a contingent from Stowmarket RNA visited us for this evening. We were all impressed by the perfromannce of the dogs and the experiences of as a dog handler and trainer.
Poppy gets her reward
Our day out in Maldon at the Combined Services Museum
On Thursday 29th August several members visited the Combined Military Services Museum in Maldon, an excellent museum with an extremely large display of military equipment, uniforms and hardware not forgetting an engine from the revolutionary fighter TSR2. The staff were welcoming and their knowledge of the displays made our trip more interesting. As you can see the sun was shining so some went to visit the quay and buy icecreams.
