If it Moves, Salute it!: Confessions of a 1950s Navy Conscript

If It Moves, Salute It! relays the uproarious experiences of a young man in the navy during the twilight years of National Service, the late 1950s. A series of encounters help to influence his progress from raw recruit to reluctant adulthood, encompassing his journey through the hazards of training to a submarine depot ship during a visit to Belfast during ‘the troubles’, a WW2 sub in the Mediterranean, and on a high-profile tour of Scandinavia where he fell in love. The memoir also reveals service life, dress and traditions as they were at the time, many now abandoned or replaced from the modern fighting forces. After clashing with authority on the first day, Mike Perris resolved to keep out of further trouble during the remainder of his call up – a commitment he singularly failed to achieve. After surviving a disastrous security exercise and a simulated atomic bomb attack on a reserve fleet ship, he found that life in the forces was just as eventful off duty as on. This is a lively account of time spent in the navy at the end of Britain’s National Service era.