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BACKGROUND HISTORY

Stone Frigate is based on the history of HMS Standard, a special Naval rehabilitation camp originally sited at Lewisburn (near Kielder), Northumberland, which operated during World War II. Unique at the time within the Royal Navy, the centre was mentioned in 'The Royal Naval Medical Service' publication (1952), under the chapter Neuro-Psychiatry in Naval Administration:

 

‘When a man’s conduct was such that he was considered unreliable and useless in general service, but physically fit and amenable to training, he was placed in category C/Q and sent to HMS Standard for training to become fit for either full or restricted service in the Navy. This system allowed for both the Executive and Medical Authorities the opportunity to remove from general service, without actual discharge from the Navy, those troublesome individuals who were constitutionally unfitted for life at sea in a time of war.’

 

The report goes on to describe its intake as:

 

‘… neither pure psychiatrics nor pure delinquents who could be dealt with either in hospital or in detention quarters ... Before the founding of HMS Standard there was no provision for this particular group of men, and the problem with which the service was faced was that is such men were permitted to escape their responsibilities to the nation and the Service in time of war, they might well infect others, whose morale might equally become impaired.’

 

These official descriptions perhaps glossed over the realities of the centre: the challenges and methods of dealing with the breadth of needs of personnel sent to the camp, and the intense and draining atmosphere this created relative to the uncertainty and inexperience of many who were charged with its daily running. This was set against bleak living conditions of the isolated rural environment that surrounded HMS Standard. Whilst some of the intake of ratings viewed the centre as a haven away from their experiences of war, Naval life and possibly deeper-rooted trauma, others considered it no better than a detention or concentration camp, bringing with this a feeling of resentment, hostility and in some cases, desire to abscond. Inevitably, this may have compounded internal hierarchies that established themselves amongst personnel.

 

Then there was the stigma of HMS Standard – of being assigned as category C/Q – and living with this. One of two Royal Naval psychiatrists posted to HMS Standard describes how rumour of the camp’s existence acted as a deterrent to non-co-operative ratings. That it was as much an experiment in making ‘bad citizens into better citizens’. But, what did this mean to the men sent there?

 

This is at the heart of Stone Frigate. The exploration of how intakes dealt not only with the situation, regimentation and conditions at hand – allowing it to mould them positively or reacting against them - but being dealt with a hand that might induce scorn, resentment and possibly a tag they would grapple with for the rest of the war, and their lives.

 

Perhaps poignantly and ironically, the once land-locked site where HMS Standard once stood is now underwater following the flooding of the upper North Tyne valley during the 1980s to form a reservoir.

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