Quite near to the well known naval town of Lossiemouth (HMS Fulmar and the fleet air arm) in Morayshire Scotland is the little town of FORRES (or Farrais in local tounge). I know it because it is a regular winner of the Scotland in Bloom competition as my town in England, Bury St Edmunds, regularly wins the England in Bloom competition, thus we have much in common. Well two things about Forres of note, one being that there is a naval crest for HMS Forres a WW1 minesweeper, and secondly there is a plaque on a wall in the town commemorating the dead of WW1. On it, is the name of Robert PAUL a 19 year old RNR man who was lost in 1916 whilst serving on the requisitioned Scottish steamer named HMS MERCURY but more commonly HMMS Mercury (His Majesty's Mine Sweeper). Robert is recorded as a deck hand and not as an able seaman as one might expect given his RNR membership status. This is probably because, like so many civilian/merchant seamen in vessels which were requisitioned, they stayed on as crew members when the vessel was under Admiralty command/orders. It was usual for small vessels (as in this case) that the C.O., was a Temporary (Ty) Lt Cdr RNR/RNVR, but for a very small vessel (say, a trawler) the C.O., was a Temporary Skipper*. Robert is buried at the SHOTLEY burial ground Suffolk amongst many Ganges youths and boys who by and large, died of diseases.

  Of all the naval sayings, titles, ranks etc used from just before WW1 onwards, the most misused of all is the term "skipper". No matter what rank or whether mercantile or naval, the C.O., of a ship is as often as not called "the skipper" by the crew or "father" by the officers although the latter rarely nowadays! It is an unintended insult, and rarely if ever has its utterance been challenged or corrected by the upper deck. Temporary (abbreviated to "Ty" and the first word of all officers titles who were not full time professionals i.e. Royal Navy), Probationary Skippers (abbreviated to "Pro Skr") were essentially fishing boat captains pre WW1, who were taught new things to do with their tackle like streaming and laying, with the addition of being supplied with and taught how to use small arms particularly the 9mm service revolver and .303 rifle. These new tricks were respectively to stream paravanes to cut secured (to the seabed by cables) mines so they bobbed-up to the surface for destruction by small arms fire, or could lay mines or submarine nets to order. To do this, and to conform with the Geneva Convention that all combatants must be in uniform, the crew were given a uniform of sorts and the captains (skippers) were given rank in a recognised military/naval Service co-opting many hundreds in one go into the RNR (Royal Naval Reserve) . Their colloquial name of "skipper" was to be retained with the addition of RNR behind their rank titles.

  When WW1 started the word probationary was dropped and the title in short, became "Ty Skr". A skipper throughout WW1 was the equivalent of an RN Warrant officer in all respects from title, uniform (four buttons instead of three buttons as worn by CPO's) , marks of respect, pay and privileges. His uniforms (plural for different occasions), cap and cap badge, sword, sword belt, were virtually the same as for ordinary commissioned officers, except that being a warrant officer RN/RNR (the skipper rank was not extended to the RNVR - Volunteer Reserve), he wore three buttons on each cuff of his tunic jacket, each one on the top of a flute.

  Have a look at the following two pictures which are RN Coastguards during WW1. The centre guy of the group and bossman is a warrant officer, which I have zoomed into in the second picture. Note the detail on the cuffs and the flutes running down from the buttons.

The six men at the rear are all either killicks or able seamen and the whole group served their time in the RN before joining the Coast Guard. Those in the front row are respectively L to R:- 2nd class PO, 1ST class PO, basic WO with less than 10 years service&one, difficult to assess but believed to be a 1st class PO and finally a 2nd class PO. Smart and well turned out group eh?

This is the rank style of a Temporary Skipper RNR (Ty Skr RNR)

To put this in perspective I will use two text snippets, the first being the naval pecking order in seniority which is:

	a. RN - Royal Navy and all its officers. b. RNR - Royal Naval Reserve and all its officers. c. RNVR - Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and all its officers.

The second being the order of seniority of RNR officers in 1915 as an example:-

	d. Captains - 12 of them and all ex admirals. e. Commander - 19. f. Lt Cdr - 19. g. Lieutenants - lots of them. h. Sub Lieutenants - ? i. Chief Engineers - a few. j. Senior Engineers - lots of them. k. Engineers - ? l. Assistant Engineers - ? m. Paymaster - a few. n. Assistant Paymasters - ? >

  The difference between an admiral of the fleet in charge of the Royal Navy and a "young" skipper RNR was unbridgeable, there being many tens of thousands of officers involved, never mind between an admiral of the fleet and the lowliest rank of a junior officer in the RNVR.

  Now there were three types of warrant officers:-

  Basic who wore three buttons on flutes for the first 10 years. Thereafter OVER 10years, on promotion, he dons a ¼” Stripe above his buttons, and a Chief warrant officer (CWO) also called a commissioned warrant officer who dons a ½” stripe above his buttons.

  After that his promotion is to a wardroom commission when he drops his buttons and all mention of the words Warrant Officer and becomes a Ranker(a sub lieutenant) and wears a single ½” stripe, and if lucky, because by now he would be quite elderly, he could go on to become a lieutenant but not many did!

  The Basic WO was called a Skipper or a Ty SKIPPER. The Over 10 WO became a Leading Skipper and the CWO a Chief Skipper. After that there were appointments as Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander Skippers to command larger vessels.

  So, remember that by calling your dashing four stripe captain a Skipper is really a bloody insult so please desist.

Yours aye, Jeff Dykes