“Are you growing a set son, or did you just forget to shave this morning?”

"Permission to Grow, Sir" or “Permission to cease shaving Sir?”

The traditional forms of request for permission to grow a beard in the Navy. A ‘Set’ is Navy Jargon for beard. To ‘Grow a set’ is to grow a beard and in Her Majestiy’s ships this consisted of a Full Beard and Moustache. Neither one without the other.

"Wearing of Moustaches" Article 1105 of the Queens Regulations and Admiralty Instructions forbids the wearing of moustaches without beards by officers and men of the Royal...

As a Leading Seaman Fire Control and the Armaments Office (or XO's Writer) in HMAS DERWENT in 1978 one of my duties was to produce the weekly ship's newspaper whilst we were on our 6 month Far East Deployment.

It took off like a rocket and for the first couple of weeks I had no end of articles pouring in. But like every new toy the novelty wore off quickly. Friday mornings would find me furiously writing my own copy to provide enough material just to keep the Newspaper going. I requested from the Executive Officer (my head of department and...

This is the new Gun Plot Blog Area which I have called 'The Reg Office'.

The Regulating Office in an Australian Navy DDG was where the Ships Action, Defence, Cruising and day to day administration and organisation was planned and implemented by the 'Chief Regulator'. Usually a Chief Gunnery Sailor and more particulary a Gunnery Fire Control Chief.

It is a common misconception that a Warship's Captain or CO runs the ship on a day to day basis. The Captain is primarily there to 'Fight The Ship In Action' and otherwise he is far too busy to concern himself with day to day ship organisation. This is left to the Executive Officer, more commonly known onboard ships as 'The Jimmy', who then leaves it, in turn, to his 'Chief Regulator'. And that's me!