BY H.M.S. VENUS OUR NAVAL WARFARE EDITOR

DOGGED BY DECLINING numbers and a struggle to recruit, even with sexy DEI advertising, the once mighty Royal Navy is said to be considering retreating to using Press Gangs to obtain new sailors for its dwindling fleet of warships.

Up until the early 19th Century the Royal Navy relied on gangs going around coastal towns, usually into taverns and forcibly impressing men into service. Sometimes it was basic kidnapping, others it was offering a schilling – the famous King’s Schilling – to a probably drunken target. The moment he took the coin he was considered signed up. Such was the demand for men, that the Royal Navy took to stopping American ships looking for people born in Britain or Ireland and then taking them forcibly into service. This was one of the causes of the somewhat forgotten War of 1812.

Hermann Melville of Moby Dick fame, wrote a novella, Billy Budd, where an innocent is taken into service in this manner and suffers with his life in the end. Sixties icon Terrence Stamp rose to stardom playing Budd in the movie of the same name.

“The Royal Navy will probably stop short of hitting people over the head with clubs,” says recruitment specialist Linda Legless of Oink Employment. “But I hear they are thinking of using AI in mobile phones to trap prey. Young people need to be clever. They might think they are signing on for a role in a film and find themselves on board a warship instead. Keep an eye out for men with wooden legs, parrots on their shoulders and eye patches. Anyone greeting you with ‘Ahar!’ should be avoided.”