Speaker Eric Fraser - on line

Tue, May 5th 2020 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Eric Fraser's job talk - Life and Career in the Royal Navy



President John Fernie welcomed 32 members to latest Zoom meeting and before the speaker for the day, he outlined recent Club charitable activities continuing despite the Covid-19 lockdown. Using savings from not having weekly meals, members have been building a Lockdown Fund to support local community work. Recent donations have been made to local foodbank and to Stag Laser Craft Face Shield programme. Members agreed plans to provide treats to local NHS staff  and Carers as thanks for their support to the local community; to include ice cream, Rotary Mints etc. It was also agreed to continue Zoom meetings every 2 weeks until end June, after which weekly meetings could resume.If necessary to support any shielded members, use of Zoom will likely continue even when normal meetings and meals restarted. 

President John then introduced Eric Fraser, one of newer members, to talk about his life and career in the Royal Navy. With the use of Zoom share option, Eric provided members with a fascinating illustrated talk about his 37 years in the Navy. Eric summarised his career as varied, always interesting, challenging and enjoyable, with wide ranging changes in the Navy throughout those years—from 150 ships to 46, 80000 people to 30,000, massive social changes with regards to opportunities for women, removal of prejudices and elimination of the public school background domination of officers. Eric had 3 major phases in his career, covering sea based, shore based and diplomatic duties, and as he put it, was “lucky” and often “in right place and right time”, leading to regular promotions up to Commodore by time of his retirement. Members were amazed by the wide range of duties and experiences given to Eric, including graduate scholarship by the Navy, variety of ships served in , including wooden hulled minesweeper,Hull trawler minesweeping in Falklands, through to  modern Type 22 frigate command. With sea duties covering various war torn areas, fishery protection.”showing the flag” and chasing drug runners, Eric was able to demonstrate the massive range of activities covered by the Navy. Moving on to his time on shore, Eric explained how different, but no less challenging was that time in the Navy, particularly dealing with international armed forces liaison, working in Washington in tricky diplomatic areas, dealing with aftermath of 9/11 etc. Despite the reduction in UK armed forces, Eric explained that there remains very high respect globally due to the high quality of staff and equipment, along with vast historical experience of UK in both peace and war. It was very clear from Eric’s talk, that whilst often in personal danger, frequently having to copy with very stressful conditions, his life in the Navy was very satisfying and often fun; Eric told great story of meeting a middle east national in a bomb shelter, to discover that this man not only was a Rangers fan but followed the fortunes of Eric’s home team of Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Now happily retired in his wife’s home town of St Andrews, since retirement he has carried out a range of activities including lobbying for the Scottish Veterans Commission. Members gave Eric a warm Zoom vote of thanks, led by Kyffin Roberts


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