» Listings for 2025

1. MY OBITUARY

   Posted on 12:00pm Saturday 22nd Mar 2025

   This morning, I was sitting in the plenary session of the Scottish Association of Writers Annual Conference, thinking my thoughts and half-listening to the Chairman's opening address, which was followed by obituaries for members who had passed away since the previous conference.

   'That's shocking,' I heard the lady behind me remark to her neighbour. 'I was talking to him last night and he looked so well.'

   I looked up at the big screen and there, under obituaries, was my name in large letters. I raised my hand and shouted: 'I'm still here!' That brought the house down. The biggest laugh I've ever achieved.

   I had sent in an obituary for Robin Lloyd-Jones, a member of my Helensburgh Writers Workshop, but somehow my name had made it on to the obituary list but it was not bad news. Everyone attending the Conference now knows who Eric Thompson is. Best publicity I've ever had. (Wish it could have been for my writing).

2. THE POINT IN BEING HUMAN

   Posted on 12:00pm Wednesday 5th Mar 2025

   Some weeks ago, I arrived in Glasgow's Queen Street station from Edinburgh and feeling the need to answer the call of Nature, I headed for the station's new superloo, only to discover that I needed a fifty pence coin to operate the turnstyle. I had bank notes and bank card but no coins, and there was neither card payment nor change machine available. My need turned from desperation to panic.

   I was just contemplating how to climb over the turnstyle and risk any penalty when what could best be described as a 'common old working chap' (a line from the song, 'I belong to Glasgow') arrived. 'Do you need a fifty-p coin?' he asked, recognising my problem.

   'Yes,' I replied. 'I have notes and a bank card but no coins.'

   'There you are,' he said, handing me a fifty-p coin. He looked at my wife and asked if she needed one as well. 'Yes,' she replied. He gave her a fifty pence coin too.

   'That is so incredibly kind of you,' I said.

   He looked at me as if I were a bit dumb and replied: 'If you can't be kind, what's the point in being human?'

   ----

   There was a sequel to this. When we emerged from the Gents, I pulled a £5 note from my wallet and offered it to him but he refused to take it. 'Take it,' I insisted, 'and donate it to your favourite charity.'

   He thought for a moment; then took it. 'I'm taking my granddaughter to the football tonight. I'll give it to her.'

   'Football tonight', I thought. The only game in Glasgow that evening was a Rangers UEFA Cup game. This kindly man was a Rangers fan - and so was I, but neither of us was wearing any football insignia. That just goes to show that the much-maligned football fans are not all thugs and hooligans.

   'If you can't be kind, what's the point in being human?' I shall never forget that remark.

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

3. UK Ltd

   Posted on 12:00pm Friday 21st Feb 2025

   Here is an edited verson of a short correspondence I've just had with a complete stranger who contacted me via this website:

   Dear Cdre Thompson,
   
   I work at SSS Gears, selling SSS Clutches. Given your engineer status, I am going to assume you know what that means. I read your book a while ago in the spirit of absorbing everything in the public domain about future opportunities and how flexible operation makes our kit useful for future systems. Company urban legends exist of course, however the real truth or matters that we do not know, are often a different story.  Books like yours and Silent Service were an enormous help and I can now speak slightly more confidently, so thank you!

   Why your book was so helpful?.... I first learned of your book via a review in Iain Ballantine's Warship magasine which outlined the prologue and the opening SCRAM dit / steam dilemma.  After reading your excellent book, learning of your options and respective dilemmas, I started thinking about how that might be dealt with in more recent machinery.  Regardless of whether or not solutions we might be able to generate are plausible and practical for that same dilemma, that your book started the useful thought process in the first place is why I owe you thanks. You also made sacrifices and faced daunting risk to help hide a 130m long steel tube, giving myself, family and friends the deterrent safety necessary to help ensure peace. So thank you, again.

   I am not a submariner. I have learned from others who are, however, offering personal and professional advice; so I remain in awe of their service, like yours. I wrote your excellent risk comparison of motor car vs. rifles vs. nuclear weapons, in the front of one of my personal notebooks, along with the CND "poor bloody infantry" analogy. Thought pieces like that are extremely good contemplative points from which to reinforce my personal position to always push the extra mile, such that future safety for my children remains in front of commercial success and gross profit.

    

   That you class yourself as a mongrel dinosaur engineer who drove nuclear reactors, is a charming oxymoron. Similar to Patrick Moore classing himself as an "amateur" astronomer because he didn't actually walk on the moon. To be clear, I contacted you to thank you for the above, not to seek your support or help.  Either way, you are most welcome at SSS if you ever venture down here. People like me never forget.

    

   Warmest regards,

   Nicholas Bellamy

   My reply:

   Dear Nicholas,  

   Thank you for such kind words. You make me feel very humble. As an engineer, it has always been very clear to me that I was merely one arm of UK Ltd. Without our British industrial and scientific base, we would still be throwing stones at the Russians. I have just as much respect for the role played by industrialists like you as you seem to have for submariners.

    

   His reply:

    

   Your “without industrialists like you / throwing stones at the Russians” quote will be on the company notice board on Monday morning. Another thank you; thank you!

    

   Nicholas Bellamy

    

   Comment

    

   I wrote 'On Her Majesty's Nuclear Service' because I felt that 99% of the British public had no idea or any thoughts on what the submariners out on strategic deterrent patrol were doing on their behalves, let alone that we were helping to prevent World War 3. The vast bulk of publicity and political discourse on the subject was predominantly anti-nuclear. Nuclear deterrence had been demoted in public opinion from insurance policy to 'nuclear bad' and 'deterrence a waste of money'.  (Many have changed their minds now that Putin's Russia has invaded Ukraine). It has been immensely rewarding to receive unsoilicited letters of thanks like the above. 

4. PRAISE INDEED

   Posted on 12:00pm Thursday 23rd Jan 2025

   My award-winning book, 'On Her Majesty's Nuclear Service', was published six years ago but I am delighted to say that it is still a best-seller with my publisher and I am still receiving a steady stream of unsolicited positive reader feedback. This message truly made my day. When I read it, I assumed that it was from a fellow submariner but no. It was from a complete stranger who worked in a job centre, just the sort of wider readership I had been hoping to reach. Could not have asked for more.

   Dear Commodore Thompson, I have just read On Her Majesty’s Nuclear Service and I loved it. It is fascinating in its technical details and brings out the human aspect of the job so well. Anyone who has struggled with difficult team mates would recognise your experience on your first submarine posting. You mentioned the brotherhood of submariners - well I think your book matches Das Boot as the best book about submarine life I have ever read. Many thanks for all you have done for our country and congratulations on such a wonderful career. Best wishes, Stephen Marshall