From Rating to Officer: Habitus clivé and other struggles associated with promotion in the Royal Navy Sue Diamond PhD Sociology The Thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Portsmouth. Date: January 2017 1 ‘Whilst registered as a candidate for the above degree, I have not been registered for any other research award. The results and conclusions embodied in this thesis are the work of the named candidate and have not been submitted for any other award’. Word Count 86,263 2 CONTENTS page Abstract 5 Acknowledgements 6 Researcher’s Note 7 List of Illustrations 9 List of Appendices 10 Glossary of Terms 11 Outline of Work 14 Chapter 1. Introductory Chapter 17 Research Aims 17 Research Questions 19 Origins of the Research 20 Why do the Study? 24 Class 26 Historical Context 33 i. The Beginnings of Officership 34 ii. Twentieth Century Officership 37 iii. Cultural Manifestations of Officers and Ratings 39 Chapter 2. Rank & Rate 42 Military Identity and Rank 42 Implications of Rank 48 i. Lower Deck Culture and Practices 49 ii. Officer Embodiment 53 Visual Manifestations 56 i. The Geography of Rank 59 Social Cohesion 65 i. Training Ratings 67 Communication and Language 70 Sport & Activities 73 3 page Chapter 3. Being an Officer 76 The Officer Ideal 76 The Officer as a Professional 78 Performing the Role 82 Problematic Aspects 85 Coping With Transition 91 Chapter 4. The Significance for the Family 93 Marrying Into the Navy 93 Navy Homes 97 When the Family is Promoted 100 Chapter 5. Methods and Data 109 Research Paradigm & Ethical Considerations 109 Questionnaires 112 Interviews 115 i. Limitation of Interviews 117 ii. Reflections on Interview Process 119 iii Interviews as Therapeutic 119 iv. Post Interview 120 Photograph and Object Elicitation 121 Personal Narratives 123 Ethnographic Observation 124 Media & Cultural Representation 125 Storage and Analysis of Data 126 Presentation of Data and Analysis Chapter 6. The Promotion Process 128 Identity on Joining the Navy 128 Reasons for Promotion 137 Qualifying 144 i. Academic Qualifications and Exams 145 ii. The Admiralty Interview Board 149 iii. Playing the Game 151 iv. Leaving the Mess Behind 156 4 Chapter 7. The Officer World- Part 1 The Embodiment of Officership 159 First Feelings – the Knife and Fork Course 159 Performing the Role 167 i. Wearing the Uniform 167 ii. Saluting and Corporeal Indicators 172 iii. Impression Management & Stigma 175 iv. Accent and Linguistics 179 Chapter 8. The Officer World- Part 2 The Material World 186 Training Establishments 186 Rating Life 189 Dartmouth 191 Classed views of the ‘other’ 194 Material Culture 197 Eating and Drinking 200 Stewards 202 Branch and Specialisation 204 Chapter 9. Difficult Times 214 Alienation & Hysteresis 214 Feeling Inferior 219 Economic and Cultural Capital 221 Temporal Implications 225 Colleagues not Comrades 228 The Toll on Family Life 232 i. Being Promoted Together 233 ii. Expectations of Wives 237 iii. Embodied Expectations 241 iv. Co-opted Labour 245 v. Problems 247 vi. Extended Family and Friends 249 Chapter 10. Conclusive Comments 256 Influences on Promotion Outcomes 256 Habitus, the core of the matter 262 The strength of Habitus 264 Areas for Further Research 268 Final Words 270 Appendices 271 Bibliography 294 5 Abstract The aim of this research is to investigate the dilemmas of upward social mobility within the Royal Navy. Thirty percent of Royal Navy officers are recruited from the subordinate group known as ratings. There are considerable differences in cultural and behavioural expectations between the officer and rating groups. Officership in the Royal Navy is a high status profession which is aligned with upper middle class outlooks, as compared with the working class orientation of ratings. The research is a field analysis of the Navy from a sociological perspective. It investigates officers who served during the period from 1934 to 2012. The research draws on the work a number of theorists particularly Pierre Bourdieu and his concepts of hysteresis and habitus clivé. It investigates the promotion process; how officers negotiate the transition from membership of a subordinate group to that of a superordinate group, and what strategies former ratings utilise to gain promotion and perform the role of naval officer. The thesis provides a close investigation of the officer world; comparison is made between the sub fields of the rating mess decks and the officer’s wardroom taking into consideration the difference in expectations of material culture and corporeal embodiments in the two groups. In addition, the implications of promotion on the officer’s family and his relationship with extended family is taken into to account, as promotion can impact on all family members. The research findings indicate that majority of the promoted men experienced ontological insecurity, they felt a disconnection between their innate sense of self and what they should be as an officer. As they transitioned from the rating to officer corps they enter a new operational field which is misaligned with their habitus, thus resulting in hysteresis. The individual finds themselves leading a duality of existences – a divided self or what Bourdieu calls habitus clivé. The conclusions indicate that habitus is such a strong influence on our understanding of self it overrides all other influences such as training and economic capital. There are few sociological studies of the Royal Navy and this is the first analysis of this kind, it is hoped that it will contribute to the wider debate on the demands of social mobility occurring over a short time. 6 Acknowledgements I am indebted to those who have supervised me throughout this project; Dr Laura Hyman and Dr Simon Stewart who have been patient and understanding especially as I have brought this project to an end, and Professor Kay Peggs who set me off on this journey and gave me the confidence to believe I could do it. I am also grateful for the support of Dr Joseph Burridge, Dr Kevin McSorley and other members of the Sociology department at the University of Portsmouth. I would like to thank my friends who have helped in many ways; Dawn & Richie who were on standby with their IT expertise, Vicky, Alan, Andy, Marian, Rona, John and Sue H-D who have shared discussion and debate over meals and drinks. Dr John Wood who has given guidance and motivation. Dr Jo Stanley who has been a source of inspiration and shared her maritime interests with me. I would like to thank all of the men and women who participated in this research, in addition the following officers were generous with their time and expertise: Surgeon Rear Admiral Mike Farquharson-Roberts CBE RN Rear Admiral Nick Lambert RN Captain Paul Quinn OBE RN Captain Mike Young MBE RN Lt Cdr Brian Witts MBE RN - Curator of HMS Excellent museum Every person who replied to my request for participants has contributed to this research in some way – I hope I have given them a voice and helped those who recounted tales of difficult times. My observations over forty years of involvement with the Royal Navy have enabled me to meet many inspirational, determined and funny people who sometimes work in very difficult circumstances and have a peaceful, perceptive and entertaining and way of viewing the world. I appreciate and enjoy the visits from Mike, Gem and Pete who have given me much happiness and fun and are my sounding board for new ideas and thoughts. Most of all I want to thank Bear who has been my best friend for forty years and has given me knowledgeable guidance in Navy matters, a good supply of chocolate and rum and never moaned when the books arrive in the post. Dedication This work is dedicated to the memory of John Waugh who died in November 2011 and is remembered every day. 7 Researcher’s Note I have my own ‘Navy life’. A week after my sixteenth birthday I joined the Merchant Navy as an officer cadet at a prestigious maritime college. As a young working class Londoner I was immediately immersed in another world: A world where people thought my accent was ‘like a cockney’ and that it was surprising that I had such good O levels considering I ‘spoke like that’. Subjected to training that had elements of the ‘knife and fork course’ a new world was opened to me. In subsequent years I attended a number of courses in Royal Navy establishments as an officer staying in wardrooms. In the wardroom at HMS Excellent there is an original oil painting named ‘Head of a Sailor’ by Arthur David McCormick1. When I first saw it I recognised it immediately as the picture on my Dad’s cigarettes, Players Weights. To me it had been a picture on a cigarette packet but for the officers in the wardroom it was a ‘real’ painting. The duality of understandings of the painting signified the huge cultural gap between my world and the ‘bone fide’ members of the ward room. Head of a Sailor My Dad’s cigarettes Arthur David McCormick 1 Information from http://www.godfreydykes.info/ROYAL_NAVAL_AND_BRITISH_MARITIME_SNIPPETS_5.html. This picture is one of several used by John Player & Sons during the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Note the cap tally has been variously illustrated as HMS Excellent, HMS Invincible and Hero. 8 I have been a Navy wife for twenty two years, keeping on the margins as I have always gone to work outside of the Navy world. There have been countless times when some of the issues discussed in this research have been observed or experienced by me.