Untitled

4 HUSH
There only remained open an attempt to give
a little
sketchy outline of what the hydrophone
service was out to do, and to weave thereinto a
little
our lives.
of such humorous incident as entered into
This then I have attempted to do.
The focal point of a great part
of this little
book is H.M.S. Tarlair, the base of the hydrophone
service, the Nursery Garden where the
seedlings were forced, tucked away in the little
fishing village of Aberdour, in the county of Fife,
on the Firth of Forth. By the way, I say ' fishing,'
and for the following reason. While we were
there, none of the inhabitants appeared to do
any work at all, so out of courtesy, I am compelled
to use the title ' fishing,' which of course was
forbidden in that area during the war.
Here, then, was the training and experimental
station, which controlled the bulk of all British
shore hydrophone work. Offshoots, as will
presently be shown, were dotted round the
coast of Great Britain and Ireland, and extended
even as far as the Mediterranean.
A chapter has been included, which is intended
to be typical of life at one of these stations, and
two chapters on the c porpoise ' hydrophone,
used afloat from the naval base of Peterhead,
Aberdeenshire, and afterwards from Hawkcraig,
Aberdour.
Here, I think, is the place to say something of
the gradual growth of this new service, from its