Unit History: HMS Grenville

HMS Grenville, Penguin cleaning in South Africa in 1968

Written by Richard Coe

We arrived in Cape Town a few days after an oil tanker had ran aground a couple of hundred miles off the coast. The oil affected hundreds of penguins which were brought to the South African equivalent of RSPB. A call went out for volunteers to help clean them up. Me and a few others decided to give it a whirl. Dressed in overalls we were taken to the compound and began cleaning the birds. As dusk fell, to show their thanks, the staff laid on a barbeque each night after someone had been to the local ’shabeen’. I thoroughly enjoyed cleaning penguins for the next week before we had to leave