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Aptly named, Boobs nightclub left little to the imagination; drink was consumed on an industrial scale, one-night stands were commonplace, with women and sailors in various states of undress while still in the club. Full-on debauchery ran amok, and I remember a particularly frantic half-hour of my own in the ladies’ loos. The night would usually end side-stepping vomit or fighting men, occasionally women, or both at the same time, always alcohol-induced. Once, on exiting Boobs en route to our favoured Chinese takeaway, I saw a sailor come hurtling through the window; landing with panache, he dusted himself down and strolled off into the night like a gracefully listing galleon.

Our other haunt was Diamond Lil’s, with Ronnie Potter. Ronnie played his Hammond organ while his wife sang mainly blue songs, as strippers did their thing on a raised stage, dragging inebriated sailors up for audience participation. All very bizarre, a kind of sleazy version of The Good Old Days, it was packed out every night. There was obviously no accounting for taste. The best hornpipe dance would win a free drink at the end of the night, but I’d never be in a sufficiently decent state to even attempt it. Although there were plenty of fights – mostly handbags – genuine violence was fairly thin on the ground among sailors. If there was any real trouble it tended to get started by the local thugs who wanted to put one over ‘Jolly Jack’ to prove that they still possessed the requisite manliness to survive in seaside cities they perceived as being ‘invaded’ by the Navy. All the recent debate about the disenfranchisement of the British working class is nothing new. I saw it first-hand in the mid-1980s on the streets of Plymouth and Portsmouth most Friday and Saturday nights.