Richard Harris explains 31 years of Royal Navy pipes in new book
Richard Harris has turned 31 years in the royal navy into a guide to its daily pipes and routines at sea. His new book, "D’you hear there!", translates the language of shipboard announcements across Royal Navy ships and submarines.
The book draws on Harris’s service at sea in nine ships, plus deployments to the Arabian Gulf, South Atlantic, Mediterranean and Arctic Circle. It also reaches into the work of life aboard ship, with chapters on time in harbour, on FOST, at sea, on runs ashore and homecoming.
Richard Harris and HMS Raleigh
Harris left the Regular Service as a Commodore in 2023 after 31 years in the Royal Navy. He had joined the Royal Navy Reserve as an Able Seaman, commanded HMS Raleigh and was responsible for training Officer Cadets at BRNC, Dartmouth.
That background gives the book its authority. The pipes are not treated as decoration; Harris uses them as a way to explain how daily life on ships and submarines is organized, from the ordinary rhythm of the day to the small signals sailors hear before an activity begins.
Banyan Rig and Chef Knowles
One example in the book is the pipe "Chef Knowles, pizza, Gangway." Another is the explanation that a flight deck barbecue may commence at 1800 with a rig called "Banyan Rig". Those details place the book squarely inside Royal Navy culture rather than outside commentary on it.
Captain Jim Nisbet, RN (Retd), illustrated the hardback edition. The hardback costs £8.99, the Kindle version costs £6.29 and the audiobook costs £4.50, giving readers three ways to approach the same material.
Royal Navy daily life
Harris’s focus is narrow but useful: he translates the formal and informal language that runs through daily life at sea and ties it to the realities of working on ships and submarines. The book’s eight main chapters cover time in harbour, on FOST, being at sea, runs ashore and homecoming.
For readers with no service background, that means the book opens a part of Royal Navy life that is usually heard before it is explained. For sailors and former sailors, it preserves a vocabulary shaped by routine, authority and wit across ships, submarines and deployments spanning four regions.
D’you hear there! now stands as Harris’s account of that language in one place, with the illustration by Nisbet and the three editions already priced for readers who want the hardback, Kindle or audiobook.
