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60 YEARS STANDING GUARD

Welcome to the website dedicated to the Royal Navy Electronic Warfare

branch.

Why the EW Branch are known as Gollies.

In the 60’s when the RO (W) brach was created from RO (mainly from (S)) branch there was a shortfall in Senior RO(W) personnel therefore the promotion was swift for those ratings wishing to take full advantage of the situation.

At that time Robertson the Jam company where running a promotion where to get a Golly badge you collected tokens from the side of the Jam jar and sent them in. As getting your badge was a slang term for being promoted, ratings from other branches started to rib the the LRO(W) & RS(W) stating that all they had to do to get promotion, was to collect the tokens of the Gollies from the Robertson's jam jars and send them in.

Hence the name Gollies was used to describe the Electronic Warfare Branch ratings and over the years this has become recognised and adopted as the EW branch emblem.

The same Robertson's Jam Company is still in operation today.

Update:

In your dit about the birth of the gollie you mention Robinson's jam. It was/is Robertson's jams that had the multi-talented golly on them. Robinson was the name of the CRS(W)that took one CY(Q)1 for their obligatory session on EW in 1967. After he obviously gave them a coloured view of life as an EW (including the fast promotion), It was this class that originally gave the name Golly to the branch. I was in RS(W)Q1 in the first half of that year, so we got tagged with a nickname that has since spread around the globe.

Hope this clears up any misconceptions re the birth of the Golly.

Cheers

Bob Brook

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