When and why did Winston Churchill say: 'The traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the la

When and why did Winston Churchill say: 'The traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash'?

• CHURCHILL'S description of the Royal Navy is included in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations as having appeared in the book, Former Navy Person, by Sir Peter Gretton. The Oxford Dictionary suggests that Churchill's phrase should be compared with naval phrases dating from the 19th century - 'Rum, bum and bacca' and 'Ashore, it's wine, women and song, aboard it's rum, bum and concertina'.

  It looks as though here, as elsewhere, Churchill took an earlier quotation and improved upon it. In The Irrepressible Churchill, compiled by Kay Halle (Robson Books, 1985), Churchill is said to have used the phrase in 1913, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty. According to 'an ear-witness', he was having trouble with some of his admirals at a strategy meeting. One of them accused him of having impugned the traditions of the Royal Navy, provoking the reply: 'And what are they? They are rum, sodomy and the lash'.

  Edward Hewlett, Bexhill-on-Sea, E Sussex.