Royal Navy

The Royal Navy matters in the narrative chiefly through the history Angela tells about Laman Griffin. His former service gives his present circumstances a sharp contrast: the man who once became an officer now lives in a neglected house and works as a laborer for the Electricity Supply Board.## Laman Griffin’s former serviceFrank’s family moves into Laman Griffin’s house, where Angela explains that it had once been a grocery shop run by Laman’s mother. She had worked there to send her son to Rockwell College, and he went on to become an officer in the Royal Navy. Angela describes a photograph of him dining with other officers and the American film star Jean Harlow, a remnant of the more distinguished life he had once led.## Loss of position and changed circumstancesIn Angela’s account, Laman fell in love with Jean Harlow, a relationship she presents as hopeless because of the gulf between the famous actress and the naval officer. She says that he was never the same afterward, took to drinking, and was eventually thrown out of the Navy. The episode is related as family history rather than shown directly, so the reader encounters the Royal Navy through Angela’s explanation of how Laman’s earlier career ended.## The Navy as contrast in the presentBy the time Frank and his family arrive, Laman is a common laborer for the Electricity Supply Board, and the house is in disrepair. Angela connects his mother’s earlier sacrifice for his education and naval career to the later stagnation of the home: she had wanted him to succeed, while the family now has to clear the accumulated belongings and make the house livable. The Royal Navy therefore marks a lost position and a former promise, set against the cramped domestic conditions that shape the family’s new life.