ERIC was a teenager the first time he heard his uncle swear.

They were in the pub and he was finally getting learn about life in the Royal Navy.

“I always wanted to be in the Navy,” he says, “I don’t know why.”

So, as soon as he was old enough, he signed up, and his uncle began to tell him about his own experiences in the forces.

“He used to tell me stories about the antics he got up to and how he’d managed to get one up on the black market,” says Eric, who doesn’t reveal his surname.

“He gave me the heads up on things. I remember meeting a mate of his who told me all these boring war stories about sinking ships but my uncle never talked about all that.”

He spent 17 years as a submariner during the Cold War. Then, after he retired from the Navy, a chance encounter in a comedy club led to his current career.

“I got into comedy by accident,” he says, describing bantering with the compere. “When he came out after the interval he said ‘the next act hasn’t turned up, you’ve got to get up and do it’. I got hoiked on stage and that was it.”

At first he told stories of life as a civilian, but then someone suggested he should share the tales of being a submariner that he regailed his friends with in the pub. He took the show to the Edinburgh Festival, where it was a big hit, and is now touring the UK with Eric’s Tales of the Sea, taking in three Merseyside venues.

A slideshow of images taken during his time in the forces accompanies the performance, which critics have described as “funny and tender, informative and absorbing”.

It includes stories about the japes they got up to – he was once ordered to collect the fish caught in the top of the submarine, not realising, despite the fact that they were frozen, that they had been put there by a senior officer.

Eric goes into sergeant major mode: “Sit down, pay attention, I’ll be asking questions later – it’s not that sort of thing.

“The show isn’t a collection of stories either. There’s a theme running all the way through it.

“The great thing about the services is the camaradery. You make great friends, people who would do absolutely anything for you, and the show’s all about that.”

He keeps in touch with many of his fellow former submariners, including a friends in America who looks after his Harley Davidson.

“After the Edinburgh Festival I felt a bit flat so I phoned him up and said ‘I feel like getting away’,” he explains.

“I booked a flight to Kansas and we did a roadtrip of nine states and ended up gatecrashing the American submariners’ get-together in San Diego.

“We made some phone calls and some other people flew out and joined us. It was great.”

Eric’s Tales of the Sea is in Chester (in the tunnel at the rear of Olio & Farina Deli) on April 27, at the Brindley, Runcorn, on April 30, and at the Unity Theatre, Liverpool, on May 11.