Follow up to Beagle's comments. definitely nicked from the Navy. At one time they even used to play with the board marked out on a parade ground - using bods as pieces and having two jolly jacks rolling a giant pair of dice in a barrel.
As for advice from your wiser elders, at Lyneham in Comet 2 and Hastings days it was accepted that the players were merely there to move the pieces. The game was "actually" played by the crowd of kabbitzers standing around shouting advice!
If it wasn't uckers, it was kirkee. There was the occasion when the Boss of 99 came into the crew room to get someone to carry out a chore. Huge crowd round the uckers table and just one poor sod doing something useful like amending an AP in a corner. No way would the boss upset the uckers players - the poor guy amending his service book got the chore!