My First Trip
by Published on 8th September 2018 10:51 AM
My first Ship.
1949 was a miserable year in England, Austerity was the order of the day even though the war had been over for four years.
I had decided that a life at sea was the thing for me and had convinced my mother that I should head in that direction, after some mysterious wrangling on her part I found myself in the Indefatigable sea training school for boys (which wasn’t a ship but an old mansion in Anglesey) where I endured nine months of rigorous training which they hoped would turn me into a fine specimen of a Royal Navy matelot. However, the merchant navy was my dream and I found myself joining the SS “Adviser” as a deck boy in Liverpool on my sixteenth birthday.
The “Adviser” was a run of the mill general cargo ship owned by T & J Harrison, she had a full Liverpool crew plus three deck boys. Accommodation and food were basic, the deck boys had a cabin to themselves and a tiny mess room which was infested with cockroaches known as jaspers. The deck boy’s duties meant carrying food from the Galley to the crew mess and all other menial and dirty jobs.
The crew were rough and ready lot, crude but with that Liverpool/Irish sense of humour. My two companions where not Liverpudlians and lacked the humour. Both were older than me and one a complete bully, he was nicknamed Spiv and managed to give me a black eye during the voyage for a reason I can’t remember. Perhaps it was jealousy as I was determined to excel at being a sailor and tried to learn as much as I could.
So, we sailed on February 16, 1949 with a general cargo bound for Port of Spain, Trinidad and various other Islands in the in the West Indies. After discharge we loaded a full cargo of bagged unrefined sugar for discharge on return to Liverpool.
The sights sound and colours of Port of Spain in the brilliant sunshine were a delight and an amazement to me, not to mention the bustle on board as the cargo was discharged, the derricks swinging and the steam winches rattling.
I had requested a sub so that I would have some Trinidadian dollars to go ashore with but was politely and firmly told that having only been signed on for two weeks I was not eligible. I needed to have £5 in the ship. My pay was £7 per month and I had left an allotment to my mother of £4 per month.
A very disappointed young man was the result, but this was soon put to rights by the crew who had a whip round on my behalf. I learned a lesson from that which lasted the rest of my life. Never judge a book by it’s cover.
At some point during the voyage the crew had been issued with brand new sheets. They were blue!! To a man they decided that they would make better head coverings as protection from the tropical sun than something to sleep under, so a remarkable selection of blue caps know as ‘Revies’ appeared, some were quite jaunty and even had sporty peaks. I thought it remarkable that rough tough sailors could also be good tailors.
One day at sea while sitting in a group on a hatch cover the crew were discussing the dangers, and delights, of the local bordellos, listening in I caught the word crabs; “what’s crabs” piped up I; there was a moment of stunned silence then the largest ugliest AB said. “Listen lad. If you ever get a pimple on your p***k and you squeeze it and it runs up your nail, that’s crabs”
Another time I was painting a derrick in the blazing sun, wearing my revie of course, when the bosun said to me, “look up at the bridge, you see the second mate dressed in white. That’s what you should be doing, so get yourself a ticket”. I already had that thought but he reinforced it. Some time later and with the aid of the Seafarer’s Education Society I obtained my second mate’s Foreign Going certificate.
A lot of good advice from the “Adviser”.
SS Adviser
Last edited by Doc Vernon; 15th September 2018 at 06:32 AM.
