A First Tripper
by Published on 12th November 2022 04:09 PM
My First Trip.
I remember leaving a Seamen’s Mission in London in autumn 1968. (I’m afraid the address eludes me, and sadly it no longer exists). After an early breakfast, I boarded a coach with a lot of unfamiliar men (ABs, stewards, firemen and cooks) travelling one dark wintry morning out of the city towards Gatwick airport.
Not having flown before, and my sole experience of going to sea having been an occasional summer jaunt from Swansea docks to Ilfracombe on the Bristol or Cardiff Queen — both venerable paddle-steamers of the White Funnel line — the experience would be completely new to me..
We boarded the aeroplane and proceeded to taxi out. I watched the propellers whirring round faster and faster as the craft began to accelerate down the runway, and I became terrified as I saw the wings flexing up and down. I thought they were going to break off and wanted to shout for the steward, but nobody else seemed alarmed, so I bit my tongue and held my breath. What I didn’t know was that we’d all come from the same shipping-pool near Aldgate East, close to a well-known seamen’s pub called the Princess of Prussia (where I was told the landlord would take “advance-notes”, and charge a commission for the service). My soon-to-be shipmates were seasoned travellers, and I quickly learned why they’d earned the nickname of the “Dock Street Commandos.”
We came to earth in Denmark and headed for a port called Fredericia. Here was my first ship — alongside gantries on an oil-stained, smelly quayside — a tanker called the ST William Wheelwright. She had a yellow funnel, and an AB told me that she was a Royal Mail Lines vessel on charter to Shell. I was a lowly DHU, but I felt a sense of pride as I walked down the sailors’ alleyway and saw above my cabin door, these words cold-punched in steel: Certified For One Seaman. I felt that I had arrived. I was now a proper seafarer, but not only that — I had a whole cabin to myself.
The next the day, I got to know a bit about the vessel and the crew. She had just recently discharged a cargo of crude oil and had been out, or so we were told, for some six months, which helped to explain why she was taking on a new crowd.
I don’t remember what trifling sort of jobs we did before sailing, but I have a vivid memory of going ashore with the OS on the first night for a few bevvies.
Afterwards we popped in to a local flix and I was shocked at seeing my first “blue movie”. What amazed me as well was that on this Saturday evening there were local Danes watching it without batting an eyelid, without any sense of embarrassment at all. I felt that I had lived a protected life up until that point.
Unfortunately, we’d been accidentally overmanned by the British Shipping Federation office in Dock Street, and this led to the most junior rating, my mate, the OS, having to be flown home. This led to a bit of sourness, as one of the ABs felt that I should have been the one to get the chop, not the OS. But I’m afraid it was all above my head. I could do nothing about it.
The following evening, we singled up and cast off. I was sent aft on stations under the command of the second mate. After we’d stowed the mooring-lines (another first for me) I felt the sea begin to move beneath my feet as we reached open water. We were to sail through the Kattegat and the strait of Skagerrak, maritime areas which, to me up until then, had merely been names on a geography atlas.
I had to get up at the unearthly hour of half past eleven to be ready to do my first lookout on the ship’s bridge. For my sins, I was a smoker in those days, and on that night unfortunately a bit absent-minded. As I rounded the aft accommodation and started to walk towards the mid section of the ship, I suddenly realised that I had a cigarette in my hand. Like an idiot, I panicked, threw it down and stubbed it out with my foot. The butt fell between the wooden slats of the catwalk to hit the steel deck, scattering sparks everywhere! And she was gas-freeing! All the tank-tops were open! God, I thought, my first trip to sea and I’ve nearly blown up the ship! All the sailors screaming and on fire and the tanker going down in flames! And me standing there awestruck, helpless as my shipmates perished before my very eyes! But thankfully nothing catastrophic happened. The sailors were still safely asleep in their bunks and the ship was still afloat. Thank God, I thought. And I never ever went on lookout again with a rollup or a duty-free fag in my hand.
On reaching the bridge, I reported for duty and was told to stand on the leeside wing and to tell the second mate if I saw the lights of another ship or perhaps a lighthouse. So I stared across the wide, black expanse of the sea, straining to see signs of life in the darkness. I discovered that I couldn’t see a ship at all, but merely faint pinpoints of light. (I had spent two weeks in the training school in Saint Katharine Dock by Tower Bridge that August to learn some basic sailorising skills, so I felt I that I knew enough to say with confidence if a ship was, for instance, two points off the port bow or dead ahead.) It felt like a long watch and I was glad to put my relief on the shake for the four-to-eight before getting my head down. What a first night at sea that was!
While proceeding south through the Bay of Biscay, we spent most of our time tank-cleaning. I became familiar with the only buccaneer I would ever meet. He went by the handle of Victor Pyrate. This was the name of the manufacturer of the hosing equpment used to clean the tanks. To do this involved removing a steel plate bolted to the deck and partially inserting a long, thick hose into the tank. This was then lashed securely to hold it in place. At the end of the hoseline was a nozzle designed to revolve under water pressure. As it span round, it blasted residual oil off the insides of the tanks. (This would be pumped off to a sludge-tank in the stern.) As cleaning progressed, the hose would be switched off, lowered, re-lashed and switched on again.
On clearing the coast of Spain, we headed east into the Mediterranean. ThIs was my first sight of another famous geographical feature, the Rock of Gibraltar. I began to feel like a real sailor now. Wait till I tell the folks back home of my travels! And in addition, the first mate would supervise me in my first attempts at steering the ship. After the required number of hours of uneventful cruising through a peaceful Mediterranean at the helm of a real-life tanker, I was deemed worthy enough to be issued with my treasured steering-ticket. Another “rite of passage”, as it were, was having to wash my own clothes in one the ship’s washing-machines. Here I was introduced to the word, “soogieing” (pronounced “soojaying”) which I would soon learn also applied to washing paintwork with a cloth and fresh water.
One day, I was to witness something “hush-hush”. The ship’s carpenter had been ordered to make a frame out of two pieces of 2” by 2” timber.. A sheet of canvas was nailed to it. A section of safety rail was then removed and the sheet hung over the side, after being lashed to adjoining rails. A huge barrel, some 45 imperial gallons (I wasn’t sure if it was crude or old engine oil) was tipped over the side. I assumed the canvas frame was meant to keep the ship’s side clear of oil stains, in case any port authorities would spot it. I couldn’t help but wonder how much marine life like birds might die as a result of this illegal dumping.
Something far less unpleasant was the novelty, to me, of feeding well. Unlike the lunchtime mug of tea and a sandwich I’d been used to in my previous job, every day at sea I had fruit juice, cereal or porridge followed by a cooked breakfast with tea and toast, then a four-course lunch and a four-course tea (what I’d always known as supper). And if we were in the chief cook’s good books, we’d find some tabnabs (or pastries) in the mess when we had a spell from work that I discovered was known as a “smoko”. Not only that, but there was fruit juice, cold meat and cheese in the fridge every night. By the way, one posh word on the menu, and utterly new to me, was the French word “entrée”, which was another meal between the starter and the main course. I thought, this is the life! I’d never eaten so well before, except for a Sunday roast or Christmas dinner at home. And I had it every day, and it was free — although this didn’t stop some of the hands from having a moan now and again. God, I thought, those guys must stay at the Ritz when they’re on leave! And I mustn’t forget to mention the sun and stripping to the waist and getting a tan while doing a bit of painting — something I could never have done if I’d been back enduring the cold, wintry weather of London.
We never made landfall that trip, so none of us could have a run ashore. (This was the first and only time it would ever happen to me in my relatively short career at sea.)
I must describe seeing, for the first time, the fins of basking sharks seemingly unmoving in the waters of the still, blue Mediterranean. Until I was told what they were, I wondered what they could be because from a distance they looked just like black tins floating on the surface.
When we reached our destination off the Libyan coast near the port of Tripoli, we were moored to a buoy to pick up an offshore pipeline and load a full cargo of crude oil. One day, while chatting on the poop, I was thrilled to be given a fresh orange that still had green leaves on it! I had never seen an orange with leaves before. And another thrill was seeing a turtle in the water, not far from where we were moored to the buoy. It was swimming about with its head just above the water.
But, all too soon, we had filled up our tanks and an Arab launch had come out to detach the huge, black rubber oil-pipe. Slipping our moorings, we got under way again. We heard on the grapevine that we were destined to return to the UK, much to the relief of some of the ratings, because they feared being away for six months just like the previous crew. But after six weeks at sea, having gone past the now-not-so-exciting Rock of Gibraltar and sailing north up through the Bay of Biscay, we were to pay off in a damp, dark, rainblown Middlesbrough. As I was going to walk down the gangway in my navy blue donkey-jacket for the last time, I was good-naturedly ribbed by the bosun for carrying my working-gear in a white, canvas kitbag slung over my shoulder, while most of the seasoned ABs carried posh suitcases and were dressed up in smart suits and overcoats. With a chuckle, he said that I reminded him of Popeye, but I think nevertheless that he was rather wistful on seeing me go.
However, one surprise would still await me. I was absolutely taken aback by it. I had forgotten that I hadn’t seen a member of the opposite sex for a long time. I still have a vivid memory of my reaction upon seeing the first woman I had set eyes upon for six weeks. I thought for a moment that she was the only female on Earth — absolutely alluring and unbelievably gorgeous! I just couldn’t get over it. But with a shedful of cash in my pocket (which wouldn’t last long) and a free rail-pass, I eventually caught a train home to enjoy a week or so’s leave before I’d have to head back to the pool at Dock Street for a new ship and, hopefully, my next adventure.
Brett Hayes EDH
(R863743)
Last edited by Brian Probetts (Site Admin); 14th November 2022 at 10:41 PM.
