A few weeks ago one of my offspring said to me, “is there anything you haven’t done?” I’m not sure if this was meant as an admiring observation, or whether it was the words of someone who was sick of hearing my rambling anecdotes about my exploits on the Amazon River, or in Antarctica, or when I worked at the Brewery etc. Most probably it was the latter, since I do sometimes tend to reminisce about the past. As you dear reader, will know we always call it swinging the lantern. I’m sure everyone has heard the phrase, “the older I get, the better I was.” Well that’s me!
Sooner or later my mind is going to slow down, some will say the process has already started, and my recall won’t be what it once was. So before these tales disappear forever, I have self-indulgently begun to recount a few of these memories. The funny thing is, as I think about incidents in my past and start to write, a state of anamnesis sets in and those obscure memories crystallise and de-pixilate to a point where I can again become that 25 or that 20 year old person – and in a way it is an invigorating and inspiring exercise.
I started with a Blog - and may continue to do so, but Tony suggested the My Memoires thread. So until someone tells me to stop; or I run out of ink (or enthusiasm), I'll put them here as well. Here's the first.
After five years, as an apprentice at the local brewery I completed my “time served” on 3rd December 1965 and emerged a fully qualified fitter and turner. I wasn’t always the favourite apprentice during that final year. I was involved in a couple of union disputes and generally was regarded as a bit of a “pinko” who spent too much time with the proletariat for my own good. The brewery's chief engineer, a red-faced Irish Australian had never been my greatest admirer, and he made it clear that once my indenture was complete it would be to our mutual benefit if I started looking elsewhere for employment. In those days, there was always work for a qualified fitter, so I don’t remember being unduly concerned that I might soon be out of work - but then I was 20 years old and immortal.
As it transpired, there was no need to fire me, because a few days earlier a family friend, a manager at the local harbour board, asked my dad if young Michael was interested in a career in the Merchant Navy. There was a British ship in port which was short of a couple of hands. if I was interested there was a job for me as an engineer’s assistant, with an option of promotion to junior engineer as soon as a position became available. This sounded like what I had been looking for, so having finished my apprenticeship in that first week in December, I signed on a couple of weeks later as a crew member on the MV Baron Jedburgh as its most junior of junior assistants – my official position – “donkey-greaser".
The ship was registered in Scotland in the west coast port of Ardrossan in Ayrshire. She was 8,337 tons (11,675 tons deadweight), built in South Shields in 1958 and was one of a fleet of cargo tramp ships owned and operated by H. Hogarth and Sons of Glasgow. It was only later I found out that the company was known throughout the merchant service as “Hungry” Hogarth.
The ship’s captain was Archibald McKinley, a large forceful man, who smoked oval Passing Clouds cigarettes that looked like they had been sat on.
I had a tiny cabin in the fo’c’sle of the ship (where crew were separated from officers) and I was taken under the wing of big Dave Davies, who may have had Welsh ancestry but was a Londoner through and through. He was a generous, down to earth fellow, who used to wake me every morning with “Come on then, rise and shine, you’re not on your Daddy’s yacht now, y’know!”
There were three donkey-greasers including Dave, all of whom were watch-keepers. Dave, Yorky (who as you might guess was from the north of England) and Paddy (yes, he was an Irishman). I was a day worker – 7.30 to 5 o’clock with a half hour for lunch.
We all shared the Greasers’ Mess, a little room just across from the galley where we would eat our meals and meet for smoko during the day. It was here that I learned to put condensed milk in my tea, because it wasn’t easy to find fresh milk at sea and of course, this was before Long-Life Milk appeared on the scene. The additional advantage of condensed milk of course was that it also obviated the need for putting sugar in your tea!
There were seven engineers on board – all of them Scots, mostly Glaswegian. In charge was the Chief Engineer who seemed to spend most of his time in his cabin. I don’t think we exchanged more than two words the whole time I was on the ship.
The second engineer was a genial portly middle-aged fellow, who had been in the merchant service since the war. Always shirtless when he was working, he seemed to know everything that anyone was ever going to need to know about marine engineering. The third engineer was a sharp tongued, sandy-headed Glaswegian whose frequent expression was “och awa’ an’ keek” (which I translated as meaning you are full of ****, go away). Once I became an engineer myself later in the voyage, I spent all my watch-keeping with Gordon on the 12 to 4 watch. The fourth engineer was another tough talking little Glaswegian. He was always the first to lead the singing after a few “bevies”. His favourite song was “I’m no awa’ tae bide awa’” but there were a host of others most of which I found incomprehensible, but oddly enjoyable.
I sailed on the Jedburgh for about six months with sugar from Queensland to Japan; light ship to Canada, then timber from Canada back to OZ before taking another load of sugar back to Greenock. What an experience - what an eye opener.
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The “deck crew” were an interesting lot – mostly Scots plus a few Englishmen. One of the ABs, known only as Scouse (I wonder why?) arrived back on board in handcuffs about an hour before we sailed. He had jumped ship on an earlier voyage, so to make sure he didn’t do it again, Immigration came and took him away each time we entered an Australian port and there he stayed until we departed.
Thus it was that sometime in January of 1966, at about the same time that Harold Holt was taking over from Bob Menzies as the Australian Prime Minister, I made my first trip to a foreign destination. Our first port was Osaka, arriving from a hot northern Australian summer to a cold wintry Japanese city.
I made my first trip ashore with big Dave and like all sailors since the beginning of time, headed immediately for a bar.
What an eye-opener it was for a boy from a small country town in North Queensland to arrive in Japan in 1966. Osaka was a bustling, busy city with bright lights, bars and lots of distractions for young lads.
We were in Osaka for at least a week and later went from there to the city of Kobe a few hours sailing away.
One of the problems with alcohol rationing on board ship is that when the ship eventually does get to port many of the crew make gluttons of themselves. This was a problem on the Baron Jedburgh. We sailed from Osaka to Kobe with many of our crew missing, having decided that attraction of the bright lights and the bars were much more appealing than putting up with Fat Archie and his bullying bosun.
From Kobe we sailed to Yokohama, still missing a substantial number of our deck crew. We later learned that they all eventually rolled up at the agent’s office and were shipped overland (at their expense) to the next port of call. In this case they were all put on the Bullet Train, bound directly for Tokyo with just one stop, at the inland city of Kyoto. They all got off the train at Kyoto, headed for the nearest bar, and consequently missed the train’s departure for Tokyo – a unique case of desertion from a train. Although on reflection it probably wasn’t unique – I sure it happened every time a bunch of British seaman were left unescorted to find their way back to their ship.
From Japan we sailed light ship to the west coast of Canada where we loaded a cargo of lumber for Australia from excitingly named places on Vancouver Island. What a contrast these tiny logging communities were after the excitement of Japan. It was my first visit to North America and I was impressed by these friendly, resilient Canadians who were more than capable of holding their own when it came to a few drinks in the local bar. It was bitterly cold, even colder than Japan and the snow and ice lay thick on the ground making the deck a dangerous place to be when trying to negotiate one’s way back on board in the dark after a skinful of Carling Black Label in the local bar in Tahsis or Port Alberni.
It was a long trip back across the Pacific Ocean to Sydney. Four or five weeks of constant watch-keeping. Four hours of watching gauges, feeling bearings to make sure they don’t overheat, cleaning oil separators, working on fuel injectors and writing the engine room log.
The most memorable thing about all ships’ engine rooms is that they are hot and noisy. In those days we rarely had the opportunity to wear ear protection, and the consequence of standing next to a high revving gear box for hours at a time only came home to roost many years later as industrial deafness set in.
I can't finish this little memory without talking about the second mate. He was another interesting character, an archetypal grumpy old Scottish mariner in the twilight of his career. He had been twice shipwrecked during the second war, and was without a doubt the hardest man I ever had the misfortune of trying to wake up when it was my turn to call him. He would be lying on his back on his bunk, making a noise like a bull farting, fully clothed with his smelly feet hanging over the end of his bunk and he would refuse all attempts to wake him. In the end, it was only vigorous shaking, and shouting in his ear which got him to stir at all, and then I had to dive out of the way as this great claw of a hand would come around to swat me away as if I was a fly. I used to dread this job.