Originally Posted by
Harry Nicholson
Some outstanding photography there. My first trip was as 4th sparks on the trooper Dunera in 1956. I took a camera on that trip to Japan (what a place to send a 17 year old!). Here's a snip from my published seagoing memoir 'The Best of Days' which includes some adventures into photography.:We slip ashore at Aden, along with hundreds of our service people. We poke around the market; buy a Swiss wristwatch, a Felca with luminous hands, to replace my cheap Ingersoll, and a couple of bottles of Gordon's Gin at five shillings apiece. All is amazingly cheap; Aden is a tax-free port. Next call is The Rock Hotel and its famous air-conditioned bar. Alan and I lounge in armchairs beneath a ceiling vent that drops a column of chilled air straight onto our perspiring brows. While the sweat evaporates, we sip splendid lager from glasses beaded with condensation, Tuborg imported from Denmark, and pretend to be colonial gentlemen. The waiters are in white uniform, with brass buttons, topped out by a fez of cherry-red felt.
Contented after such luxury, we stroll back behind a pair of lanky sailors off an American warship. Slightly in front of them is a pair of short and stocky British soldiers. The American sailors are elegant in crisp white jackets and long white trousers. Sarcastic comments about the 'Limey guys' baggy khaki shorts' float back to us on the warm evening air. The baiting continues for fifty yards along a street of Arab stalls.
Alan grabs my arm and slows our pace. We freeze. The little soldiers glance at each other. On a hidden signal they spin around together and, with workmanlike fists, fell the sailors in seconds, then smartly turn about to march away.
Two beanpole figures, clad in white uniforms, are crumpled in the red Aden dust holding their bellies. For a few moments, the shop Arabs look on without comment, then continue trading. We cautiously go forward to lend the sailors a hand. But the two friends scramble to their feet, check for blood, and find none. They dust off their uniforms, refit their caps and, comradely arms around shoulders, head for a bar.
The sun drops behind the great double rock of Aden and a breeze arrives. Amid the dust swirls, traders are lighting oil lamps. Moths flutter in from the prickly desert scrub. Nightfall is rapid at this latitude of 12.8 North. It's time we hired a bum-boat and got back to our ship.
*
After the narrow Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea opens wide before us. It's the time of monsoon transition when the dry North-Eastern fails and gives way to the wet South-West Monsoon. The winds and the sea are uncertain how to behave, but I'm comfortable in five-foot swells. I've been deep-sea for five months, felt queasy sometimes, but have yet to be sea-sick.
Between watches, I read up on photography and turn my little cabin into a dark room. This trip, I've brought a Kodak Box Brownie camera and, like a miser, take a few snaps (film is expensive). I develop the 120 film (60mm wide) in pint beer glasses filled with branded chemicals. The book asks for distilled water, but ship's tap water (who knows where that's from) will have to do. I rig a string across the cabin from which to hang the prints while they dry. It all goes well enough, except that the first attempts turn streaky and yellow because I forgot to wash off the fixer solution. Otherwise, I entertain myself by reading adventure novels: H Rider Haggard's Alan Quatermain; King Solomon's Mines; and She. Between the Haggards, I explore the westerns of Zane Grey. I become lost in these stories, so much so that the continual twin-screw vibration and thud, thud beat of Dunera's twin five-cylinder Doxford-type opposed piston oil engines fade from consciousness.
