MY ADVENTURES AT SEA

From Port Hobart to Shenzhen Bay

Captain Derek William Lax

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Well then dear reader you might ask where I got the urge to sail the seven seas. It must have been in the early 1950’s when my Uncle Ernie used to take me to Middleton every weekend.

In those days Hartlepool had thriving docks with ships coming from Russia and the Baltic carrying thousands and thousands of pit props for all of Durham’s coalmines, plus lots and lots of coal ships carrying coal from the mines to power the power stations of London. There was also a big fleet of Navy ships in the docks and a thriving fishing industry. As I grew older, I would be down there as often as time allowed, drinking in the atmosphere and dreaming of faraway places.

When I left West Hartlepool Boy’s Grammar School in 1964 I got a place at South Shields Marine and Technical College, travelling there every day by train and bus. It was here I got my basic training for a life at sea. Apart from the academic stuff we did all sorts of practical things like sail and row lifeboats on the River Tyne and learn about many aspects of cargo ships equipment. In my year there I passed out as top navigating student of the year and appeared on Tyne Tees television as it was then to talk about my future career.

The Careers Officer pointed me in the right direction and I applied for and in 1965 gained an Indentured Deck Apprentice Position with a Premier UK cargo shipping Company called Port Line. I and two colleagues from South Shields Marine and Tech, Peter Carter and Rudyard Kipling (honest), were the first three apprentices to be accepted by Port Line from a minor college, usually they only accepted people from the big Maritime training ships, Conway and Worcester plus the London Schools.

Port Line ran refrigerated passenger cargo liners (12 passengers and a Doctor) from the UK to Australia and New Zealand mainly, but sometimes to America, the Caribbean and Japan. We carried all sorts of things to Australia from the

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UK, motor cars, chemicals, steel, household goods, furniture, food stuffs; you name it we carried it, all loose and needing lots of manual labour from the dock workers to load and discharge it. On our return from Australia and New Zealand we would be fully loaded with frozen lamb, butter, cheese, powdered milk, wool, or apples and pears. In those heady days of 1965 to about 1973 the dock workers in Australia and New Zealand only worked Monday to Friday 8 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon, so as Apprentices we used to have plenty of time to explore all the different ports, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, in Australia and Auckland, Wellington, Timaru and Bluff in New Zealand to name but a few. We also managed to do a lot of swimming and sunbathing on the wonderful beaches, visit opal mines in Australia and the beautiful snow-capped mountains and fjords of New Zealand.

The ships and the life we lead.

My first ship was called the Port Hobart; she was built during the 1939-45 war as the Empire Wessex and taken up by Port Line as a replacement for Company ships lost during the conflict. I joined her in London on a wet and windy night in November after travelling down in full uniform on the train. Mam and Dad accompanied me as far as York and Dad’s parting words to me that morning were ―you are on your own now son, make the most of it‖.

As I climbed the gangway that night the First person I met was the Bosun who was going ashore for a drink. I didn’t know who he was so I saluted him and asked if he knew who I should report to. He let me know in no uncertain manner that he was the famous Murdo McLeod and he didn’t fraternise with snotty Apprentices. We were to become firm friends later along with the Carpenter, Joe from Sunderland and the Lamp Trimmer Harry from God knows where the three most important Deck Crew Members.

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I eventually found the Duty Deck Officer and was allocated my Cabin which was a tiny 4 berth rabbit hutch at the back of the Boat Deck, one bed room with 4 bunks, one shower toilet and one small day room and very primitive heating. Two of the other Apprentices were already on board and I would meet Ian the other First tripper on Monday morning.

We were in London for about a week loading general cargo for Australia then sailed off into the blue (actually storm tossed grey) the next weekend. Down the English Channel we went, the seas getting rougher and rougher until we reached the Bay of Biscay. Here it was blowing a full gale with heavy seas breaking over the ship, the Chief Officer (Drunken Duncan Campbell) said it was time for me to learn to steer, so there I was 17 years old getting my first lesson in the middle of a gale. I took the big old wooden steering wheel in my trembling hands and was soon off course and heading towards America instead of the Mediterranean!! Poor Ian was violently Sea Sick and for all his time at sea thereafter suffered whenever the weather got rough. Anyway we ploughed on through the next couple of days and the weather slowly improved as we approached the Suez Canal.

The Canal was a wondrous place seen for the first time, a 60 mile channel dug through the desert linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. We saw Camels roaming the banks, small towns and Oasis and ships coming the other way apparently floating over the sand as they passed us in the two way section. It took us 14 hours to get through, the weather warmed up and everybody was in good spirits.

Shortly after leaving the Canal and entering the Gulf of Suez disaster struck, we had a small electrical fire that damaged the Steering arrangements from the Bridge to the Steering room so we could not steer the ship. Luckily we had a back-up system where we could steer from right at the back of the ship. This consisted of a huge Mechanical Steering wheel which took 2 men to turn and so for 48 hours whilst the engineers mended the fault from the bridge the sailors manfully steered the ship day and night using this massive heavyweight contraption. Down the Red Sea we went and eventually arrived at Aden where we were to take on fuel oil to get us to Australia and New Zealand, here we had more trouble, as the ship entered harbour we went to the anchorage and as we dropped the anchor the anchor chain snapped and the anchor fell loose into the

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sea; we quickly dropped the other one and the ship came to a majestic halt just about in position. Of course we now had the problem of fixing the spare anchor (weight 2000kg) to the broken chain so the ship was safe with two working anchors. The temperature was 40C and not a breath of air, it was like being in a furnace, anyway we got a barge to come alongside, lowered the spare anchor into it and reconnected the chain, the fun then started. As we lifted the anchor back up it caught on the end of the barge, Duncan the Bosun and Joe the Carpenter thought that this was clever and continued pulling the anchor up; of course the barge rose out of the water and the Arabs who had been helping reattach the anchor started to scream and jump into the harbour waters. Bosun eventually took pity on them and lowered the barge back into the water and the anchor was returned to its stowage position.

Whilst we were in Aden I bought my first proper 35mm film camera a little Russian Zenit and a couple of rolls of film, this served me well for quite a few years letting me record my travels to show the folks back home, The pictures are still knocking about somewhere.

From Aden we rolled on down to Australia watching dolphins, whales and flying fish almost every day in the Southern Indian Ocean. I was learning my trade quickly by now and had started to learn the ways of the world and what a hard but exciting career I had chosen. As well as doing general work round the ship we also did long distance learning with exams at the end of each year of my 4 year Apprenticeship, big head I passed them all with flying colours!!. We were now in the southern hemisphere summer and arrived at our first Australian port of Adelaide on Boxing Day 1965. My first Christmas Day at Sea had gone down really well, a sumptuous feast dining with the passengers and Officers for a change, we lowly Apprentices usually ate earlier than the senior Officers during normal days. Another bonus arriving in port meant I got my first letters from

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home since leaving London in November, two from your great grandma (my mam) and one from Aileen my wife to be who I had been seeing for over a year, Aileen would have been your Grandma had she lived long enough to see you born, she died on 31 January 2010. Here she is aged about 17 with my little brother Michael.

Nothing much else happened this trip, we sailed to Melbourne and Sydney then across to New Zealand, Auckland, Wellington and Port Chalmers if I recall. We changed passengers and the Doctor in Auckland to bring them all back to England. We loaded refrigerated lamb, butter and cheese in New Zealand, and I remember I brought home a whole frozen lamb when I returned to UK at the end of March 1966 (cost £1.30). When I left the ship I had the princely sum of £23 pounds to my name after a five month voyage, mind you in 1966 that was a lot of money for a 17 year old ―man of the world‖ haha.

My next ship was the Port Albany; this was the second newest ship in the fleet. It was very small and fast and had been designed to run quickly to Tasmania twice a year to load Apples and Pears. The rest of the year it flitted off to America from New Zealand. I joined it in April 1966 along with Ken Lunt the other deck apprentice. We had some wonderful times on her especially in

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America, seeing New York for the first time was amazing, and I could buy vinyl long playing records for next to nothing compared to UK prices. All the latest hits to play on my little record player when I got back home. I also bought my first long wave radio so I could listen to BBC world service every day and keep up with the news from the UK. I eventually flew home from New York in October 1966 on a propeller driven Boeing aeroplane, stopping at Nova Scotia and Ireland to refuel before arriving back in London, it was a long and tiring journey and I never really enjoyed flying again, although I did a lot of it as my career advanced and I was joining ships and leaving them all over the world.

And so to ship 3

This was the Port New Plymouth (joined Nov 1966) the biggest ship I had been on to date, from what I can recall along with the regular cargo we carried with us to Australia six racehorses and a stable hand to look after them plus eight dogs and four cats, pets going to Australia, We were paid the princely sum of 50p per week to look after the dogs and cats so after a six week voyage we were rewarded with £3 each. Our luck was in though because during the voyage two of the dogs had a litter of puppies and when we got to Australia the owners presented us with a further £5 each. This made us rich again so we could enjoy our Aussie coastal without money troubles. On the way home across the Pacific that voyage the Captain took the ship very close into Easter Island at slow speed so that we and the passengers could see the famous Easter Island Statues. This was the only time I ever saw them and a pretty eerie site it was, these twelve huge stone statues peering out eternally over the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean. I left the Port New Plymouth in April 1967.

Back to the Port Albany from May 1967 to February 1968 and Port Chalmers April 1968 to July 1968

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I can’t remember anything about this trip apart from the fact we went on the American service. I suppose it was out to Aussie/NZ first with general cargo then a refrigerated run or two to the USA. By this time I was studying hard and had worked my way up towards senior Company Apprentice. Who ended up as top Apprentice depended on the results of that year’s correspondence course, I knew I was in the top three so all the stops were being pulled out. The prestige of being senior Company Apprentice was a great one indeed and was usually rewarded with a position on the Company’s newest ship.

In March 1968 I found out I had come out on top and was named Commodore Apprentice. In honour of this I was to be given the Companies latest ship that was under construction in Glasgow. She was called the Port Chalmers

and at the time was the biggest refrigerated ship in the world. Beautifully appointed I had for the first time my own single cabin with En Suite plus an adjoining study luxury indeed.

I spent a month in Glasgow getting to know her before we sailed on the Maiden voyage to Port New Plymouth, Port Chalmers, Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand, outward bound empty via the Panama Canal and then the biggest refrigerated cargo ever to come back to the UK on a cargo ship. We were feted everywhere in New Zealand, the population in the ports used to love seeing UK ships arrive especially new ones.

Every weekend the ship was open to visitors and I made a lot of friends showing them around and explaining the ins and outs of the modern (in those days) technology. I arrived back in London in July 1968; I had one more trip to do before I finished my Apprenticeship and went back to college to sit for my Second Mates Certificate. By now I was a fully-fledged sailor, I could stand a

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four hour watch on the bridge (supervised of course), I could navigate, I could steer the ship and knew how everything operated, more importantly though I’d changed from an insecure callous youth into a dashing young man who could hold his own with anybody, all in the space of three hectic but very enjoyable years.

So it was back to the Port Chalmers in August 1968 and we sailed from Liverpool back out to Australia/New Zealand. This was my last trip as Apprentice and I was allowed to spend much more time on the Bridge of the ship, navigating and learning my craft in preparation of me being let loose on the big wide world as a very junior Navigating Officer (providing of course I passed my Board of Trade Examinations as Second Mate). Before I knew it we were back in London arriving on 23rd December 1968, my first Christmas at home since joining the Port Hobart in 1965 (such is the sailors life).

I’d seen so many things during this time, tropical Islands, white, white beaches, beautiful balmy seas full of whales, dolphins, turtles, huge Albatross who would follow the ship for days on end in the Southern Oceans, mile after mile feeding on small fish and squid that the ship left churned up in its wake. We also saw tiny Mother Caries Chickens another fascinating bird (very small about the size of a blackbird) that only came out to play when the weather was bad and once again mainly in the Southern Ocean.

I’d seen giant seas during bad weather, which broke over the ship and made her jump up and down like a bucking bronco, scary at times especially when it was really bad and nobody could go safely outside onto the deck. The Cook would struggle all day to make meals and sometimes everything flew off the stove and he would start again, or we would get soup and sandwiches instead of a hot meal!!

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I’d been through two Canals, Suez and Panama,

both Engineering wonders of the world, seen and got to know all the main (and some not so) ports of the UK, Australia, New Zealand and America and visited some Caribbean Islands mainly Curacao in the Netherland Antilles (as they were), where we used to spend a day taking Bunker fuel to get us back to England. While the Engineers were doing this we Apprentices used to go and explore round the genuine Pirate forts that littered the Island, looking for buried treasure but never finding it.

The list of things I’d seen and done was endless but now I was back in the UK and ready to go back to South Shields for twelve weeks in the New Year (1969) to improve my knowledge then sit my Board of Trade Exam for Second Mate. My pay had rocketed from £15 a month to about £35 a month over the 3 years and on the strength of this I’d promised Grandma Aileen I would marry her if I was successful, we’d been together for 5 years, she was 20 and I was turning 21, mad romantic fools and all that, but these were the days of the revolution and we young people thought we had it made, we were the Hippy Generation after all.

Exam success and my life as a Navigating Officer

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Christmas came and went and in January 1969 I started to study for my Second Mates Certificate. I thought I knew it all but the adult education world came as a surprise, there were so many new things to learn in twelve weeks that I thought I was bound to fail most of them. They were long hard days leaving home at 6.30 in the morning and getting back at 6.30 in the evening, then having to continue my studies and do homework long into the night. In the end though it all paid off and by the end of April I was successful and passed at the First attempt. I could now call myself a Navigating Officer albeit a lowly Junior Third Officer, still I was on the upward ladder now and a ―damn fine Officer I would be‖ haha.

Of course I’d promised to marry Aileen hadn’t I, so a quick wedding was arranged (at Hartlepool Registry Office), it was all a bit of a rush before I had to go back to sea. We were married on a Wednesday at 1030 on 21 May 1969. We went to live with Aileen’s Mam at 33 Grosvenor Street until we could afford to rent somewhere of our own. After the wedding we had a quick beer and then Aileen and I walked up to Ward Jackson Park, eating fish and chips, and spent the afternoon lying in the grass and watching the ducks. That evening we held a party for our friends and eventually went to bed as Man and Wife.

Wedding Day and with Aileen’s Mam.

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Before I could go back to sea I had to buy a new Uniform, a sextant and some books, money was very tight we only had £80 in my Bank account. This was all spent in a mad day out at South Shields so when we came home that night we were almost penniless. Aileen got a job as a chamber maid at the grand Hotel the following Monday, so we lived off her meagre wage with help from Aileen’s Mam and my Mam and Dad until I joined my next ship.

And so it was back to the Port Chalmers as Junior Third Officer. I rejoined her in Liverpool on the 6th June 1969 (15 days after the wedding!!).

This voyage was out to Australia via Panama and back from New Zealand via Panama, just a regular old trip once again. I learnt a lot of navigation and ship handling/collision avoidance this voyage. Until we reached Australia I stood watches with the Chief Officer who mentored me and provided help and assistance as required. I learnt how to use my brand new sextant properly. This fine instrument used to let us find our position on the sea just using the sun and stars for reference. Once our position was established we could then adjust our course to our destination. We had to do it like this as there were no satellites in the sky in 1969 so no GPS and no electronic positions flowing in 24 hours a day!!

The big event of the voyage was watching the first men landing on the moon. I watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin of Apollo 11 step onto the moon’s surface, it was July 20th 1969 and I watched it through the night on a very small black and white TV in Melbourne Australia. Homeward bound from New Zealand I was allowed to stand Bridge watches alone, scary at first but the Pacific was quiet so it wasn’t really too bad. We arrived back into Liverpool at the end of September and I was on leave once again. I had saved a bit of money

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this voyage so Aileen and I rented our first home together across the road from her mother. We had very little in the way of furniture, no table, only a couple of chairs and our bed but were very happy there in our little nest playing husband and wife.

My next ship was the Port Caroline, a sister ship to the Chalmers, I joined her in Genoa Italy on the 20 October 1969 , 4 days before Aileen’s 21st Birthday. I had also been promoted to Third Navigating Officer, so was on my way upwards now. This was yet another trip to Australia and New Zealand. This trip was well remembered as we had a daft Chief Cook who played Jazz on a trombone. The upshot of this was that we got ourselves a jazz band together and I became manager. The baker made a homemade double bass with bells and whistles on, the second refrigeration engineer played tambourine and bongo drums and the engineer cadet guitar. We also had a wild Hebredian sailor who played the bagpipes and he led us out whenever we went ashore to play in the local pubs. We called ourselves the ―Port Caroline Jazz Band‖ very original what? After lots of practice at sea we got very good at it and soon became popular in the New Zealand pubs where we played every other night. At Timaru in New Zealand, on Boxing Day 1969, we entered and won a major talent competition, we were interviewed by the newspapers and on National Radio and we made a three track vinyl record. After that we were feted in all the other New Zealand ports we visited.

I spent the next three trips as Third Officer of the Ports Caroline and Chalmers doing the normal UK Australia New Zealand run although we did go to USA in December 70 Jan 71.

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By now I was a proficient Third Officer and on return to UK in January 1971 I once again prepared for my twelve weeks at South Shields, to improve my knowledge then sit my Board of Trade Exam for First Mate. In May I once again passed with flying colours and now held a piece of paper saying I was a bona fide First Navigating Officer. This surely now meant I would get a promotion to Second Officer, but that is not quite how it worked out as I spent my time from July 1971 to May 1972 doing three trips on the Port Nelson still as Third Officer!!

On the last voyage we took the ship to Castellon de la Plana in Spain to be scrapped. The wrecking crews were on board as soon as we berthed (0800) and started to take the ship apart from around us.

However by midday we were all put up in a nice hotel and the fun began. We had a lot to drink and in that Spanish heat we soon got drunk. We ended up causing trouble at the local Yacht Club that evening and the police were called. They didn’t mess about, just rounded us up and threw us in Jail for the night. The Captain wasn’t very pleased with us and threatened to have all of us sacked when we got back to the UK. There were some very sore heads on the flight back to England that afternoon and luckily none of us got the sack either.

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In July 1972 I joined the Port Nicholson as Third Officer and for the first time the Company allowed me to take Aileen on the voyage with me.

As well as going to Australia and New Zealand we also went to South Africa and Mozambique. Whilst we were in a place called Beira (Mozambique) Aileen got food poisoning after eating ashore and was very poorly for nearly a week. However we had a wonderful time together, the people on the ship were very friendly and there were two other wives on board for company, the only downside was the Captain was the worst one I ever sailed under, his name behind his back was ―Shitey White‖. The Chief Engineer was a character though, he was called ―Mad Sam‖, he was always covered in oil and grease, rarely showered so smelled quite a bit and he was prone to attacking his junior engineers if they did something wrong, Aileen and one of the other wives once bought him some deodorant and told him to his face he smelt. He just laughed and bought them a round of drinks. On another occasion when we were in Sydney Australia, Aileen and I went to the famous Bondi Beach for the day. At lunch time we decided to get some fish and chips and as we sat on a bench eating them this great big seagull swooped down and pinched Aileen’s fish, what a shock she got.

We arrived back in Hull (UK) on the 15th October 1972 and spent a short leave together still in our rented home in Grosvenor Street, by now of course it was fully furnished and we had some money to spare for a rainy day.

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At last the news arrived I was to be promoted to Second Officer and Aileen would be able to join me again on my next trip. The ship I was appointed to was called the Manipur

also affectionally known as the ―black pig‖ because it was always suffering from problems in the engine room and the engineers were always covered in oil and grease. Apart from that she was a very happy ship. During this voyage we had another 3 wives on board so plenty of company for Aileen. The ship was owned by Cunard Brocklebank and was crewed by British Officers and Indian Crew. As a complete change she traded between Europe the Indian Ocean Islands, India and Bangladesh then USA, and then back to Europe, this was going to be a great adventure as I had never been anywhere else other than Aussie NZ and the Northern USA with Port Line.

I joined her in a snow storm at a place called Brake (in Germany) on 15 November 1972 (Aileen joined a week later in Middlesbrough) there was no heating on the ship as the boiler had broken down so it was a miserable few days on an icy cold ship until we got it repaired. One night we had a party and the Captain slept in his bath (empty), next morning when the steward went to wake him he had nearly succumbed to hypothermia, mind a red hot curry for breakfast soon revived him, the rest of us got bacon and eggs. During these first few days on board I found out that the ship had been built for the Whisky trade between Glasgow and New York, so she had no air conditioning to speak of, she had also been made larger by the addition of an extra cargo compartment this made her hard to steer in bad weather. The lack of air conditioning would take some getting used to especially in the heat of the Indian Ocean.

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So many things happened on this voyage it will take a long time to tell, suffice to say Aileen had a ball and always said it was the best trip she ever did. Anyway as I said Aileen joined in Middlesbrough and settled into our cabin, I introduced her to Mohammed my steward (he was about 70 years old) who would look after us during the voyage. Aileen soon had to put him right on a few things the main one being that the cleaning cloths he was using to wash the bathroom, tables, furniture etc. he was also using to clean our cups and plates. Still he didn’t take offence and was really pleased when we got him extra cloths for cups etc.

One day whilst in a freezing Middlesbrough I was looking for the Sri Lankan Deck Cadet I found him shivering in his cabin and sitting about two inches away from an iron trying to get warm, how we laughed, I said he would be warmer sitting round a polo mint.

We eventually left Middlesbrough and headed south, the Suez Canal was closed so we would be going all the way round South Africa to get to the Indian Ocean, and spending Christmas at sea. As we plodded south the weather started to warm and the condensation started to appear (remember no air conditioning) but before you knew it we were into the southern hemisphere and it was summer there. The ship soon dried out but started to become very warm in the accommodation, some nights it was so hot and sticky that we would sleep on deck under the stars. Round the bottom of South Africa we went then berthed in Durban to take on fuel to get us to India and back. While we were there we decided to go to the beach for the afternoon, this was about 4 miles from the ship. About 5 o’clock that afternoon we decided to go back to the ship, you could imagine our surprise when we saw her sailing down the harbour. Aileen thought we had been abandoned however it turned out the ship had to go to another part of the harbour to complete formalities so we jumped into a taxi and eventually found her again.

From Durban we sailed to a place called Addu Atoll in the Maldives, this atoll was also known as Gan Island and was Britain’s main RAF base in the Indian Ocean. RAF aeroplanes used to stop there to refuel on their way to Singapore and Australia and to give their crews a day’s rest. We went there to replenish the Naafi (shop/canteen) with beer, cigarettes and anything else they wanted. The RAF personnel would come out to the ship in landing craft and we would start to unload the cargo, maybe three trips a day, then in the evening they

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would invite us ashore to meet the other personnel and have drinks and dinner in their various mess rooms. You can imagine a base with about 500 men and only a couple of lady nurses, when any other lady arrived she was made to feel like a queen. We had many happy days there, sometimes racing bicycles up and down the runway, other days wading round the atoll edge collecting big conch shells; sadly the base is long gone now as we have moved our similar activities to a place called Diego Garcia.

Next off we sailed to the Seychelles, no tourist then just pristine uninhabited Islands, the main town being Victoria on the island of Mahe. Once again we used to anchor off in the lagoon and barges would come out to collect the cargo, I remember going ashore there, it was as if we had stepped back in time. The people were very British in their outlook and stayed that way until the tourist industry started off and Americanised them.

From the Seychelles we proceeded to Ceylon as it was then (now Sri Lanka). One of the things that we had noticed was as the ship got warmer and warmer, the more and more cockroaches had started to appear, and they were even in the accommodation crawling over everything. One night in Colombo (capital of Sri Lanka) we went ashore to the big old colonial hotel to sit on the veranda and be served huge gin slings by the uniformed waiters (delicious). On the way back to the ship and being quite tipsy, we noticed a whole stack of Geckos on the wall of a tunnel. One of the Engineers said that he had heard that Geckos fed on cockroach so it would be a good idea if we caught some and let them loose on the ship. Well we caught about twenty and when we got back we let them go in the accommodation. After about ten days there were no cockroaches to be seen but after about a month we couldn’t move for geckos. They stayed with us almost back to America before they died off.

From Colombo we sailed North to the magical world of India, poverty, opulence, pungent odours, wonderful curries. In Madras we visited a furniture factory called ―Walnut Willies‖ here we bought the large Hunting Scene Standard lamp, Aileen’s jewellery box and her sewing box, all for less than £40. The man in charge could build you anything from Walnut, you just showed him a picture of what you required and he would have it built for the next time you visited Madras. In Calcutta we met up with the Companies Senior Agent in India. He invited us for a meal at his home. He lived in a huge mansion and had servants

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coming out of his ears. They were all dressed in different uniforms indicating their rank in his household. We had a wonderful meal and party that night, what a contrast when we were being driven back to the ship to see the homeless and the beggars inhabiting the same streets around his fabulous dwelling.

While we were in Calcutta the original crew left the ship to go on leave and the process started of finding a new crew to continue the voyage. The Company provided a relief shore crew to man the ship while this was going on. We had two or three special men to look after the saloon and Officers Bar. One evening the youngest of them arrived at the ship with a baby pig that he wanted to give to Aileen, he had probably stolen it from somewhere but never mind. Aileen kept the pig and called it ―Porky‖, the ship’s carpenter built it a little sty and we kept

him on board until we got to America. We also acquired 2 geese, a mongoose, 6 fat chickens and 6 budgies. We kept the chickens away from the mongoose otherwise he would have eaten them. The mongoose lived on the boat deck during the day in his own little shelter with a collar and length of rope so that he could wander about but not get into trouble. His favourite trick was to pick up a raw egg and throw it in the air, he would catch it just as it touched the ground and was cracking open then lap up the juices. One day he managed to catch one of the chickens and ate it in a flash. During the night he lived in the third engineer’s cabin and soon became quite tame.

From Calcutta we went to Chalna in Bangladesh, here we anchored in the river and started to load Jute and carpet backing for America. The poverty along the river was astonishing, people living their whole lives in small native dugout canoes, sheltering in the reeds along the river banks at night and surrounding

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the ship all day trying to get food and any other sorts of hand-outs. I used to do ship surveys for the sugar corporation whilst we were there and got paid £30 in local currency for doing so. Unfortunately you were not allowed to take this money out of the country so before we sailed we used to buy eggs, green coconuts, and spices from the boat people and give the lucky ones amongst them vast comparable wealth. The eggs were so tiny that we used to make 80 egg omelettes when we came off duty at 8 in the morning. While we were in Chalna we acquired two goats to go with our menagerie, unfortunately they caused so much havoc on the ship we had to let them go before we sailed.

From Chalna we set sail again for America but calling at the Red Sea port of Djibouti on the way. Here we got a stowaway, a young British guy who had escaped from the French Foreign Legion. He had done something wrong and wanted to leave the Legion, but once theirs there was no escape. He had been in jail at the Legion headquarters and managed to escape. We took him with us to Mombasa (Kenya) where he swam ashore and was rescued by the British Ambassadors staff. He got his English passport renewed and returned home to Blackpool a free man. From Mombasa back to Durban to refuel for the long voyage back to America.

In America we visited Philadelphia, Charleston, Galveston and New Orleans. A man from the Department of Agriculture in Philadelphia said the mongoose was vermin and had to leave the ship, so we lost him, he let us keep the pig, geese and budgies though. In New Orleans Aileen and the Chief Officer were invited out one afternoon to the famous Plimsoll club. This was a private club owned by two of the richest ship’s agencies in New Orleans. It was at the top of a high rise building and totally exclusive. Anyway when they got there they were offered drinks and as it was only early afternoon Aileen said she would like something refreshing with not too much alcohol. They offered her a ―Tom Collins‖ which is gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup, and soda, with a cherry and lemon slice for garnish. It is served over ice and has a cocktail umbrella for that added appeal. Needless to say Aileen liked it and had one or two more. At some stage she realised that the world was spinning but it wasn’t the whole top story revolved so you could get views of the whole of New Orleans. Great fun was had all afternoon and evening she taught people to say English swear words how they all laughed. When they finally realised the time they had to hurry back to the ship unfortunately they were late. The Captain was in a very bad mood and said

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he wouldn’t wait for them so the pilot was called and we made ready to sail. We nearly had the gangway raised when a big stretch limo arrived alongside and out tumbled Aileen and the Chief Officer, boy were they in trouble the next day. In New Orleans we loaded bulk Soya Bean Meal for the UK and on the 4th June 1973 arrived back into Cardiff. We lost Porky who died in a storm in the Atlantic and the geese flew off as we approached Wales. We took two of the budgies home and kept them in a shed in the yard of our rented house in Grosvenor Street. So there you are a long story of Aileen’s favourite trip.

My next ship was back with Port Line and it was called the Port Alfred.

Aileen stayed at home this voyage. I joined her on 23 August 1973 in Cardiff and we sailed for New Zealand with a general Cargo. This trip was notable because in the Atlantic heading towards the Panama Canal the ship went on fire in number 4 cargo hold. The fire was amongst sacks of chemicals stowed at the bottom of the hold. We tried to put it out using the ships CO2 fire fighting system but were unsuccessful. This meant we would have to find a port somewhere quick to help us. Luckily we were only a day away from the Caribbean Islands where help would be readily at hand. The Captain in his wisdom decided to choose Antigua; he was a very senior Royal Navy Reserve Captain and had always wanted to go there to see Lord Nelsons Dockyard and Naval Station. This was a bad choice in one way as the local fire service had never attended a ship’s fire before so we had to educate them in what was needed. The Company sent a very senior chemist to establish the cause of the fire and he soon found out the cause, two incompatible chemicals mixing together and instantaneously combusting. We were very lucky in that if the heat had got to the fuel tanks

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the ship would have exploded and sank in the middle of the Ocean. Apart from that the voyage was uneventful and I arrived back in the UK on 28 Jan 1974.

My next ship was a type of ship called a container ship. These ships carried cargo in a radically different way to normal cargo ships and they revolutionised the industry. They had been operating since 1968 on the Australia New Zealand run and the conventional cargo fleet went into a steep decline. These ships carried 1400 containers and it was said that one full container vessel took the place of four conventional ships and could handle the cargo in one quarter of the time. All without dock workers having to man handle each item of cargo. The reason for this was that the containers were filled in warehouses in the UK, locked up, loaded on the ship using special cranes with only 4 men to hook them on and load them into the ship. At the other end the operation was reversed and the cargo reached its destination intact.

Aileen and I joined the ACT2 on the 1st March 1974 in Liverpool. There were a few officers and crew on board that we knew plus 2 wives. Mad Sam the Chief Engineer from the Port Nicholson was also there as dirty and daft as ever. As this was the first container ship I had served on it was a steep learning curve learning the mysteries of the trade and the ships operation. The voyage was routine though, we loaded general goods for Australia and brought refrigerated goods back from New Zealand. Aileen enjoyed herself but the trip was short and we arrived back in Tilbury (London) on the 21.May 1974 our 5th wedding Anniversary.

By now I was just about ready to go back to South Shields College for 6 months to prepare for my Masters Certificate. However I needed just a little more sea time so joined another different type of ship for a month. This ship was called

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the Atlantic Causeway and was o Roll on Roll off ship. The cargo was loaded on a huge ramp through great big doors at the back of the ship. Lorries cars trailers you name it came on board and were securely lashed down in special holds. In America they were driven back off the ship and delivered to their destination. She also carried containers on deck; Once again I had learnt something new in the shipping world.

Now I was facing the hard graft sitting for my Masters Certificate. I commuted from Hartlepool to the college daily as before (from September 1974), but of course the things I had to learn were now so much more complicated, after all you couldn’t be a Captain without knowing everything that the job entailed, including man management. Still the 6 months soon passed and there I was doing the exams and the Orals in front of crusty old Captains working for the Board of Trade. Much to my surprise I passed all aspects of the exams first time and was awarded my Certificate of Competency as Master in April 1975. The Company then promoted me to the rank of Chief Officer and another new set of skills had to be learnt.

Once again Aileen was allowed to come with me and soon we were off to join the Port Brisbane for another trip to Australia and New Zealand.

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We joined her in Liverpool on 6 June 1975 but I was only there for 3 weeks when plans were changed and we were sent to Falmouth to join the Mahsud for a trip back out to India and America. She was the most modern ship in the Brocklebank fleet so it was an honour as first trip Chief Officer for me to get her.

We sailed on the 4th July 1975 via the Red Sea ports of Aqaba (Jordan) Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) And Port Sudan (Sudan), the Suez Canal had reopened after the wars with Israel so ships were now using this route to India without having to go all the way round South Africa.

The thing that stands out on this voyage was the fun we had with some ammunition we had loaded. We were taking it to Port Sudan and had two Army corporals on board to look after it. In all it was about twenty tons and was going to be used in a military exercise in Sudan. When we got to Aqaba the port authorities would not let us berth with the ammunition on board so it was arranged that it would be off loaded to a barge. Once this was done we could berth. As we were discharging the ammunition two boxes fell into the sea, there

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was hell on. Anyway we berthed and what did they do with the barge, they berthed it right behind us on the quay. The two soldiers had to live on board it until our cargo operations were complete. We then went back to anchor to reload the ammunition. From there we went to Jeddah, they were OK about the ammunition but posted their own guards over it. Whilst we were in Jeddah the authorities rejected some frozen Rum and raisin ice cream because they thought it had real rum in it, they also refused the other flavours as well so we ate ice cream to our hearts content. We then proceeded to Port Sudan where the news came that the military exercise had been called off and arrangements would have to be made for the stowage of the ammunition in Port Sudan port area. The two soldiers would have to look after until decisions were made from Army headquarters in the UK. Two railway waggons were organised and the ammunition was placed in them and shunted off to a deserted part of the port, the soldiers had to live in the waggons and guard them night and day. We fed them three meals a day whilst we were in port then after we sailed the local UK ex patriots who were working in Port Sudan took over the food supply. I found out later that they stayed in those waggons for three weeks before army people arrived to relieve them. The ammunition eventually went to Khartoum the Sudan capital and was given to their army. Nothing else of note happened we sailed round India and Bangladesh then off to America. We flew home from Houston on the 17 January 1976, it was a real turbulent flight all the way and Aileen got quite frightened for a while especially when the plane dropped about a thousand metres at one stage.

Because that last voyage had lasted 6 months I got three months leave, which was spent in our rented house, eventually of course I had to join another ship and once again Aileen was allowed to come with me. This ship was another

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Brocklebank ship called the Markhor and it was one of the best trips I ever did because we were being chartered out to various companies and going to all sorts of new and exotic places. We joined her in dry dock at South Shields on 20th April 1976. Our first Charter was to a French Company called Messageries Maritimes. We were to load in Genoa (Italy) and Marseilles (France) for Honolulu (Hawaii) and Noumea (New Caledonia) in the Pacific Ocean. When we reached Genoa the French Company appointed a super cargo to the ship, his job was to help me with everything cargo wise as he knew the trade well. His name was Jean Claude and he was a great friend eventually.

When he joined he asked the Captain if there was plenty of good wine on board as he liked a drink with his meals. The Captain said no we only had beer and spirits. On hearing this Jean turned pale and said a true Frenchman could never drink that and would it be all right if her got his Company to supply some good wines and cognac for the trip. When we got to Marseilles there was a truck waiting with the goods, when we got it on board it filled a big wardrobe and Jean was happy. We shared those bottles every day and never ran out the whole voyage. During our stay in Marseilles we loaded 3 20 tonne liquid containers with fine red wine for Honolulu, the wine was piped aboard from lorries on the quayside. As each container filled a lot of wine was spilled when the pipes were disconnected. I asked Jean Claude if we could capture this spillage when the next tank had filled, he said yes so we got two 180 litre sterilised drums that had been used to hold water and filled them to the brim. The Officers enjoyed the wine daily and it lasted almost to Honolulu. When we emptied the wine containers into Lorries on the quay in Honolulu we repeated the exercise and had wine again for the rest of the trip. Anyway off we went from Marseilles across the Atlantic to Panama. The Captain who had been at sea for 35 years had never seen the Panama Canal or the Pacific Ocean before so this was a big thing for him. Nothing really eventful happened during this part of the trip although both Honolulu and Noumea were delightful places that Aileen and the other wife on board enjoyed immensely. After this voyage ended we got a charter with Japan Line so we were now off to another new part of the world that nobody on board had ever been to before.

We turned the ship north from Noumea and set off up the South Pacific across the Equator and into the North Pacific ready for our tour of Japan. We ran into a heavy storm two days before we got to Japan and at lunchtime that day hit a

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big wave. Aileen was thrown out of her chair along with her curry and landed in a heap against the saloon wall. She was knocked out of breath and then complained of pain in her chest. As I was the ship’s doctor (one of the Chief Officers many perks!!) I had to decide what the diagnosis was, I went for bruised ribs and I treated her with aspirin till the pain was manageable. It would of course, for safety’s sake mean a visit to a professional doctor when we arrived at our first port of Osaka. The doctor advised that we sent Aileen to the local hospital for an X-ray so she duly went with the other wife in tow. The X-ray showed she had cracked one rib, so no disco dancing for a couple of weeks!! She laughed when she told me how the Japanese nurse pronounced her name, Aireen Rax. From Osaka we visited Nagoya and Tokyo. Tokyo was unbelievably modern and Aileen bought some Japanese prints, Kimonos and other Japanese wares as presents for when we got home. The ship was now fully loaded and we were to sail across the North Pacific to Central America and beyond. Our discharge ports were to be Manzanillo and Acapulco in Mexico, San Jose in Guatemala then Corinto in Nicaragua, then through the Panama Canal to Trinidad and Tobago. The summer crossing of the Pacific was smooth as silk the ship gently swaying to the long rhythmic swell and the sun shining endlessly out of an azure blue sky. We saw thousands and thousands of dolphins and as we neared the Central American coast hundreds of whales migrating north to their breeding grounds in the Bay of California. When the ship reached Acapulco the Japanese Agent invited the Captain, the Chief Engineer and Aileen out for a slap up meal one night and then a visit to see the world famous cliff divers of Acapulco.

I was learning rapidly that a Chief Officers job, if he was conscientious (and I was in spades), was to stay on the ship whilst cargo was being worked and that an evening off was a hard earned luxury. I wasn’t complaining though as I loved

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my work and Aileen always managed to get a night ashore with the lads. At Corinto one day Aileen was fishing over the side of the ship and by lunchtime had caught nothing. I went and got a large chunk of bacon from the Galley and a bigger hook. I let the baited hook down into the water and after only five minutes got a bite. I had caught a huge lobster it weighed 3.5kg. It went straight into the cooking pot and that evening Aileen and I devoured it with a bottle of wine, lovely jubbly. We left Corinto and passed through the Panama Canal then plodded down the Caribbean to Trinidad and Tobago. We met the Bishop of Trinidad a lovely man whose name I forget, but he was a Victoria Cross holder from the Second World War. Aileen had some delightful lunches with him and his wife at the Bishop’s residence. I met him in London years later shortly before he died.

On the last night of the charter and after cargo was complete, the Japanese Agent took most of the Officers to the Hilton Hotel where we enjoyed a private slap up meal followed by dancing to a steel band. We were showered with gifts by the Japanese and given a rousing send off the next day when the ship had finished this charter.

Once again we sailed off into the blue on another charter to a company called Maritime Belge. They traded from Europe to the Persian Gulf. Across the Atlantic we went and loaded cargo in Hamburg and Bremen (Germany) and Antwerp (Belgium). This load was very interesting and difficult for me to arrange as the Persian Gulf ports were full of ships and we would be discharging all our cargo into barges. Also the port rotation could change at any time. What I needed to do was make sure that whichever order of port we went to I could discharge their cargo with no disruption to the other ports cargo. It was difficult but I finally did it and kept 6 ports cargo separate from each other so no double handling anywhere. Off we went through the Suez Canal to Muscat (Oman) our first Persian Gulf port, the outstanding memory here apart from the heat and the majestic mountains was the Sultans Summer Palace. It was built completely from a dusty pink Italian marble and was huge. He only visited it for about a month in the year and went deep sea fishing nearly every day.

From Muscat we went to Ras al Khaimah (United Arab Emirates) where we were to discharge a big crane weighing 70 tonnes. What fun we had. We anchored off the port one morning early and waited for a barge to arrive. Well we waited and

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waited until the next morning when out from a creek slowly crept a tug and barge. It came alongside and looked very rickety, I was afraid if we loaded the crane onto it, it would sink, the Indian tug master said it would be OK so we gently lowered the crane onto it, needless to say the barge started to sink. It was funny but of course we had to find a bigger barge. Eventually a couple of days later we discharged safely and the barge disappeared back up the creek to the port. We carried on discharging the rest of the cargo. What a surprise we got the next morning when we were told the big crane was still on the barge because they didn’t have a crane big enough to lift it off in Ras al Khaimah, they eventually had to hire a large crane from Dubai to trundle through the desert and complete the job.

From here we went to Abu Dhabi (UAE) then Bushire (Iran) Kuwait (Kuwait) and then finally Dubai (UAE). When this charter finished the Belgians gave me a large amount of American Dollars as special payment for a job well done (the one and only time I accepted a gift of that nature).

Aileen and I and one other crew member left the ship in Dubai to fly home for a well-earned rest. We were put up in the Emirates Hotel the only European one in Dubai in 1976 before we flew and the memorable thing here was eating Camel steak and the fact that the bathroom shower had no cill on the door and after a shower the water ran into the living room. Also the big ceiling fan was only attached to the ceiling by its power cable so when you turned it on the whole thing revolved like a propeller.

Whilst we waited for our plane I took Aileen to the Souk to visit the gold market.

Because I had my big bonus from the Belgians I said she could buy whatever gold she fancied. Well the gold Market covered a street about 400metres long

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with shops selling only gold on either side. Aileen was so overwhelmed by it all she ended up buying nothing at all. We finally left Dubai and arrived back (still into our rented house) on 26th November 1976 after a 7 month voyage packed with adventure and many happy memories.

After a long well deserved leave I kissed Aileen goodbye on Easter Day 11th April 1977 and flew out to La Cieba in Honduras via London Miami and San Pedro y Sul which is Honduras’s main airport. It was a long journey taking two days. I was off to my first Banana Boat the Carmania.

When I got to La Cieba I was told the ship was going to be join a day late so I was put up in a rickety old hotel overnight. What a shock I got the next morning when I saw her she was rusty and dirty just like an old tramp steamer, banana boats were supposed to be clean and tidy at all times, I could see I would have a job on licking her into shape. The crew were West Indian a friendly but lazy bunch of guys who became good friends and better workers as the trip progressed. Anyway we started to load the bananas and this was another new experience for me, I soon got the hang of it though. From La Cieba we were heading south to South America. We discharged the bananas at Recife (Brazil) then loaded apples and pears for Montevideo (Uruguay), Buenos Aries and Mar del Plata (Argentina). At Mar del Plata we started to load frozen fish for Walvis Bay in Namibia (Southern Africa).We half-filled the ship with boxes of frozen squid and various types of fish then sailed up and down the coast for about ten days meeting up with deep sea trawlers. We loaded huge tuna fish (loose) from these boats and stacked them all by hand in the frozen cargo holds. One of the trawlers had been catching shark and I remember getting a shark’s skull off him it had all its teeth in a big grinning mouth and I brought it home. It ended up on show in Eldon Grove School, I think Peter took it in years later as part of a

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project they were doing. Once the ship was full we set off on our journey across the South Atlantic Ocean, if I remember rightly it was a storm tossed passage, we hardly saw the sun at all. We arrived at Walvis Bay and 6 of us Officers paid off the ship to fly back to the UK. We took a mini bus out to the airport at Windhook it was a little strip in the middle of scrub land and a bit of an oasis. There on the dirt runway sat our aeroplane a little twelve seater Piper Cherokee, as we took off into the evening twilight a huge flock of pink Flamingos took off as well and flew alongside of us for a while. That was a sight that I can still see today. We climbed over the mountains and into the darkness and before we knew it we were in Johannesburg airport waiting for our flight back to the UK. I arrived home on the 24th August for a nice long leave.

After another good leave Aileen and I joined the Markhor again on the 3rd November 1977 at Newport in Wales. Although we didn’t know it at the time this was to be her last voyage for a while. The trip was the usual Brocklebank trip UK to India, India to America and America back to Europe, two things stood out on this voyage and they both happened in the Red Sea. First of all we called at Djibouti again (French Foreign Legion, naval Base etc.) and also a port where many yachtsmen stopped at on their trips round the world. Aileen made many friends amongst this fraternity. One day whilst we were there we decided to throw a big barbecue party on board and we invited lots of yachties. They brought wine and some meat and we provided meat and beer. We were having a fine old time drinking and dancing into the evening. At about 10 o’clock at night the second Mate came back from ashore and asked if he could bring some guests on board, we said yes and up the gangway trooped about 30 French sailors off an Aircraft carrier called the Clemenceau. They all had crates of wine but of course we had just about run out of meat to barbecue. It was then that the Chief Steward decided in his drunken state that there was plenty of meat in the ship’s meat locker so he got a couple of boxes of steak and some sausages and the party carried on. Finally about 4 in the morning the Captain appeared and told us all to go to bed or back to their yachts and ship. Late the next day the Chief Steward realised he had used all the best meat on the ship at the barbecue and that we would be on short rations for a while now. Still it was a fantastic party and worth the loss of the meat.

The second event happened at Aden. One morning whilst we were at anchor discharging cargo the boss of the workmen came to me and said all his men were

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now going ashore, when I asked him why he shrugged his shoulders and they all left. At about ten o’clock that morning we saw some army tanks rolling along the waterfront streets and began to wonder what was happening. Then out of the blue some fighter jets raced over the top of the ship and started to fire rockets at a big building about two miles away.

We later found out that this was the Presidential Palace and the Army and air force had decided to overthrow the Presidents regime and start one of their own. The shelling went on till about 2 in the afternoon and only stopped when the President surrendered. We later learnt he and his family were executed the next day.

They were the only two highlights of an ordinary voyage and we returned to the UK on the 8th August 1978. This had been a very long voyage, nearly 9 months so I was due another long leave.

After spending Christmas 1978 at home we found out that Aileen was pregnant with Richard so that would be the end of her travels for some time. By this time I had saved quite a bit of money and Aileen and I decided it was time to leave the rented house that we had lived in for 10 years and find somewhere of our own to buy. So Aileen set out to look for somewhere nice that we could afford and found a nice little terraced house with a big back garden in Jesmond Road,

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just opposite Park Square. We moved in in May 79 and started to turn it into a cosy nest for the three of us.

I rejoined the Port Chalmers on the 8th of February 1979 flying all the way out to Bluff New Zealand a 36 hour journey in those days. I was now back in familiar territory loading frozen lamb for a new trade to Russia, principally the Black Sea ports of Novorossiysk and Odessa. This was a long sea journey round the bottom of Australia, up the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal across the Mediterranean up to Istanbul and then through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, all the way across it to Novorossiysk then back across the other way to Odessa. This voyage was pretty uneventful apart from the amazing squalor of Novorossiysk and the blazing opulence of Odessa oh and we could only go ashore until 10 o’clock at night and we were accompanied everywhere by special officials (security men) to make sure we did nothing wrong. I returned to the UK on the 24th June after spending 2 nights in a luxury hotel in Istanbul waiting for a flight home.

During this leave Richard was born (13 August 1979) and I had six weeks with him before I was off again on 30 September 1979.

This time to Le Havre (France) to join the small Banana boat Andria.

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She was very fast and we ran across the Atlantic to La Cieba in Honduras and Puerto Limon in Costa Rica to load a full cargo of bananas. Now bananas are strange things, they come aboard the ship with a core temperature of about 30C and have to be cooled to about 13c within 24 hours to stop them ripening on the voyage. They are then held at this temperature until they reach the warehouses at the discharge port where the temperature is slowly raised so they can start to ripen. Sometimes however things go wrong and even though the ship has followed all the correct procedures the bananas start to ripen by themselves. Once this process starts it cannot be stopped and all the ship can do then is freeze them right down to stop them turning into a mush of banana puree and cardboard box. This happened on this trip and we had to freeze down 18000 boxes of bananas. When we got to Antwerp to discharge the cargo the men had to come on board with pneumatic drills and literally drill out the cargo, what a mess that made. I left the ship in Sheerness and arrived home on 11 October 1979 for a short leave.

I rejoined the Andria in Sheerness on the 27 October 1979 for another trip to banana land. We loaded general cargo in Sheerness for the port of Almirante on the Caribbean coast of Panama and from there cardboard and Kraft paper for Armuelles on the Pacific Coast of Panama. At Armuelles we started to load bananas for Los Angeles (USA) then went up to Golfito in Costa Rica to complete the load, it was here in Golfito that I nearly died. Golfito is located in a mountainous landlocked bay and as the ship entered that afternoon a tremendous thunder storm started. The ship was ready to tie up and I was on the forecastle with the sailors ready to moor the ship. All of a sudden there

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was this massive clap of thunder and a huge bolt of lightning. The lightning hit the mast of the ship just where I was standing and when the crew turned round to see if I was OK they all started to laugh; my hair was stood on end and little blue sparks were coming from it. My hair stayed stuck up for about 24 hours and everybody thought it was a great joke. We rolled on up to Los Angeles where we discharged the cargo very slowly due to strike action this allowed us to get ashore and see the sights.

From Los Angeles we ran back down the Pacific through the Panama Canal and loaded bananas again in Almirante for New Orleans and Galveston in the Gulf ports of the USA.I had a good time in New Orleans visiting the French Quarter and listening to the Jazz bands in the old town. I flew home from Galveston and got back on 4th February 1980. On the 23 April 1980 I was off again this time to Oslo (Norway) to re-join the Andria for another banana voyage. This time we loaded bananas at Almirante again and sailed down the Atlantic to Montevideo and Buenos Aires. From here we proceeded south again with a full cargo of meat and apples bound for Valparaiso (Chile) via the Magellan Strait right at the bottom of South America.

What a wonderful place, the Strait was covered in light ice being it was winter down there and the mountains came right down to the sea. We passed numerous huge glaciers which shone bright blue against the snow but it was bitterly cold and at times we were pushing blind through great blizzards which covered the deck of the ship in deep snow. After 36 hours we popped out of the other end of the Straits into the South Pacific Ocean, it wasn’t very pacific it was blowing a full gale with huge swells rolling in towards the shore, we spent a couple of days rocking and rolling north towards Valparaiso. We discharged the meat and apples and loaded fish in its place then proceeded north again to Guayaquil in Ecuador.

From here it was back through the Panama Canal to La Guaira in Venezuela, where I paid off and flew home arriving on the 22 August 1980 just a week after Richard’s first Birthday. Once again I had saved hard and we decided to move again this time to 233 Park Road where we spent the rest of our days. It was a lovely three bedroom detached house with gardens front and back and very cosy as we modernised it over the years.

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On the 14th of November 1980 I rejoined the Markhor in Piraeus (Greece) on charter but I can’t remember who to. We loaded a general cargo in Genoa and Marseilles for Hamburg. At Hamburg we did a full Indian crew change, the men coming straight from Calcutta. Here it was obviously still very hot and before they left India the Company always provided them with cold weather clothes, two pairs Long Johns, woolly jumper hat and socks, thick serge trousers, sturdy boots and a nice big duffle coat each. The men in their wisdom then promptly sold them on because they knew Brocklebank ships never went anywhere really cold. Unfortunately the ship went from Germany to the Baltic ports of Riga (Russia) Gdansk and Gdynia (Poland) and it was absolutely freezing. The crew started to complain immediately that they could not work outside the ship’s accommodation because they had no suitable clothes so I had to put them on a rota of one hour outside to two hours inside if anything needed doing.

When we got to Gdansk it had started to snow and when we completed loading we had to go to Gdynia 40 km across the bay. It blew blizzard conditions all afternoon and by the time we got to Gdynia there was a foot of snow upon the deck. The crew had to come out to tie the ship up and by the time we had finished they were blue with cold. They stayed in the accommodation then until we returned from the Baltic back to Hamburg and Rotterdam. We loaded a lot of heavy cargo in Rotterdam for the Central American ports of Colon (Panama) where we also fuelled the ship, Maracaibo in Venezuela and Barranquilla in Colombia.

The trip was uneventful until I tried to get home. When it came time for me to pay off the ship the Spanish speaking Agent had arranged the tickets for my flight and a taxi to take me to the airport twenty kilometres from the ship. I set off with my suitcases at 5 in the morning to catch the 8 o’clock flight to the Capital of Colombia, Bogota where the International airport was located. I got to the check in desk and the lady looked at my tickets and said ―no you can’t go‖.

When I asked why she showed me that the agent had put the previous days date on the ticket. Now this was in the days before mobile phones so I couldn’t call him to find out what to do next, but the lady at checkout was very understanding and rearranged my flight for 10 o’clock. The flight was called and my bags had disappeared down the ramp to be loaded onto the plane. I walked out onto the tarmac and was four steps from entering the back of the plane

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when an army man with a rifle appeared and said the plane was full ―all go away‖. This meant I missed this plane also but my luggage was in the hold and went to Bogota without me. Finally that afternoon I managed to get a flight to Bogota, I then had to find my luggage which I eventually did in a large warehouse outside the airport. When I returned to the International airport I found to my horror that I had missed my flight to Frankfurt (Germany) then onto London then Teesside. The next flight was not till twenty four hours later.

This was getting desperate until I noticed that Iberian Airways (Spain) had its ticket office open so I went there and told them of my predicament. The lovely lady said she could change my ticket if I would like that and I could fly to Madrid (Spain) late that night via Trinidad. Once I got to Madrid I would have to rearrange my tickets again to get home. After a long flight I arrived in Madrid ion the early morning and went to organise another ticket change, the lady at the desk explained that because I had already changed these tickets so many times she could not get me on a flight to London until the next morning.

As I had no money to speak of I had to stay in the airport all day and night before travelling to London on the very same aeroplane that had brought me from Bogota. I eventually got home after a mammoth three day set of flights. Aileen thought I had run away as I’d taken so long. It was the 21st April 1981 a week before my 33rd birthday. I enjoyed another long leave before joining the Markhor again in Rotterdam on the 9th July 1981. This time we were on charter to the Ethiopian Shipping Company and were loading for the Red Sea ports of Port Sudan (Sudan) Massawa and Assab (Ethiopia as it was then). Our cargo consisted mainly of powdered milk and sugar as Ethiopia was at war with its neighbour and suffering a great famine at the same time. It was devastating to see the poverty and needs of the local people when we got there, little worked in the towns, hardly any food, no electricity, little water and no hospitals to speak of. I was glad when we finally sailed back to Europe where I paid off in Caen (France) on 27th October 1981 just missing Aileen’s 33rd birthday by 3 days.

My next voyage was back into familiar territory I rejoined the Port Caroline but she had now been sold to Brocklebanks and renamed Manaar.

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I joined her at the Suez Canal on 26 Jan 1982 for the Voyage into the Russian Black Sea ports of Novorossiysk and Odessa carrying frozen lamb from New Zealand. The trip was uneventful we went back down to New Zealand for another load of lamb and I left her in Istanbul getting home on 21 May 1982 my 13th wedding anniversary. After another decent leave I was back in a banana boat the Servia.

.

I joined her in Antwerp (Belgium) on the 23rd August 1982 and did a quick trip to the Caribbean ports of Almirante in Panama and Puerto Limon in Costa Rica loading bananas and drums of banana puree for Antwerp. I left her on 25 September 1982 in Antwerp.

My next trip was one of the strangest but best I ever did, mainly because we didn’t go to sea for 3 months merely stayed in port and played. I was going back to Manaar and I left England on 19 November 1982 to fly out to New Zealand once again (still a 36 our trip) I was going to join the ship at a place called Opua in the Bay of Islands. The ship was there because the Russians who had chartered the ship for the lamb run to the Black Sea had run out of money and

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reneged on their last payments. This meant the charter was all but over until they found the cash and that the Company needed to find somewhere to lay the ship up until the money appeared or the charter officially wound up. In their infinite wisdom the Company chose Opua so we would be in New Zealand and ready to load at a moment’s notice. Because the Company didn’t want to waste money having a full crew on board they decided that the ship could be looked after by 7 senior personnel, Chief Officer (me in charge), Second Officer, 2 Second Engineers, Third Engineer, Refrigeration engineer, Electrical engineer and Chief Steward; I know that is eight but we will soon get rid of one. Opua was a beautiful little town, population about 500, but it had its own wharf, just big enough for the Manaar to tie up to, there was a yacht charter business next door, a Post Office and Convenience store, a fishing boat harbour and the entrance to the Keri Keri River just north. Down the harbour were the towns of Pahia, Russel and Waitangi, overall population about 2000. The ship was tied up and we were to work an 8 hour day Monday to Friday doing routine maintenance and be ready for sea at a moment’s notice. We were connected to shore power for use at night and ate and showered in the Dockers canteen ashore which we renamed the Manaar Hilton. We had a daily food allowance and had to become self-catering, we all learned how to produce a meal in a very short time.

Once we had settled into a routine I decided we could do without the Chief Steward as he had very little to do except sunbathe and wander off ashore at his leisure, soon he was back on the plane to England and the ―magnificent seven‖ as we were to become known popped into existence. We soon made friends with the locals, especially the Harbour Master, the guy who owned the yacht charter business, the lady in the post office and the fishermen. We were also spending a fortune getting the taxi three miles into Pahia to buy our main groceries or to go to the hotel for a beer in the evening, so we came up with a cunning plan. We would convert one of the lifeboats into our own water taxi and use it to sail down the harbour at our leisure, we set to and filled the bottom of it with about 1000kg of stone ballast, put a floor down, rigged up a steering wheel and engine control so that one man could drive it safely, and I set about giving the Engineers a lesson in seamanship so they could use it safely. This little lifeboat became our workhorse, as well as a taxi service it became our fishing boat as well. The fishermen donated fishing nets and fishing lines and hooks etc. to us so that we could catch our own fish to supplement our supplies

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for free, all we had to do was buy bait from them to bait our hooks. Twice a week we would lay nets across the Keri Keri River and catch flounder and every Saturday used to find us out in the entrance to the Bay catching big snapper fish. I made a deal with the local butcher and the convenience store (for vegetables) also with the local brewery to buy beer at cost price and soon we were living like kings and had plenty of spare cash left over from our daily allowance. Because we were working only eight hours a day the Company said that as long as we could secure the ship in some way they would have no objection to us all going ashore at once so we automated the gangway and had a big lock on it on the quay. When the last man went ashore we would lock it down and leave the key in the Hilton. We joined all sorts of institutions in Pahia, the return servicemen association, the fire brigade club, the bowling club and the sport fishing club to name but a few and made lots of friends who invited us into their homes for meals and drinks. The yacht charter man also lent us one of his yachts every month and I learnt to sail properly.

At weekends we would disappear over the horizon to explore Northern New Zealand, visiting the Great Kauri Forests and the Ninety mile beach, a beach so exposed to the elements that the sand was so compacted that you could drive buses and cars along its whole length without them getting stuck. The strange thing was you could also run your hands just under the surface sands and collect small edible clams by the bucket full. Often you would find the remains of whales washed up on the beach and there were sea shells galore. One weekend I found a couple of nice shell pieces and wondered if I could turn them into something different when I got back to the ship. I had been reading about the ancient Maoris and how they fashioned fishing hooks from shell so I thought I would give it a go and also see if I could make a little pendant engraved with a sailing ship. This I did and the results are somewhere in the family, Abigail’s Mam always admired them. The time spent there was idyllic and I could have wished it to last forever; however the day came that we had to go back to work, and a new crew started to arrive. We got the ship ready, had a sea trial and sailed off to the port of Bluff at the very bottom of South Island New Zealand to load frozen lamb for Russia again. I bet the people in the Bay of Islands still talk about us though.

I flew home from Bluff and arrived back in England on the 8th April 1983, just a fortnight before Peter was born on 23 April 1983.

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After a good leave I joined another banana boat. She was the Samaria and was employed on the Europe to Los Angeles service; I joined her in Antwerp on the 18 July 1983.

We loaded general cargo for the Caribbean Central American ports then sailed through the Panama Canal and loaded bananas at the Pacific banana ports for Los Angeles. This trip was uneventful and I left in Los Angeles arriving back home on the 18 Nov 1983. This time I got Christmas at home and Aileen and Richard were very happy to see me, Peter well he just slept and filled his nappy ha ha.

The 4th February 1984 saw me back on the Samaria this time joining at Port Said (Suez Canal), what may you ask was the ship doing there. Well an enterprising Egyptian merchant had seen a consignment of frozen chicken for sale at Marseilles and as the ship had been there at the time he hired her for a short voyage to load and deliver the chicken to Egypt. We had spent a few days discharging when to our surprise the cargo operation ground to a halt, it turned out that some of the birds had not been killed according to the Halal way and

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were therefore unsuitable for consumption by the Muslim population. The trader was now in a dilemma, he could try to get them reboxed and relabelled as ordinary chicken, but who in Egypt could do that, or he would have to cut his losses and loose his money by accepting the fact that the meat was unsellable. He ended up doing the latter which meant the ship now had nearly two hundred tonnes of frozen chicken to get rid of. We sailed off into the Mediterranean eventually and dumped the whole lot overboard (no environmental issues in those days). After that the trip was a normal one, following the same pattern as the one outlined previously. I left her in Los Angeles and arrived home on the 18th July 1984 for a nice long leave, in fact it was so long I managed another Christmas at home (just).

My next ship was to be the England but before I recount my adventures on her I better tell you her history and what Cunard Line was doing with her. After the war in the Falkland Islands the British Government realised that to protect the Islands against further hostilities that a military and commercial airport and other facilities would need to be built, the problem was how to do it all from scratch. They came up with some innovative plans which proved highly successful. First of all they needed to find a sheltered harbour in the Falklands where they could attach a big cargo ship to the shore line to use as a mooring berth for other ships.

They found the perfect spot at Mare Cove. A British ship called the Merchant Providence was bought and loaded up with pile driving equipment and other heavy machinery and when she arrived at Mare Cove started the huge task of mooring herself to the land. First giant steel pylons were driven deep into the rock then the ship welded herself to them forming a bridge to the land beyond.

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Work was done on the ship’s deck so that a sort of roadway was formed and a ramp sloped down off the ship to the land.

From here the civil engineers had to drive a road 30 miles across the Island to the airport building site. Slowly the work progressed and a second ship the Merchant Provider arrived with more equipment and a few more construction workers but the Government realised that to do the job efficiently they would somehow need to transport large amounts of men to the Islands eventually.

This is where the England arrived on the scene. She was built for a Company called DFDS and was originally named Winston Churchill. She was a passenger Ferry employed on a two-day crossing of the North Sea between North Shields and Esbjerg (Denmark); she could carry 450 passengers plus in her roll on roll off deck large amounts of cars and lorries. The Government had tendered for a ship like this and Cunard bought her on a whim hoping to get the contract. The problem was that the ship somehow had to be converted to carry 600 construction workers and to get to Cape Town South Africa where she would be stationed. This meant making extra tanks for fuel oil and installing large fresh water making machines on board, and upgrading the cabins to a capacity of six hundred. A small hospital would also need to be built. The trip to South Africa would take three weeks and the trip from Cape Town to the Falkland Islands a further two. The ship was rushed into dry dock and conversion work began. Other shipping companies laughed and said Cunard would be proved a laughing stock, the ship would never get as far as Cape Town in a million years being originally built to cross the North Sea in two days. How wrong they were. So the ship was slowly but surely made ready and sailed off south calling at Ascension Island (south Atlantic) to refuel on the way. The next problem was how to get the construction workers to Cape Town and the answer was to fly them there, making sure they arrived a day before the ship was due to sail to the Falklands. They would then embark and the ship would sail. This all took place initially in mid-1982 and the ship reached Cape Town late that year.

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I left home on Boxing Day 1984 and joined her in Cape Town on the 29th December 1984. By now the routine of transporting the workers was well established and I soon picked up the ropes. The workers embarked, what a motely lot, and off we sailed to Mare Cove and the road to the airport. Once the workers were off the ship we cleaned her up and then embarked 600 more to take back to Cape Town, boy were some of these men weird. We had those who had turned alcoholic, we had slightly mentally ill ones, we had various bad boys who came on board in handcuffs, we had poorly ones who needed to go into our small hospital and of course we had a majority of good ones. I did two of these voyages before returning home to the UK on the 1st February 1985. At the end of 1985 the England returned to Birkenhead (Liverpool) where she was laid up.

By 1985 the container ship revolution was well under way with more and more large container ships being built and entering the market. The writing was on the wall for the general cargo and refrigerated ships that had served our country for so long and so well. The ships were being laid up and sold to foreign companies, as economically they were no longer viable. Cunard laid their entire refrigerated ship fleet up at Birkenhead (12 ships) and put them up for sale. Every now and then, one would get a small charter or possibly A Nato exercise but work was few and far between.

On the 29th April 1985 I joined the last banana boat in Bremerhaven for a trip to Central America and back she was called Scythia, this was a normal voyage from Europe to the Caribbean coast of central America again, discharging Kraft paper and Urea in Almirante (Panama) before loading bananas for Europe from Puerto Limon (Costa Rica) and La Ceiba (Honduras). The trip was uneventful except for our rescue of three fishermen many miles out to sea. We were

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heading for Almirante and were about 200 miles from the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic when at 0800 as we were changing watch the Third Officer saw something glinting on the water about three miles away. When we looked through binoculars we were amazed to see three men apparently standing on the water. The Captain was called and we immediately started to slow the ship down and turn in a big circle to approach them. When we reached their position we could see they were standing in a large open boat that was only just afloat. We got them on board and they told us their story. They had left Puerto Rico the night before in their high speed boat and were hoping to fish about 150 miles out into the Caribbean sea, unfortunately they hit a submerged object at high speed and the boat started to sink. Luckily for them they had large amounts of jerry cans full of fuel for their outboard engines, so they emptied these out and the empty cans acted as floats. They were now at the mercy of the sea and currents and were floating along on the Gulf Stream when we found them. We took them to Almirante and they eventually got back to their loved ones on Puerto Rico; very lucky men indeed.

I returned to the UK on the 17 June 1985 and laid the Scythia up in Birkenhead with the rest of the fleet. I was then appointed along with three engineers to look after the ships at Birkenhead, checking them daily to make sure they were safe. I had a short leave in August then was called back to take the Servia on a NATO exercise. What a fun month that was. The exercise was carried out with the British, American and Portuguese navies and consisted of about twelve warships and eight British and European cargo ships plus submarines from UK, USA and Portugal. We met off Plymouth and sailed in convoy to Portugal. There we headed out into the Atlantic and for 2 weeks the cargo ships steamed round in convoy formation in a five mile square whilst the navy ships took it in turn to protect us from submarine attack. Whilst under the protection of the UK and USA navy ships the Portuguese submarines got no where near us, but when the Portuguese were guarding us the UK and USA submarines used to sail straight into the middle of the convoy and sink us all!! We arrived back in Birkenhead on 21st September 1985 and that was the last time the Cunard refrigerated fleet set sail. Eventually all the ships were sold. They were bought by Greek owners and continued to tramp around the globe looking for work.

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My next ship was the ACT3 a container ship employed on the USA to New Zealand service and these were the ships I would spend the rest of my career at sea on. They were named the liner service ships; we were given a rota of ports to visit and told what day and time we had to be there, a bit like a bus service really. I joined her in Norfolk Virginia USA on 2 December 1985 and we set sail for New Zealand via the Panama Canal. The ship also carried paying passengers and we had six doing the round trip with us, sail to New Zealand, get off in the first port re-join in the last port and come back to America. They were mainly old (70) Americans with tons of money who virtually lived at sea. They were all very interesting characters though and always got on well with everybody on board. The only outstanding memory here was an accident that occurred during berthing at Philadelphia on the night of 28 April 1986. It had been blowing a late spring gale all day, and as the ship was being turned around off the berth, the tugboats lost control of us and the ship hit the pier with considerable force. Eventually a big hole appeared on the pier and the insurance pay out ran into the millions of dollars. I flew home the next day arriving in the UK on the day after my 38th birthday 30 April 1986.

During that summer, I was reappointed to look after the England in Birkenhead and Aileen and the boys came with me. We had a wonderful time exploring Liverpool and the surrounding coastal towns, the sun seemed to shine every day and it was great fun. Aileen’s relatives used to visit now and again and we would have some great evening get together. Eventually though the second Engineer and I had to get the ship ready to sail as we were about to embark on another Nato Exercise. The new crew joined and on the 25th August 1986, we sailed for Rotterdam to embark about 500 Dutch troops and 100 British. We were going to practice disembarking troops into Landing Craft on various Bays round the UK, then off across the North Sea to complete the exercises in the Baltic.

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Of course, I am sure you can guess it all turned out to be a shambles. First, we tried in Cardigan Bay (Wales) but it was too rough so we headed up the coast to Scotland, where the weather was even worse. We went through the Pentland Firth and down the East Coast of Scotland to the Murray Firth but it was still no good the weather had followed us. Whilst we were at anchor here disaster struck, the big windlass that pulled the anchor in broke and we had no spare parts. The Navy Admiral said we had 12 hours to get it fixed or he would have to leave us behind and we would have to follow him across the North Sea, if and when we got it fixed. We were in a dilemma because the part was so old it was probably unobtainable and to get it made ashore would take weeks.

Luckily steaming around about 50 miles away was the American Battleship USS Missouri, she was fully fitted out with workshops and could make anything anybody required as long as they had a set of plans. Less than one day later, we had a beautifully machined piece of kit that fit first time, so we fitted it and raced across the North Sea to catch up with the rest of the convoy. We completed the exercises in the Baltic and returned to Birkenhead on 26 September 1986.

The ship was laid up again and eventually was bought by a Greek company in December of that year. The Greeks wanted the Second Engineer and I to sail with them to Greece to make sure all went well but as it was approaching Christmas, we both declined their offer even though they were willing to bribe us with large financial rewards. I got home on Christmas Eve 1986 and had earned nearly 6 months leave. On the 29th May 1987 I was appointed Chief Officer of the ACT3 and joined her in Philadelphia USA for a series of voyages to New Zealand and back. We carried the usual number of rich Americans every voyage and I stayed in this ship for five voyages, going back and forth on leave to the UK, until 22 September 1989.The main memories here are the fact that we were the official supplier to Pitcairn Island, a tiny spec of land in the South Pacific.

Whatever supplies the Island needed be it fuel, food, general goods we would purchase it on their behalf and deliver it to them. We would also transfer people off the Island to New Zealand if they needed to go into adult education or if they needed medical attention, of course we would bring them back as well. How did we get the goods ashore? We would take the ship into about ½ a mile

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from Bounty Bay and anchor, or drift depending on weather conditions. The Pitcairn Islanders would then launch their large surfboats and come alongside. We would give them their cargo and they would take it back ashore it usually took all day to do this.

On one occasion when the weather was flat calm, the Islanders asked if I would like to go ashore with them. I jumped at the chance and spent a lovely day exploring the Island, they even took me to see Fletcher Christians Cave where he lived after the Mutiny, it looked straight out over the vastness of the Pacific Ocean and I could imagine it being quite cosy.

A Potted History of Pitcairn.

The Pitcairn Islands, officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, are a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form a British Overseas Territory. The four islands – Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno – are spread over several hundred miles of ocean and have a total land area of about 47 square kilometres. Only Pitcairn, the second largest and measuring about 3.6 kilometres from east to west, is inhabited. The islands are best known as home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitians (or Polynesians) who accompanied them, an event retold in numerous books and films. This history is still apparent in the surnames of many of the islanders. With only about 67 inhabitants (currently from four main families: Christian, Warren, Young and Brown), Pitcairn is the least populous jurisdiction in the world.

Mutiny on the Bounty.

In 1790, nine of the mutineers from the Bounty and Tahitian companions (six men, 11 women and a baby)—some of whom may have been kidnapped from

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Tahiti—settled on Pitcairn Island and set fire to the Bounty. The wreck is still visible underwater in Bounty Bay, Although the settlers survived by farming and fishing, the initial period of settlement was marked by serious tensions among them. Alcoholism, murder, disease and other ills took the lives of most mutineers and Tahitian men. John Adams and Ned Young turned to the scriptures using the ship's Bible as their guide for a new and peaceful society. Young eventually died of an asthmatic infection. The Pitcairners also converted to Christianity; later they converted from their existing form of Christianity to Seventh-day Adventism after a successful Adventist mission in the 1890s. After the rediscovery of Pitcairn, John Adams was granted amnesty for his mutiny. The Pitcairn islanders reported that it was not until 27 December 1795 that the first ship since the Bounty was seen from the island, but as it did not approach the land, they could not make out to what nation it belonged. A second appeared some time in 1801, but did not attempt to communicate with them. A third came sufficiently near to see their habitations, but did not venture to send a boat on shore. The American trading ship Topaz under the command of Mayhew Folger was the first to visit the island and communicate with them when the crew spent 10 hours at Pitcairn in February 1808. A report of Folger's find was forwarded to the Admiralty, mentioning the mutineers and a more precise location of the island—25° 2' S latitude, 130° W longitude however, this rediscovery was not known to Sir Thomas Staines, who commanded a Royal Navy flotilla of two ships (HMS Briton and HMS Tagus) which found the island at 25° 4' S and 130° 25' W (by meridian observation) on 17 September 1814. Staines sent a party ashore and wrote a detailed report for the Admiralty

Ducie Island was rediscovered in 1791 by the British Captain Edwards aboard HMS Pandora, while searching for the Bounty mutineers. He named it after Francis Reynolds-Moreton, 3rd Baron Ducie, a captain in the Royal Navy. Henderson Island was rediscovered on 17 January 1819 by a British Captain James Henderson of the British East India Company ship Hercules. On 2 March 1819, Captain Henry King, sailing aboard the Elizabeth, landed on the island to find the king's colours already flying. His crew scratched the name of their ship into a tree, and for some years the island's name was Elizabeth or Henderson. Oeno Island was discovered on 26 January 1824 by U.S. Captain George Worth aboard the whaler Oeno. Pitcairn Island became a British colony in 1838, and was among the first territories to extend voting rights to women. By the mid-

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1850s, the Pitcairn community was outgrowing the island and its leaders appealed to the British government for assistance. They were offered Norfolk Island and on 3 May 1856, the entire community of 193 people set sail for Norfolk on board the Morayshire, arriving on 8 June after a miserable five- week trip. But after eighteen months on Norfolk, seventeen of the Pitcairners returned to their home island; five years later another twenty-seven did the same. In 1902, Henderson, Oeno and Ducie islands were annexed by Britain: Henderson on 1 July, Oeno on 10 July and Ducie on 19 December. In 1938, the three islands, along with Pitcairn, were formally incorporated into a single administrative unit called the "Pitcairn Group of Islands‖. The population peaked at 233 in 1937, and has since fallen due to emigration, primarily to New Zealand, leaving some fifty people living on Pitcairn (December 2009: 45 islanders on Electoral Roll).

Back to sea story now

I left ACT3 in Philadelphia USA on 22 September 1989 and was then appointed to ACT2 on 18 November 1989, joining her in Barcelona (Spain). This was an experimental trade sailing from Barcelona to Malta, through the Suez Canal to Jeddah and then round into the Persian Gulf to the then New Port of Jebel Ali (UAE). The trade did not really take off because there was so little cargo to process in Spain that the venture was not profitable, I returned home on leave on 10th February 1990.

By 20 April 1990, I was back on board the ACT3 on yet another run of the mill USA to New Zealand to USA voyage. Rumours were rife that the British crews were eventually going to be replaced by Philippino crews and this was causing agitation within the Industry. Strikes were called in New Zealand backing the British Crew and many days were lost from the schedule. The Company’s attitude was take it or leave it, but if you leave it we will sack you anyway, this attitude stank of course, but when the sailors saw their terms of severance they were swayed. Therefore, the writing was on the wall for the stalwart British Sailor. I returned home for a couple of months leave on 28th September 1990.

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On the 5th December 1990 I joined the ACT6 in Philadelphia for yet another USA to New Zealand to USA voyage, these round trips were making me dizzy!!

I had also been Chief Officer for 16 years and was supposedly next in line for Command although it was waiting for ―dead man’s shoes‖. The voyage proved uneventful apart from the fact that it was confirmed, whilst the ship was in New Zealand, that a Philippino crew would take over when the ship got back to the USA. The only British personnel remaining would be the Captain and Chief Engineer. My crew accepted this although the crew on board ACT3 took strike action in New Zealand, backed up by the New Zealand Unions. Their ship was delayed for nearly a week and their crew were almost mutinous. When ACT6 arrived back in Philadelphia, I was met by the Company Marine Superintendent (Captain Tony Braithwaite , a very influential man) and Union Officials and asked if I would be prepared to show the Philippino crew the ropes during a 5 day hand over. I agreed to this and spent 5 days explaining the wonders of the vessel to them as we sailed back to Charleston together. I left the ACT6 in Charleston and flew back to Philadelphia to wait for the arrival of the ACT3. She duly arrived on the10 May 1991 and her Chief Officer and crew refused to cooperate with me in the hand over to their Philippino crew. Captain Braithwaite was livid and sent the entire British crew home straight away, threatening to sack them all. I spent the next 5 days showing them the ropes and left in New York on the 17th May 1991.Captain Braithwaite’s final words ―some good will come of this Lax‖ rang in my ears.

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MASTER MARINER AT LAST

During this leave I received a letter from the Company appointing me Master, this would be for a probationary period (3 months) after which the job would be mine. So a new uniform, cap (with scrambled egg) and braid was purchased and didn’t I look the part?

I flew out to Port Everglades USA on the 12th July 1991 to join the ACT 6 and after a four-day hand over on a quick trip up to Philadelphia signed on as Master for the very first time. Could I do it, this was the huge leap of faith that put me in charge of everything…no quibbles ―the buck stopped here‖ and even though I had understudied the Master for year’s doubts would always creep in initially. Anyway, before we knew it I was Master, Joe Freeman was my Chief Engineer and the rest of the crew were the same Philippino boys I had shown the ropes to back in May. The voyage went well we called at Halifax, Norfolk, Charleston (picked up 6 passengers) Panama, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Port Chalmers (NZ) and Wellington. Guess who was waiting for us in Wellington on 3rd Sept 1991 none other than Captain Braithwaite and a Union Representative, they had come to tell us the news that Cunard Line was almost 100% certain to sell the ship to Blue Star Line in the next month or so. This was getting complicated whom would I work for then, if anybody?

We sailed on our merry way back to USA via Auckland and Pitcairn Island. We had a tiny amount of cargo for them plus three Islanders returning home. This would be my final opportunity to say goodbye to many of the Islanders who had become my friends over the years. You can imagine my surprise when they presented me with a carved model of the ―Bounty‖ which they said contained an original copper nail from the real ship!! With songs and tears from the Islanders, I sailed away via Panama, arriving in Philadelphia on 26 Sept 1991. Here a senior Blue Star line Chief Engineer joined the ship; he would check the Engine Room Department over whilst on the American Coast. When we reached New York, a senior Blue Star Captain joined the ship to check over the Deck Department, if they both found the ship to be in A1 condition then the sale was on. Six more passengers joined for the trip to Auckland and we proceeded south again via Jacksonville and Houston, then to Panama where the Blue Star Captain and Chief Engineer left the ship, full of praise for a well-run vessel. At 1500 GMT on 11 October 1991 just after leaving the Canal word came through that

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the ACT6 had now, officially, been sold to the Blue Star Line and would be renamed Queensland Star. So there we had it, I was still Captain of ACT6 and had just completed my three-month probationary period, but having been successful during this hectic time I was sure that promotion was now rightfully mine, this was indeed confirmed a couple of days later. As a final surprise, I was asked to stop at Pitcairn again to pick up The British High Commissioner, his wife, his Aide de Camp and three Islanders for medical treatment in New Zealand. So more goodbye songs and tears from those friendly folk. We arrived in Auckland on the 27 October 1991 and on the 28th, Captain MacKillop from Blue Star Line joined the vessel. He was to be he appointed Master of the ship when we reached Melbourne. On the 30th October the Philippino Crew through a surprise leaving party for me, and presented me with a cigarette lighter, a written testimonial and a lifebelt plaque. I had tears in my eyes that night I can tell you and so did Captain MacKillop.

On 2nd November 1991 Captain MacKillop officially took over command of the now Queensland Star and I flew home for a well-earned rest and to await my

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future. On the 6th November, I was called to the London Headquarters of P&O Containers and interviewed for a job as Master in their fleet of Containerships. The interview went well and I accepted their Offer. I kept my seniority (for what it was worth) and all the terms and conditions I had enjoyed with Cunard Line. Enjoy Christmas they said and we will be in touch in the New Year. Yippee still got a job and with a premium British Company to boot.

Now we come to the Marin the worst little ship to sail the seven seas. She was a container feeder ship originally called the New Zealand Mariner, badly run and maintained by the New Zealand Shipping Company. She was sold on to a one Ship Company called Sabre Line of Sydney and chartered to P&O as the Marin. Nothing worked, the Engine room was a disaster, all the automation was broken, the main engine was a disaster area and the ship broke down at the most inopportune moments. Anyway not knowing anything of this I flew out to Sydney on the21st January 1992 to join her.

In hindsight, I should have refused to sign on but being P&O’s newest and boldest Captain, I thought I was up to the challenge. She was to be employed on the Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Sydney run. During the first voyage to Singapore, the ship broke down 6 times in ten days and when we got to Singapore the fuel oil suppliers filled our tanks with oil heavily contaminated with water, we spent 3 days at anchor off Singapore exchanging it for good fuel oil. On the way back to Sydney, we stopped twice with engine problems but this was nothing in the grand scheme of things. As we approached Sydney on the 24thFebruary1992 in really bad weather I could not safely stop the ship off Botany Bay to test that the engine would go astern (this was a Company requirement) so I agreed with Botany Bay Port Control that I could head in to Botany Bay and pick up the pilot inside the Heads. This I duly did but for some

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reason forgot to do the astern engine test. We attached a small tugboat to the back of the ship and approached our berth. As we got closer the Pilot ordered an engine astern, movement and NOTHING happened. The tugboat pulled and tried to stop us (we were not going very fast) and the ship was swinging in towards the berth when unfortunately we struck it a glancing blow. The front of my ship tore a 1 metre gash in the Bulbous bow, but at the same time punched a small hole in the quay wall. As we started to tie the ship up the quay surface started to crack.

After about 30 minutes there was a deep hole, about 20 metres square and two container cranes trapped at the wrong end of the wharf. What had happened was that the small hole in the quay wall opened up and all the sand ballast started to pour out of this hole causing the quay itself to disintegrate. You can imagine this was going to be costly. To be exact the quay was closed for 6 weeks and the total cost came to approximately 4 million British pounds. Of course, the Company were not pleased with this and arranged for me to fly home from Singapore for an inquest and to decide my future.

On the trip to Singapore, which was undertaken at a lower speed than normal due to the hole in my ship, we stopped three times with engine trouble in 16 days. At Singapore I was relieved of my command and flew back to London on 15th March 1992. I was marched into the Office in London and given a large bollocking, but the Company accepted my explanations and gave me a two-year reprimand. If I did anything like this again, I would be out on my ear. After a couple of days at home I flew back out to Singapore on 20th March where the ship was now in Dry Dock carrying out repairs to the bulbous bow, the main engines and their automation, doing surveys and being repainted. We finally set sail on 3rd April and this time everything in the Engine room looked rosey. So it proved and the ship behaved itself until the 31 May 1992 when I paid off the ship and returned home to UK for some well earned leave.

Well dear reader I have just been told (21st January 2013) that my leukaemia has entered my blood stream so I will have to move on a pace if I am to get my story complete in time. Luckily, there are only a few more ships to describe and two of them cover a period of 9 years on the ―Liner trade‖ where we visited the same ports over and over again. Therefore, with your indulgence I’ll just give you the highlights of these last two liner trade ships.

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On the 21st August 1992 I joined the Chitral in Auckland New Zealand for a trip to Hong Kong and Japan. It was a long time since I had last seen Japan and though the schedule was hectic, I managed to get ashore a couple of times. I left the Chitral in Hong Kong and flew home on 27 September 1992.

My next ship was the Tor Bay the last of P&O Container’s first generation container ships. I joined her on 28th October 1992 and did three trips in her from Europe to USA and back. I left her after the Company sold her and her sister ship to the Chinese in Lisbon on the 27th September 1993.

Now we come to my last two commands and as I said, these cover a period of 9 years in the liner trade. Basically we went round in a loop of between eight and ten weeks doing the same ports on the same days, just like a bus route really.

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The Cardigan Bay went round and round like this; Southampton, Algeciras, Jeddah, Jebel Ali, Singapore, Hong Kong, Singapore, Colombo, Jeddah, Malta, Algeciras, Rotterdam, Hamburg, and Southampton. I served in her from 31 October 1993 until 5th August 1996 and a very happy ship was she. Aileen Richard and Peter did one voyage with me during the school holidays 15th June 1994 to 14th August 1994, which they enjoyed immensely, they will be able to tell you about it.

There was only one negative during my voyages in Cardigan Bay and that was when we inadvertently spilt some oil on the French side of the English Channel. One of the engineers took it on himself to empty an overflow tank; this was expressly forbidden except in dire emergency. Anyway, the upshot was that we were caught by a French coastguard plane and hauled through the French Courts for 2 years. With the buck stopping on my desk I was the one pursued, I was threatened with a jail term, being banned from all French territory, our house re possessed etc etc. Eventually the Insurance people settled the claim £100,000 plus costs and I was a free man again.

And finally, we come to the Shenzhen Bay a mighty vessel I commanded from 25th October 1996 until 3rd October 2002 when I accepted voluntary

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redundancy and left the sea forever. She was at the time one of the largest Container ships in the world and I was tremendously honoured to be appointed to her.

She also was on the P&O Container liner trade and a typical 8 week voyage would entail calling at Southampton, Jeddah, Jebel Ali, Singapore, Shekou and Qingdao (in China) Hong Kong, Singapore, Jeddah, Le Havre, Rotterdam and Southampton. This would be followed by eight weeks leave after each voyage then do it all over again.

In August 1997 P&O Containers merged with Royal Dutch Nedlloyd to form the world’s largest Container Fleet, the new Company being named P&O Nedlloyd BV. The British Officers kept their terms and conditions and were managed by the Rotterdam Head Office, this eventually caused friction but we rubbed along for the time being. Between 28th July 2000 and the 3rd of October 2002 we were employed on a round the world trip of the Northern Hemisphere calling at Halifax, New York, Halifax, Malta, Jeddah, Colombo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Qingdao, Pusan, Vancouver, Seattle then back through the same ports to Halifax again. The highs and lows of these voyages were that I got to meet and visit with Aileen’s half-sisters, Hilary, Mavis and Betty (and their families who all live in Vancouver). I spent some real relaxing time in their company.

Two downside things though, one was being trapped in a storm in the North Pacific. The ship lost 40 containers overboard, smashed the gangway and part of the forward mast, the waves were 25 metres high (the same height as the Navigation Bridge was above the water) and to put it bluntly was my worst few hours at sea ever.

The other appalling event was the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York. The ship was berthed about 3 miles away and I watched in horror as events unfolded that day. There is not much to add to that statement the world went mad that day.

So there you have it dear reader My Adventures at Sea, I hope you did not find it too boring and quickly finished. It is 40 years of my life doing a job I loved, I just wish I was here to tell you about it in person. With love and best wishes to you all,

Derek Lax.

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