Hullo Old Home

[brian daley]

The Ward

A day after the Navy lads booked in we had another patient come in ,a young man from Liverpool. He was unconscious when he arrived on the ward ;under his coverings he looked quite large. The screens were quickly pulled round as the nurses ministered to his needs. He came to around tea time and everyone was on their best behaviour because we had been informed that he was a Roman catholic priest. Soon after his awakening ,a portly ,older man came in to visit him ,this was Father Boyle ,his mentor. The young man was?nt yet a priest but was at a seminary on the north eastern side of Lisbon; Father Boyle was from Birkenhead and he had a lovely soft Liverpudlian accent. He was a round man, thinning sandy hair topped a kindly ,ruddy face in which were set a pair cornflower blue eyes. He exuded happiness , not a practising christian, I could sense his innate goodness, his hearty laugh rippled round the ward as he spoke with his young charge. I seem to recall that the ?apprentice? was called John. He was moved to the bed beside me because the nurses thought he would enjoy being with someone from his home town. I had no objection to that.
Heretofore I had only had dealings with sky pilots at a remove ,they in their pulpits and I under duress in a pew. John was very different, he was from Aigburth and was a grammar school graduate ,very down to earth and not at all unctuous. I was able to relax in his company , he never remarked on the odd gentle oath but we did not push things further. The older men were happy to have him there too. Our little Portugese maids were so attentive to his every need ,they worshipped him. The nurses however worshipped Gamal.

Scarlett was very open with me when I asked her why she was working in Portugal, surely the wages were better in England?
?No? she replied ?we did?nt come out here for a wage, we came out to nail a bloody doctor ?
? What d?you mean ? I asked.
?We are the girls who never got a doctor on the National Health so we?ve come out here for one. There?s a big American airbase nearby and we might get one there ,if not we?ll settle for a local here?
My mouth must have been agape.
?Hey kiddo ,I?ve got an Airforce surgeon that far away from the hook? she laughed ,holding her thumb and forefinger a smidgin apart.
I loved , Scarlett ,warm and earthy,I was much too young for her,but she treated me like a young confidant. One of the other Nurses ,Bobbie, was absolutely beautiful,but like an ice maiden, not unpleasant, but cool and very gracious. Gamal loved her but she had eyes only for the senior surgeon. The Little Sparrow , a spotty ,but very shy young nurse from the Home Counties had a crush on Gamal; I knew because Scarlett told me. In a moment weakness I told Gamal.
He did the unexpected , that night as the Little Sparrow came around the beds with her thermometer, when she came to Gamals bed , he clasped her hand as she held the thermometer to his mouth ,and said sofltly in his coffee and cream voice ? Oh my Little Sparrow, if only you knew how much comfort your presence brings me?
She nearly fainted, from across the ward I could see the blood rush up the nape of her neck and she turned away with crimsoned cheeks,her eyes like glittering sapphires.
We stifled our giggles ,but Gamal was sincere, he knew it would lead to nothing ,he just wanted her to feel good about herself.

And the there was Paddy, my nurse. She was from the North of Ireland ,a Donegal woman, good plain features, built for the job, she was the earthiest of the lot. She would give me bed baths and linger overlong beneath the sheets, her hands doing things that I could no more stop her doing than drawing breath. She would lean into to me as she washed my top. ? I?m going to have you boyo, an? yer?ll know about when I do!!? laughing as she said so.
She was a tease.

Paddy the Irish sailor told me to go and see the consul when I was mobile ,he reckoned I could get hardship money, it gave me something to think about. It would be a few days yet before I would be fit for walking and by now I was really ready to see the city. I had gleaned so much information from the nurses and the sailors .it seemed it was going to be a great place to be.

Two days before the weekend , Scarlett whispered to me, as she was doing my temperature , that she had managed to persuade her surgeon to take her to across the River Tagus , to a little seaside resort where the Portugese held their film festivals. ?He won?t know what?s hit him ? she chuckled sexily.

A little later ,when father Boyle was at the next bed, John said something to him and when Scarlett was passing him to leave the ward, he called out ,?I hear you?re away for a few days Nurse O?hara ??
?Yes ? she answered ?And I?m glad I?m not a Catholic? she laughed,
dashing through the door.
Father Boyles face was a picture of puzzlement. As she came back in he followed her around the room with his eyes and she avoided them until she was about to leave. ?Why are you glad you?re not a Catholic? ? he asked innocently.
?Because I won?t have to confess what I?ve been up to when I get back? she giggled ,rushing away.
Fathers Boyles rubicund features glowed redly and we chortled beneath our blankets.

John would be leaving for the seminary on Monday and Robin and I were given the O.K. for going out for a few hours. But the weekend was not without its diverion. Rosalina , the youngest of our maids was getting married. She always seemed a plain little soul ,her black plaited coiled above her ears , lay above
an olive coloured skin that had never had make up applied to it her thick black eyebrows almost met above an aquiline nose. But she was not ugly ,far from it,
she had an honest open face with jet black eyes that glittered like coals.

Next morning ,just after elevenses ,there was a commotion in the street ,we could hear a fiddle and an accordian and the sound of merry laughter; soon the sound was within the hospital and we heard them ascending the stairs. Of a sudden Rosalina stood in the ward doorway ,radiant in a white veiled wedding dress ,a colourful bouquet to her breast and a proudly smiling new husband at her side. We stood and clapped as they walked around the ward ,musicians behind playing the happiest of sounds. I felt pleasantly moved, being allowed to be a part of their conjoined happiness. The sounds faded in the distance and soon we sat in our own little silences ,I ,wondering what was to become of them.
We never saw Rosalina again, the cook ,her boss ,told us that Rosalina would now lead a peasant life , working and having babies. Well, she had one day at being a queen.

After breakfast on Monday morning , Angelina ,the girl who had taken Rosalinas? place ,helped me dress to go?ashore?. It seemed like an age since I had worn a suit ,in fact it was little more than a week. Robin never had any ?civvies? and so wore his fore and aft gear,and very smart he looked too.The ladies clapped as he donned his round steaming revvy.
We attracted a lot of attention walking into town, you don?t get very many Royal Navy sailors in the Rato district, we strolled down the Rua de Salitre ,past the Botanical Garden s and on to what was then. The Avenida Marques de Pombal, quite the most spectacular avenue in Europe. The wide tree lined pavements were patterned with black and white mosaics, it had two reservation ,planted with palms with every junction having heroic statues to honour brave generals or the glorious dead. The buildings lining the pavement were in perfect accord with the avenida. We strolled in awe at the majesty of it all.
As we neared Black Horse Square (proper name Praca Dom Pedro 1V Rossio)
the sounds of traffic faded to silence. We could hear the sound of martial commands echoing around the square and the clash of steel and crash of heels as they stamped in unison. The scene before us as we entered the square was awesome in the proper meaning of the word, there were hundred of soldiers, rank after rank escorting a cortege of coffins that were being carried up from the waterfront at the Praca e Comercio. The pavements were thick with mourners and a military band blared out a mournful air. Heads bowed as the coffins passed by and a smartly dressed gentlemen ,noticing Robins uniform ,said in English, ?They are dead soldiers ,killed in Angola? his face wet with tears.
It took awhile before the procession passed and we were able to see the size of the square, it was enormous and in the centre was a huge equestrian statue of King Pedro on his charger.. As the square was clearing Robin nudged my elbow and said ?Look at that boy? and there on the pavement by the statue stood a vision of perfect loveliness. Like Anita Ekberg ,wearing a demure black dress and a black picture hat she would have looked perfect anywhere. She must have been a mourner, chic ,but a mourner. She started crossing and was walking in our direction ,I just stood and drank in her loveliness. Next thing she was in front of me, addressing me in Portugese. I shook my head and she saw Robin and then understood.
? I said can you take me into the caf?? she smiled questioningly.
I asked why and she told us that women were not allowed to enter cafes alone before midday. I was delighted to comply ,I only had a couple of pound but there were 80 escudos to the pound then and it was only 6 escudos for a coffee. We had caf? and pudim, a beautifully tasty custard tart. I must have eaten her with my eyes, so lovely was she. As we talked I reached across the table and touched the back of her hand ,she turned it and clasped mine. I felt a rush of blood and Robin leaned into me and whispered ?I?m gonna leave you two together mate?
He stood up and tipped his hat ,saluting goodbye.
I never got to know her name.
We walked and talked and all Lisbon went by in a blur, she said things I did?nt understand the words of but felt the meaning all to well. At length we came to the entrance of a very old building ,it was a laundry and she walked me past the streaming vats where women were bending and scrubbing, they gave her little smiles as we passed . What was she to them ? I never knew that either. All I know is that we ended up in a room filled with fluffy feather duvets where we consummated our mutual feelings, the sunshine filtering through the dusty windows turning her skin to gold. She was as skilful as she was loving and my afternoon was almost like a class in lovemaking. Who was she , a married woman ,a widow ?, I?ll never ,ever know ,but for one afternoon she took me to another world.
It took me forever to get back to the hospital ,and ,when I got there ,I could?nt tell Robin what had happened ,it would have cheapened something special.
That night I slept the sleep of the dead.

[brian daley]

Jardim Estrela
Robin was not allowed the same freedom of movement as myself so I often walked around the city on my own. There was much to see and I had oceans of time to see it all. On one of my visits to the consulate for some hardship money I was informed that I would have to wait until another Ellerman boat arrived on its homeward journey. The consul asked if I would like to leave the hospital and move into a dockside hotel, I asked if I would have to make my mind up there and then and he told me I could do what I wished. He did?nt mind where I stayed as long as he could contact me.
As it stood, I had to be at the hospital for evening meal , the cook liked me to be there for 6.30p.m. to make sure I was there for a meal and the Matron insisted that I was on the ward for 7.00p.m. ready for the evening medicine and temperature checks. If I left the hospital ,.it would?nt matter what time I got in. The hotel I would use was in the side streets near the sailor town. When I left the consulate I took the funicular down to the Rua de Boavista and walked to the Praca Dom Luis, the little square in the heart of Fiddlers Green,. The square was lined with bars, cafes , tailors, shoe shops ,brothels and cheap hotels. A sailors dream! I went into the first bar I came to and received a very warm welcome from the barman ,the place was empty ,but it was only about half past ten in the morning. I had a glass of beer and he asked for 9 escudos, 2 shillings and threepence in old money. A bit dear I thought , there were 80 escudos to the pound but a pint of bitter at home only cost about 7.5 p then(!/6d in old money)
The barman spoke excellent English and he asked me what ship I was off, I told I had been in hospital and was waiting for a ship. He went to the cash register and came back with some escudos, six of them. ? For DBS you price is Portugese price?
As the ?ladies? drifted in he told them who I was and they came and sat by me.
They were so friendly, not your usual dockside harpy. Some young Portugese men came in and I was introduced to them too. They were ?trade? , when the cruise liners came in they would attend to the needs of the female holiday makers ,for a price. But there were no cruise ships in and it was so different for me to be sitting with these people ,sexual professionals and they were lovely. No business was mentioned .They were curious about my country, some of the younger ones were students who were earning the money to keep themselves at college.
I made particular friends with two of them and one of the girls who was called Elsa. I could have taken Elsa home and no one would have been aware of how she made her money. Clean and open faced ,she had a ready smile ,and a kind heart, more of which later.
The barman told me that two English seamenm sometimes came in for a drink in the afternoon ,they were DBS?s too .Their hotel was in the square and he thought I might like to meet them. Almost on cue the two lads came in, they looked very unkempt, it had been awhile since they had a bath by the look of it.
Their shirts were soiled and they both looked as though they could do with a good meal. I bought them a beer each and then they took me to the hotel.
It was a fleapit, they had grubby sheets on the beds, just a sink in the room and a bathroom that was so squalid you would?nt want to use it.
That little visit settled me on staying in the hospital, what was a few hours off the evening compared to living in squalor. I had my good times before 6.00.pm. ,I enjoyed being pampered too much.
When I was having dinner that evening ,Patricia came as usual and I told her
that I would be there for the foreseeable future; she seemed very pleased.
I mentioned my visit to the port and she was agog ?Tell me more? she said.
She had never been to the red light district and asked me to tell her all about it.
The idea of women buying the services of a gigolo seemed outrageous to her, but I could see that it intrigued her.
It was toward the end of my second week on the ward that John ,the apprentice priest was discharged, he came and shook hands with us all ,as did Father Boyle. On their way out of the ward father Boyle stopped and came back tome ?If you?re still here next week I?ll come and take you out for the day? he said.
I said that I would look forward to that and went back to playing draughts with Robin.
Those evenings on the ward could be quite pleasant, we had a few board games ,an old radio, one of those huge valve jobs with a fascia like a church window.
It did?nt have a short wave so we left it tuned to a local commercial station. They had the most exuberant commentators and announcers (DJ was not a phrase in use then) The jingles they played were so insidious, once they got into your head they stayed there. I can still hear the most popular one ringing around inside my cranium even now .Phonetically it was like this ?Estund e ole oche ,estingo baico mais. Estundo ole oche , miasongo mais e mais !? you hear that twenty times a day for five weeks and you end up with it for life.
The music was pretty mixed ,mostly popular Portugese songs with some American pop music on the odd occasion. One of the nurses, I forget her name,
liked Fado, she was into Portugese culture in a very big way. I had never heard of Fado and she explained that there were many different types of Fado music. She brought a record player a put some on , it is an acquired taste, it is the music of yearnings and the singers of it are passionate. Not as raucous as the Spanish flamenco singers ,the Portugese celebrate ,lament ,love ,happiness, death and sadness. It was something that I came to enjoy , the singers are usually accompanied by a guitarist and a mandolin player and the sounds are never less than beautiful.
The Portugese are an ardent people, given to great flourishes , their towns and their villages reflect this ,they love colour and the Jardim Estrela was one such place that I could sit and enjoy it all for free. The Jardim ,or park ,was on my route to town, it had brilliantly coloured gardens ,full of fuchsias , estrelitzas,
Poinsettias and many other plant from Portugals overseas possessions..There is a little lake in the middle of the park and beside it is a caf?. I would stop by every morning for a caf? cognac and a look at the life around me, Mama teal and her ducklings would be swimming across the lake while some Nannys? and their charges would throw them tidbits. An old Gentlemen would sit at the same glass topped table everyday and would be painting some wonderful scene from his imagination . He would spend the entire day there ,for this was my way back to the hospital ,by 5.30 the picture would be complete; it was never less than perfect, and then he would wipe it clean. It was sad in a way ,to see such beauty erased with a wipe ,but he always had an audience.
After my morning coffee I would get a tram outside the gate and go down to the Arsenal and walk the short distance to the Praca Dom de Luis, I was becoming a regular.
On this morning Elsa suggested I buy myself a hat, the shop was only a door or two away and she went with me to that I did?nt buy the wrong one or get cheated.
It was great fun trying on all those ?lids?, in the end she decided that the silver snap brim with the wonderful pheasant feather suited me best. It never left my head for years, wish I still had it, it got blown away by sudden gust of wind the month Kennedy got shot.
When we strolling across the great square on the waterfront ,the Praca do Commercio ,a street photographer with an old bellows and glass plate camera took my picture and developed it ,framing it within a photograph of a television so that I looked as though I were on screen . Such simple days then ,when I showed it to people at home they thought I had actually been on T.V.
While we were walking up to Black Horse Square we passed a little shop which was selling militaria and there in the middle of the window display was a large picture of Adolf Hitler, there were several smaller pictures of him around it as well as bouquets of flowers. I looked at Elsa with amazement. She said that Salazar ,the President still celebrated Hitlers birthday every year. ?This is a Fascist country Brian? I had known in a general way before I came ,but I did?nt know the reality. I was to learn very much more before it came time to leave.
.

[brian daley]

Cascais and Estoril

Father Boyle arranged to take Robin and I, together with the ?apprentice? John,out for a days sightseeing.
They turned up just after breakfast ,their car was an old Volkswagen Beetle but we were not perturbed ,we were too excited at having days guided tour.
We set off through those honey coloured streets,the walls awash with sunshine: Father Boyle pointing out places of interest as we sped by. We were heading for the waterfront and I began to recognise some of the places I had been frequenting.,it was too early to see the ?ladies? touting for business,the sweepers were busy cleaning up the detritus of the previous night roistering.
We drove along to Belem, a wonderful place ,there on the rivers edge stood one of Europes finest monuments ,the Padrao des Descobrimentos ,this was a new edifice ,completed just one year before and it was to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death Prince Henry the Navigator, the man who was primarily responsible for sending the like of Magellan, Da Gama and all of those other mariners on their voyages of discovery..The monument is very tall and is situated at the edge of a plaza that has a compass mosaic with a 150 foot diameter in the middle. It has to be viewed from above and I was not to view that compass properly until 46 years later when I ascended the tower with my wife in the summer of 2007. Just along from the monument is the picturesque Tower of Belem, this was a fort that was built, along with more just like it, in the 16th century for the defence of Portugals coast line. Age had not weathered it , it looked white and pristine in the morning sun. We then headed up from the waterfront to the hills ,the roads became shaded by the pine trees that forested the land on either side . Up and up we rose until at last we were on a plateau and there, in front us was a huge stadium, almost like the Colosseum in Rome. It was built of a grey coloured stone and was brutal looking in the fascist style. Father Boyle informed us that it had been erected during the Spanish civil war and the refugees from that conflict had been used as slave labour on its construction It was eerie ,we went inside and I was reminded of those old newsreels I had seen of the Nuremburg rallies, everything was done in the style that Hitler and Mussolini had imposed on their countries. This truly was a fascist dictatorship. Estado Nuovo,the New State.
Father Boyle said that this stadium would never see an Olympic Games because of the manner in which it was built. I think time has proved him right.
When I went to Portugal in 2007 my questions as to the whereabouts of the stadium were met with puzzlement ,has it been pulled down? I never found out.
We then descended to the coast,gently gliding down the twisting road, the engine started to cough and splutter and we shuddered to a halt against the embankment.
What do we do now? Father Boyle told us not to worry ?The Lord will provide? he smiled . ? You will soon see the power of the cloth? He got out of the car and stood by the front fender.

The road was silent save for the rustling of the trees and the chatter of the birds, in the distance came the sound of an engine labouring uphill. Soon a little saloon came into sight and the driver seeing the priest pulled in astern of us and came and spoke in Portugese . He was wearing a light grey suit and collar and tie. Looked like travelling salesman; after a short conflab, man went to the boot of his car and fetched some tools. Within minutes he was tieless, jacketless and stuck deep into the vitals of the Beetles engine.
Robin and I sat having a cigarette whilst all this went on and John and Father Boyle chatted to the man in his own language.
Within about twenty minutes the man was restarting our engine pronouncing the problem solved. Father Boyle gave him a cloth to wipe his hands and the man restored his clothing, knelt in front of Father Boyle who then gave him a blessing.
I was amazed, it was true about the power of the ?Cloth?, Father Boyle said his soutane was better than an AA membership .
We continued on our way to our next stop which was Estoril. It was a sleepy little place then, the Casino ,which I had read about in a James Bond novel a few months earlier, just up from the beach , there was another of the Forts we had seen at Belem and then there was a wide sandy beach dotted with picnickers, Father Boyle said that these were the English aristocracy, Estoril practically belonged to them . We stopped for some refreshment at an English tea room which would not looked out of place in Eastbourne, lace curtains on the window and the copper kettle sign above the door. And yes, the waitresses were dressed in black and white outfits with the little lace caps a la Lyons corner house.
We had tea and buttered scones and then resumed our stroll.The beach was part of an elongated bay which reached into the next little resort of Cascais. There were fishing boats beached on the sand and the fishermen were unloading their catch under the watchful eye of a customs man ,Father Boyle told us that the fish were treated as imports and that the fishermen had to pay duty on their catch. It seemed so unfair.
As we stood looking at the scene ,one of the picnickers who sat nearby in a nearby group, walked across to me, they had noticed Robin in his fore and aft rig and were looking quite put out by our presence. He was a fat oily man ,cashmere sweater draped around his shoulders, desert boots and cavalry twill ,upper class to his fingertips. ?I say ? he murmured, ?what is he doing here? ? he asked, pointing to Robin . ? He?s on a package holiday mate? I shot back at him. He scampered across to his group and you could see the fear spread through them as he imparted the awful news. The revolution was here!
It was a beautifully unspoiled place ,and to some extent ,it still is today ,the Benidorm effect has not yet reached that little corner of Portugal.
We took a slow drive down the coast back to Lisbon where we left the two fathers and had a jar or two down in sailor town before going back to the Hospital for our evening meal.
Robin was sent home a day later so I was back on my own, free to do as I wished of a day time, I was getting used to this languid existence. Nothing to do but enjoy myself.

[lindylou]

Well written and interesting Brian it got me looking up those monuments and places on Google

Your talent is wasted. This should be a book.

[brian daley]

Farewell to Portugal

I thought my days would lonely without Robin, I was wrong ,being free to decide where I went led me to seeing more of Lisbon than I would have done otherwise. I used to leave the hospital right after breakfast every morning. ,the stroll down to the Jardim da Estrela was part of my morning routine. A demitas of caf? and a look at the newly hatched ducklings cruising on the pond were de riguer, the old artist would nod to me as he commenced his days masterpiece on the glass topped table. All was well with the world in that small park.
There was a tram stop just beyond the park gates and I would sometimes catch one down to the port ,they were single deckers and were ancient then ,all polished woodwork and gleaming brass inside and painted green ,cream and gold outside
Those trams were a microcosm of Portugese society, there were three crew to each tram , the driver ,conductor and the labourer. Yes ,labourer. Both the driver and conductor had a uniform which consisted of a white shirt ,black tie ,black jacket ,grey trousers and a peaked cap with the tram company?s badge on. The labourer wore a blue bib and brace, blue overall jacket and a soft cap made out of the same material as the overall. His job was to clear stones out of the track and to swing the pantograph round at the terminus. Both the driver and the conductor grew the fingernail on the little finger of their right hand to a size that was about half an inch longer than their fingertip. This distinguished them from their labourer colleague; he used o stand at the rear of the tram and was never involved in conversation by either of his two colleagues. This fingernail thing was widespread throughout Portugese society, workers of anything but the labouring classes all sported the extend nail on their pinkie, manual labourers were forbidden to do so.
The ?gigolos? that I drank with all had long little fingernails.
Three of there number seemed quite radical , they were always looking over their shoulders as though they were under surveillance and ,once they thought it was safe to do so, would tell me of the unrest that was simmering away among the workers. I thought that they were being over dramatic and took everything that they said with a pinch of salt.
One afternoon when I was with them, one of the P.& O . liners was alongside in Belem. The bar I frequented in sailortown was full of women off the ship, the type of ladies you would see at a hunt ball, dressed in a casually elegant style , they were after the gigolos. As I was amongst them , I got chatted up by a very lovely lady and I was young enough to wonder what on earth she was doing paying for something that I would have willingly done for free. It was when I opened my mouth to ask her for her name that she realised that I was not a bona fide professional , she blushed and fled the bar.

One morning as I meandered into town via the Avenida Marquese da Pombal I heard the sound of singing in the distance. It was almost like a sea shanty, one voice would sing out a verse and a mass of voices would sing the refrain. I could hear the sound of steel on stone. As I neared the songsters I saw that it was a chain gang. They were sat on the pavement in a line , manacled by the ankles ,legs spread wide apart and they were cutting marble blocks to make tessella ,this was the small blocks that made up the huge mosaics that patterned the boulevards pavements.
They were all shaven headed men, burnt deep brown by the sun , they swung their hammers in unison as they sang their heartfelt song. Perhaps this was what my gigolo friends were referring to, their overseers seemed very brutal.

Sometimes I would go to the cinema of an afternoon, the newsreels were incomprehensible to me being in Portugese ,but the message they carried was clear enough. President Salazar dominated every item of news as Hitler and Mussolini did in their time. He was shown opening power stations, laying foundation stones , reviewing troops , laying wreaths ,visiting children?s hospitals. Always the kindly despot. There was no opposition, Franco was his only ally and the Americans were keeping him in power because of his anti communism. The catholic church were very close to him and young students were viewed with suspicion. Little by little I came to see that all was not sweetness and light in this beautiful looking country.
Patricia , my English visitor ,still came to see me every night and one evening I made her aware of what I had seen and felt ,she warned me not to be so open with my comments, this was a proper dictatorship.
Portugal began to lose a little of its lustre.
The consul called to see me a little while after that, he had great news, the Palmelian , another Ellerman boat, would be calling into Lisbon in a couple of days time and I was going home on her as a DBS. I was thrilled to bits, next day I hurried down to the bar in the Praca to bid Elsa and my gigolo friends goodbye, Elsa cried a little and took me to her room to make love to her ; as love and not business . I was sorry to be saying goodbye to them all ,they had been so hospitable and I would miss them so much.
As I was walking back to the hospital,two grey uniformed policeman took hold of me and put me in a van. I was bewildered, had they mistaken me for someone else? We stopped at a large concrete building near Belem, it was the P.I.D.E .headquarters . I had?nt the foggiest who the P.I.D.E. were then, turns out that they were like a mixture of Special Branch and an Anti terrorist force.
I was led into an office that was very Spartan, steel desk , steel framed chairs and one desk lamp. Behind which sat a grey uniformed policeman wearing his cap and sunglasses. He had two pips on each shoulder and red tabs on the collar of his tunic. His face was like a steel trap, no emotion showed , he barked out something in Portugese and I stammered an answer in English . He called to someone behind me and said something to him ,and the new person asked what my relationship was with the people in the bar. ?Just friends? was all I could answer. He then said that I had been consorting with them for over a month,that was more than just friends. I told them who I was and asked for the British consul to be informed ,he replied that the consul knew where I was and had agreed for me to be questioned. My insides began to liquefy, these men were serious. I was subjected to an afternoon of tirades about stupid English people interfering in Portugese affairs , of helping terrorists etc.etc. etc. At length the consul arrived and gave me a severe dressing down in front of the policeman who then released into his custody .
I was taken by him to the hospital and he told me that he would collect me in the morning and take me aboard the Palmelian. That night I made my goodbyes to the lads on the ward, I would be off early and some of them would still be asleep.
Next morning saying goodbye to the nurses was moving , I had spent more time with them than any women other than my own family, they had been there at morning noon and night ,tendered to my every need when I was ill and stopped me from being homesick too. They were family!
The consul arrived just after nine and had a taxi waiting, Scarlett and the girls shook my hands and gave me little hugs as I moved toward the door, my eyes were filled with tears as I walked down the stairs. They had been a big part of my life and I would miss them so much.
There was a policeman in the car , he was to make sure I got aboard ,as if I would do otherwise, I was going home.!

Joining a ship with the consul and a police escort does not augur well for a new crew man. A big question mark hangs over you; what are you guilty of? Well the deckhands were well wary of me, I was given a cabin on the deck above theirs , it was a pilots cabin. Single berth and with a sink too, better than the ones they had. When we sat down to the midday meal, conversation was a bit subdued, was I a criminal ? I broke the ice by telling them of my trip out on the Catanian.
Gradually they opened up and I was taken into their company, it was a strange feeling ,like being a new boy all over again. I was?nt on any pay, and nor was I expected to work but I could?nt sit in my cabin and twiddle my thumbs, I was getting fed and carried home.
When they turned to to get ready for sailing I put my working gear on and joined in the work. It felt so good doing deckwork again.
Everyday I turned out with them and was soon one of the crowd, I forget all their names excepting for one, George Macklin, a huge ginger headed man, like the Honey monster, gruff but with a heart of gold. I enjoyed his deeply Scouse humour and we struck sparks off each other all the way home
.
We had one more port to call at before we set off for home , this was Oporto on the mouth of the Douro. This was an ancient port, the home of port wine and its winding streets and alleys contained many bars and bodegas ; most of the crew of the Palmelian had been on this run for years and they knew which were the best bars to drink in. There was a street across the river which they said had the finest bars on the Portugese coast , fortunately for me ,Patricia had warned me of this street when I was in hospital. The buildings almost touched each other across the street and they were three and four storeys high; when the residents spotted a ?stranger? about to enter , they would whistle warnings and the upper windows would open and people would enter the contents of their chamber pots upon their poor strangers heads. When I went ashore with some of the lads we met one poor such victim in the local bar. He was a railwayman from Stockport who was having a travelling holiday throughout Portugal and had come all the way from his home town via the various rail systems, including the then cross channel rail ferry. I envied him for he had seen places that a sailor would never get to ,but I did?nt envy the results of his trip down **** Street.
One thing that I was struck with in Oporto was the dire poverty in which some people lived, the tenements were the worst I had seen anywhere in Europe ,one little girl ,seeing my nice clothes, came begging ,not for money, but for aspirin . She spoke in halting English but she pointed to her Papa who looked racked with pain and asked if we could give him something to help him. We were outside the dock gates and I went aboard and asked the 2nd Steward if he had any painkillers, he knew the score and gave me a handful. Apparently painkillers were beyond the reach of poor people there. I?ll never forget that little girls smile when I dropped the tablets into her hand.
Very soon we were back at sea heading for the Bay of Biscay ,the weather was mild and we made good time heading north. I spent my days painting with the lads , getting the old girl freshened up for her return to the ?Pool. We arrived home safely in the first week of April ,I had only been away seven and a bit weeks but it seemed like a lifetime. As I packed up my gear ,the rest of the lads were up in the officers saloon paying off, getting their hard earned wages so that they could go home and have an enjoyable leave. Me? Well I was?nt entitled to a bean, I would get down to the Shipping Federation and get the first ship that was offered, no leave for me!
The lads were all in the messroom when I went to bid them goodbye, big George called me in ,and with a cough to clear his throat said ??Ere y?are lad,we?ve ?ad a tarpaulin muster so yer won?t go ?ome short like? he then handed me near twenty pounds, I was stupefied , mumbled thank you as I blushed to my roots. Such amazing kindness, as I write these words I can still feel the emotion that swept through me then. I could have some leave after all. Going home never felt so good.

[brian daley]

The Summer of ?61

Life was never the same again after my Portugese sojourn, I was unsettled and spent more time drinking and womanising, it was a bit like getting out of jail I suppose. I saw my relatives and made the round of the pubs and dance halls and soon wanted to get back to sea again. Speaking for myself, I think keeping friends at home is very hard to do as a sailor; life moves on when you are away for months at a time, the guys you knocked about with when you were ashore were marrying and moving on . You could be ?Billy no mates? the one who wants to go dancing every night of the week while your old mates are working Monday to Saturday and have'nt got time to do the things you used to do. At sea you made friends for the voyage, deep friendships ,but they would end when your ship docked and you went to your different hometowns. If you were lucky ,you might sail with someone who you liked and they lived local to you. That happened very rarely, consequently you sought out feminine company more and more.
When I reported back into the Pool I took the first ship that Charlie Repp offered me ,it was a Shaw Savill liner called the Canopic .She needed a crew to take her round the coast to discharge the cargo she had brought back from Australia. She was?nt a bad looking ship, and she had an easy going crew, my cabin mate was a man who was returning to sea after 15 years ashore, he had a wife and three kids and had been working in a factory until a week before he signed on??????as a Junior Ordinary Seaman! He was a quiet man ,not given to much conversation and I was?nt about to ask why a married man leaves a wife and three kids to go and work for a boys wages. Amongst the crew was a guy I had been at the Vindicatrix with ,Brian Rutter, a very funny and cheerful person, there was also an EDH called Keith Emsall ,from the north end of Liverpool, quietly spoken and very amiable. These were my best mates for the next couple of weeks. The rest of the deck crowd were pretty good too, but there was one bad ?un ; he was of the ?stuff of nightmares?
He was about six foot tall, heavily built with close cropped blonde hair, the first UDH (Utility Deck hand) I had ever met. He had deep set grey eyes that looked like they had seen terrible things,with his mouthful of broken teeth, he was?nt the kind of man you would wish to meet in the dark. There was nothing sailorlike about him, he wore an old suit on deck, and he had the same suit for going ashore in.
We went to Newport first, dropped off some goods and picked up a load of steel; I met my first scrumpy drinkers there, hoarse voiced and addicted to the deadly cider,their voice boxes were ,apparently, ruined by the acids in the cider.
There was?nt much to do ashore and so we saved our money for our next port which was Cardiff..
I liked Cardiff , the people were friendly and the dockside was just how sailors like them ,full of pubs, cheap cafes and chip shops. The area had been known as Tiger Bay for over a century when the Bute dock was first opened. Then the dock was full of windjammers and men from every quarter of the globe would fill the bars that lined Bute Road and Loudon Square. Prostitutes of every colour would tout for trade along the pavements and drag jack ashore to their bag shanty for some jig a jig. But this was 1961 and the tarts had long disappeared ,along with the windjammers and bag shantys. There was still a good time to be had though, there were clubs and pubs to satisfy the needs of modern jack ashore..
Brian ,Keith and I went ashore for an after dinner drink ,or as we called it then ,a lunch time session. We hauled up at the Cardiff Castle ,it was quiet, just the odd pensioner having a go at the crossword or picking his horses for the afternoon racing ,we three got down to the serious art of liquid conversation. We found that Brian and I had the same birthday, so that called for a round of shorts ,and then we found that we were both born in 1942 so we had another round of shorts; and all the while the bitter was going down our necks .We did?nt drink lager then, not when we were in British waters anyway, there was still good British beer about then.
We were just getting into our stride when we noticed that we were late for the afternoon work aboard ship, the pubs used to close at half past two then and that was only an hour away; was it worth going back on board? No! So we ordered another round , I had run out of cigarettes, had hundreds of them in my cabin, but I did like a fag when I was drinking, and it was my turn to get the round in too ,thing was, my pockets were empty. I went to the counter and asked the landlord if he could let me have twenty Players and a round of drinks and I would pay him back that evening. ?Ow much d?you want bach?? he asked ,opening the till.?Three quid if you?ve got it please?
??Til tonight then boyo ? he said handing me three crisp oncers. He had?nt asked my name or what ship I was off, just gave me the money. We spent it all before closing time when we rolled back aboard and got a bit of shuteye before we went back ashore again .
I had a shower to freshen up and got dressed in my best ,I went and tapped the purser up for a sub and the three of us set off for the Cardiff Castle again.
The Landlord could?nt remember giving us any money and was quite bemused that we did?nt take advantage of him. We stayed their ?til closing time (10 p.m.) and then went outside, we were steaming along happily when we came upon a queue of people ,I forget whose idea it was ,but we got into the gutter and started busking, ?Carolina Moon? ,?Love Letters in the Sand? and a few more; I held out my hat and pretty soon we had enough to look for a club.
We must have sounded good, or were the audience drunk too? We soon found a taxi willing to take us to a club, he told us not to speak while he was getting us in, it was a good club , strictly members only but they would sometimes let foreign business men in, the trilby helped with the image there. We said we would be Norwegians who could?nt speak much English.
The manager waived the fee for us and took us personally to a table where he called three hostesses to join us . They were really nice , not dockside Sallies but chic young ladies , Brian and I hammed it up in Broken English while Keith sat enigmatically ,nodding ?Ja? and ?Iss Zo? when the girls were talking to us.
I went out to the toilet and noticed a one armed bandit by the cloakroom counter, there was a no limit jackpot on it . I dug a handful of change out of my pocket and was searching for a shilling when the hat check girl came to me and put a shilling in my hand ,she still thought I was Norwegian. I put the coin in the slot ,pulled the handle and stood watching the wheels go around ,click ,click ?.click .JACKPOT!! I stood in shocked disbelief as the machine vomited hundreds of shillings from its gorge. My language dispelled any impression that I was a foreigner; I tipped the young hat check girl and went back to our table and dropped all the cash on the table. It was a good job I won ,when we discovered the price of the drinks we realised why you did?nt get any sailors in there ,they could?nt have afforded it.
We strolled down to the waterfront after we had spent up and bought a bag of chips; as we were walking back to the docks ,three abreast on the pavement ,this huge guy walked toward us with a look of manic glee on his face. Without a word passing his lips ,he pulled my hat right down over my eyes, thumped the other two and ran off laughing his head off while I struggled to get my hat from over my eyes. Even then we thought it must have looked funny , ?Bleedin?Madman ? said Brian.

When we got back on board ,our bad ?un was in the messroom making his supper, he too had a look of manic glee on his face, ?What happened mate, you win the Pools?? someone asked .
?No? he laughed ? I rolled a bleedin? kraut din I? There was a silence after he said that and we shuffled away, this man was like something you would scrape off your shoe.
He got his just deserts though ,I think there is an order in the world that carries out these sentences. We were raising the derricks in Victoria dock ,on paying off day, he was holding the chain stopper on the derrick wire when a link snapped, he was wearing gloves and they must have caught on a snag in the wire ,up and up he went, the block on the mast ripped his glove off and he fell on to the rolled up tarpaulin off the hatch.. We stood amazed, he got up and walked away, his head was a bit battered and his hand looked swollen ,but nothing was broken. Could?nt have happened to a nicer feller tho?, we all agreed.
His last appearance was when we were queuing up to pay off , he ran amok ,screaming and shouting at the Master, I did?nt stick around to find out what happened, it was time to go home.

[brian daley]

The Acavus

It was a blooming spring ,the weather I had left behind in Portugal was here in Liverpool, it was a good place to be for a young man. The family were either working or at school and I had the days pretty much to myself. I would get up when my kid sisters had left for school , Betty had the job of taking Chris to her school and then had to scoot to her own school . She had a busy morning schedule ,I would lay abed as they scurried to get ready, usually to the sounds of Helen Shapiro or Cliff Richard . When the coast was clear I would make my way down stairs for a hurried breakfast and then get ready for ?Town?.
I would go to Lewis?s ,Boots, and any of the other big stores ,ostensibly to look at what was good to buy ,but really to chat up all those beautiful sales assistants. Sometimes a lad could get lucky and make a date.
As lunchtime neared I would stroll down to Mann Island and look into Kingston House, might see one of the lads there and share a cuppa and a pie. Then it was across the road to see what was on offer from the Pool. Most days it was rubbish, old Bank liners or Baron Boats, would?nt touch them with a barge pole. I met Keith and Brian from the Canopic down there and arranged to meet Keith that night in the Yankee Bar. After a few swift ones in the Slaughter House it was home to Kirkby and get ready for the night out.
Looking sharp was essential then, suits were Italian Style ,collars were short and ties were narrow. The look was essentially New York.
There was a ritual to meeting in town, a couple of glasses in the Yankee Bar, then along to Yates?s for a couple of schooner of Australian white; then around to Ma Egertons for a couple of glasses of bitter. We never drank pints when we were on the move. Around about 9.00pm we would head up to the Locarno and see what was going on there. On Fridays there would be one or two Hen parties and we would never get involved in them ,we were always on the lookout for a couple of girls (who were looking out for a couple of boys),we had an agreement, if one of us fancied a girl and she had an ugly mate we would treat the mate nice so as not to spoil things for the other one. Trick was not to pick up a girl with a plain Jane mate ,but it happened a time or two and none was the worse for it. Having a good time was what it was all about.
We ran out of cash about the same time as each other and that meant shipping out again.
Six days after arriving home Keith and I signed on the Shell tanker, Acavus. I had never been on a tanker before and she looked the business. She was streamlined and handsomely appointed ,the sailors accommodation was fantastic ,like hotel rooms, the messroom large and bright and everything was so clean. The only fly in the ointment was that she was?nt going anywhere soon and Keith and I were flat broke.
The weather was glorious for Spring, we were in Eastham ,a bus ride from Liverpool and we never had the wherewithal to buy a bottle of lemonade, never mind go dancing.
We were sitting in the messroom having a smoke and a cuppa ,whinging about our bad luck when a five pound note came fluttering down between our heads .A FIVE POUND NOTE!!
We looked at it in disbelief and looked around to see where it had come from ; standing behind me was a very handsome young man ,too good looking to be straight. He smiled and said ?There?s no strings attached to that, I have just won The Shakespeare prize for poetry and I wanted to share my good luck with somebody?.you lads look like you need some, go and have a good time?
I can?t remember what we replied ,we were shell shocked. ?2 .10s. each, a lot of money then. We went over to Liverpool and went to the Futurist for the first house ,there was a movie on that I had wanted to see called Mien Kampf it was a documentary about the Holocaust. In 1961 we were still unaware of the full extent of what went on in Nazi Germany during the war. Keith and I left that cinema in a sombre mood ,the scenes we had seen were sickening ,now they are common place ,shown night after night on Discovery but then, it was an awakening and began to put into place some of the events I had met with in my life thus far.
We never bothered with the dance but caught the ferry back across the Mersey and went and had a few Jars in Ellsmere Port. We met our benefactor on the way back to the Acavus, his name was Roy, he was very witty ,his conversation filled with clever bon mots and he was interesting too. We asked him what he had been doing that night and he said he made some money playing in a piano bar in New Brighton. He must have seen the doubt on our faces and laughed. Just then we were passing a church hall ,the lights were on ,the doors we open and we could see a lady was moving some chairs. At the front of the hall stood an upright piano. Roy said ?C?mon on boys, I?ll show you some piano playing? We entered and Roy asked the lady if he could play us a tune he was working on, she smiled and nodded O.K.
Roy sat himself at the piano and commenced playing, I can still hear it to this day, the room filled with the sound of the Warsaw Concerto, the notes pealing around the walls, we sat rapt as the tune built up to its crescendo and ,looking round we saw that other people had entered the hall and were sitting spellbound too. This was a concert to equal any that was performed in the Philharmonic. Without pause ,he played himself into the aria ?Katarine? his voice a wonderful tenor ,eyes closed ,his fingers running across the keyboard. Some Italian sailors came in and when Roy had finished they cried encore , in all my days I had never been party to anything so spontaneously beautiful. He then sang a few pieces from Madam Butterfly and closed the lid. By this time there were quite a few people in the hall and they applauded with gusto when it was over. I can bet with certainty that that little hall in Ellsmere Port never had a night like that again.
On the way back to the ship we asked Roy what he was doing at sea when he had a talent in such abundance, his reply was quite the saddest tale I have heard.
Roy was from a wealthy middle class family, he had been a boarder at a very good school and had shown such promise that he won a partial scholarship at the Guildhall College of Music and Dramatic Art. He was doing exceptionally well there when he was caught up in a homosexual scandal. He was expelled and his family cut him off without a penny, he joined the M.N. and the world lost a great talent. It would?nt happen now.
We got back aboard and went to our respective bunks in a very reflective mood, it had been a very different night.
There was another Fiver the next night and Keith and I did the only thing possible ,we went and got drunk. Thank god we sailed the day after.
Once at sea we found out that those fivers were not totally altruistic, Roy?s boyfriend was one of the deck crowd and they had had a lovers tiff in Eastham,the attention paid to Keith and I was meant to make him jealous ,it did the trick.
The engine room crew shared the mess with us and they seemed a pretty boisterous mob , I had never seen so many broken noses or cauliflower ears in one place, there were a lot of Geordies and Glaswegians in their number, mealtimes were hectic ,conversations were often punctuated with the odd head butt or punch. Stayed well clear of that lot.
Our first port of call was Rotterdam ,well Vlaardingen to be exact. At Vlaardingen was the greatest duty free store in Europe, Sarneckis it was called and a sailor could get himself rigged out in the finest gear that money could buy. If you did?nt go to the store they would come aboard and sell you something, your money went a long there.
We went ashore for a lunchtime session ,there was a little place called the Oranjeboom Bar, sold good lager there and you could get a nice sandwich too. Roy was with us and when he saw the piano in there he played a medley of tunes that was good enough for the owner to give us our drinks for free ?Yoost Cum back tonite boys? was all he asked. We did just that ,not for the free beer ,the bar was good enough for us anyway.
When we got there that evening, an old man was sitting near the piano,he was smoking a large meerschaum pipe and looked very scholarly. Drinks were served and Roy took his place at the piano ,it was early so he trilled his way through a bit Tchaikovsky and Beethoven before the drinkers came in. The old man went over to Roy and introduced himself, he was a Professor at the Royal Dutch College of Music. The bar owner was a relative of his and had telephoned him to come and hear Roy. The old Professor was keen to know here Roy had learned such skills, and ,like us, wanted to know why he was not following his true vocation. We never heard what story Roy told the Professor, by this time the bar was filling with young ladies and our thoughts were elsewhere.

When we got back on board we went along to the mess and one of the big Glaswegian Greasers was gorging on an enormous meat sandwich ?Eh ,Scouse? he spluttered through his meat filled mouth ? Wese ?avin? a wee barney the noo ,are yer cumin fer a goo?
I ascertained that there was going to be a fight on the dock and ,I was invited to joined in if I so wished it. I thanked him for his kind invitation and told him I would take a rain check.
Keith and I retired gracefully and made ourselves scarce, with good reason ,one of the deck crowd was hospitalised and would need replacing ,we saved the company of having to replace three deckhands.

The replacement turned up next day ,he was a big Dutchman called Jim Rosengerg. He had the cabin next to mine and was a very pleasant man. On his first night aboard ,I saw him sitting at his desk speaking into the microphone of a tape recorder, I tapped his door frame and he looked up .?Are sending that tape to a girl in Singapore?? I asked. His eyes near popped out their sockets. ? Are you Brian?? he roared. I was nodding yes. What a small world. ?Jeezus ,she told me about you ,come in ,come in? I went in and he told me to say hello to that young lady I met on a rainy night in Singapore.

Jim took me up to Rotterdam next day ,it was time for the herring and he wanted me to enjoy some. I did like herring ,Mum always got me some pickled herrings ,soused she called them ,rollmops they call them now. The Dutch had them rather differently, raw.
We went to the main square in Rotterdam where there was a little caravan selling the new caught fish, I stood and watched as Jim swallowed a couple of fillets ,smacking his lips with pleasure, ?Cum, Cum , you now ? he motioned to the fishmonger to give me a fillet. Gingerly I picked it up and lowered into my mouth ,it was great. I would never have believed it ,the taste was so subtle, a slightly salty tang and then the rich fishy taste that followed after. I had four.
Jim gave me a brief tour of his town and then it was back to Vlaardingen for another night at the Oranjeboom. We were loading a gas oil for ?..Eastham..

[brian daley]

Acavus 2

When we got to Eastham it was just midnight before we had completed our berthing, we would be leaving in 12 hours time ,no chance of getting home then. There was some mail waiting for us in the messroom,plus a telegram for me. I had seen very few telegrams up until that time. They were always either very good news, new baby etc., or bad news, death in the family or ???.I was very nervous opening it , when I managed to focus I read that my Mum was in Walton Hospital, the telegram was sent in the day that had just closed.
All thought of sleep vanished, I had to get home and see Mum, so it was a quick shower and shave and then suit on and get ashore. There was no time to get money. Keith and Jim gave me some little cash that they had ,not enough for a taxi, so it was Shanks?s Pony . I got up to the Chester Road and started thumbing in the hopes of a lift. There was?nt a vehicle in sight.
As I was nearing Bromborough a big old Standard Vanguard came cruising by ,I had no sooner stuck my thumb out than it braked to a halt. I could hardly see the driver because he was in shadow. Pulling the passenger door open , I leaned in and asked if he was going to Birkenhead ,he nodded and said get in. I asked him if he was going to work or going home.
He looked sideways at me and said he was doing neither ,he was just out for a drive;it was half past one in the morning!
He asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was off a tanker in Eastham and was hoping to get home for a few hours.
?Erm, do you get many *****s aboard ships ?? he asked in a softly spoken voice.
The hairs on the back of my neck started to stand up. ?A few ? I replied.
?What do you think of them?? he asked.
? They live their lives and I live mine, it?s up to them what they do? I replied, what was going to happen now I thought, was he going to make a move or chuck me out?
?D?you live in Birkenhead?? he enquired.
?No.., Kirkby?
?There?s no ferries at this hour y?know? he said.
? I?ll see if I can get a lift through the tunnel then?
? You?re not frightened of me are you??
?No? I lied.
?Why are you in such a hurry to get home ??
? I?ve just had a telegram to say my Mum?s in Hospital?
? Well then, let?s get you home shall we, and relax, I?ll find some one on the way home?
He took me to the top of our road in Kirkby and would?nt accept a penny for his trouble; I might sound odd ,but I believe that there a power for good in the world ,call it God or what you will, but he was there when I most needed help and he gave up all thoughts of carnality to do a good deed. I hope he had a happy life.

Dad was up when I got home and he told me Mum had had a lot of ?womans troubles?
How coy we were in those days, I?m still unsure what was wrong with her ,but it was a major operation that she had had the day before.
I got to Walton Hospital at 9.00a.m.and when I explained to the Matron that I had but 2 hours before I was due back aboard my ship she waived the rules and let me go to her bedside.
I was?nt prepared for the sight of Mum, she was always so careful with her appearnce, I did?nt realise that she dyed her hair or used much make up; she was just Mum, my beautiful Mum. Oh the sight of her in that bed, no make up and the greying hair , I was shocked rigid, the realisation that she was mortal hit with an enormous impact. I hugged her and she was so shy for me to see her without her ?slap?. We talked about everything and anything but not about what was wrong with her, but that was Mum, always thinking of everyone else but herself.
Pretty soon it was time for me to go and I went and asked the ward sister if Mum was really O.K. And she came back to the bed with me and told Mum was on the mend and would be going home soon. I kissed her goodbye and started the journey back to Eastham, I was shattered it was midday and I had been up since 4.00a.m the previous morning.
I got back just in time for letting go, it was 8.30 that night before I got to bed ,I was on the 4 to 8 watch.

I was back to Vlaardingen after Eastham, we never knew where we would go until the cargo was loaded ,some liked it like that ,I know I did, the sheer unpredictability of it lent a kind frisson. Like going on a mystery tour.
When we were alongside in Vlaardingen, the Mate thought it would be a good idea if we did a bit of painting ,starting at the bow.. We were going to be there for a little while so we were ordered to chip all the rust away ,apply lots of red lead and then restore her to he previous pristine state.
I was put in charge of the younger EDH?s and SOS?s and we got on our painting stages ,tightly bowsed in by the use of long hooks on lizards and we commenced clearing off the whitework and the name. We slapped a load of red lead on and then lowered ourselves to another fleet and did the same again. Lunch time beckoned and we went ashore for a liquid one
Suitably refreshed by some of Hollands finest ,we resumed our labours over the bow, back up on the first fleet where we applied the white undercoat. The weather was just right for drying paint. The undercoat was dry in no time and we were left with a big expanse of white and no name. .We moved along to the next section. Rolf Harris was very young in those days and he used to have a childrens T.V.show in which he would paint the most marvellous pictures with a six inch brush. So there we were, the six of us , sitting on our stages facing a huge expanse of white and armed with six inch brushes and pots of red lead, fuelled on by Amstel lager ,we started to do a ?Rolf? .I kicked it off. I painted the head of Mickey Mouse, soon we had Popeye, Donald Duck ,large breasted ladies and the occasional expletive. Pretty soon it would be time to get back up on deck ,we would be painting it all out tomorrow when we put the white back on.
The Irish Lampy, Larry stuck his head over the side and stuttered ?G,g,git ye,erselves uup, weeere le, leavin??
We hauled every thing aboard and stowed the gear away , within moments we were singling up and on our way. I was in the bow gang for mooring , and the Mate was a rancid little guy who hated Scousers ,he was always scathing in his addresses to me, never used my name ,just ?Oy? or ?You? Still, the feeling was mutual.

I was in my cabin as we headed down the Maas ,on our way to the North Sea, when the Mate burst in, his face puce with rage.
?We have just been signalled by the Dutch Navy that we have?nt got our name showing and have got a load of cartoons and obscenities instead!!? He was raving mad, he told me that I was on Captains report in the morning and that I would most probably be thrown out of the Merchant Navy.
I was due on the wheel for the last trick of the 4 to 8 so I went to the Captains cabin first. He was a rough and ready Geordie and I did?nt know what to expect, but I could?nt go to my bunk that night wondering what might happen in the morning.
I tapped his door and he called me in.
?Well, what was that lot about on the port bow?? He demanded.
?I started it Captain, I thought we would be covering it up tomorrow, it was just stupidity?
?Don?t you realise that it is a very serious offence in maritime law to sail without a name, never mind the obscenities!? He was angry, but not raving.
?Can I undo it sir?? I asked.
?How??
?With a long roller and a bucket of white sir ? I answered ? The undercoat should be dry enough to rough the name on?
?You do that Daley and you can forget about seeing me in the morning.?
I did my trick on the wheel and asked the man I relieved if he could get Larry to sort me out the necessary kit.
Larry came up and helped me to get the job done ,it was mid summer and the light held long enough to get it all done. The name was the roughest you ever saw ,but it was readable. As I leant over the bow ,Larry held on to my legs because it was a hell of a stretch. While we were at it ,Larry noticed that one of the bowsing hooks was still hanging from a lug about 20 feet below us.
He went down to the rope locker and got a gantline , made it fast and then swarmed down and swung himself so that he went into the rake and he let go one hand and grabbed the hook. There was a gentle swell running and we were running at full speed . He stuck the hook in his belt and swarmed back up . I don?t think I drew breath until he was back on deck.

Next morning as we were on our stations at the bow, heading up to dock in the Kiel Canal, the Mate, his face formed in gloat, smiled sneeringly at me ;walking the port side he ,he turned to look at me ?Wait ?til the dockmaster sees this ? he said peering over the side.
His head jerked in a double take, he turned and gave me a look of such venom. I kept my head down and said nothing, a warm feeling of satisfaction flowing through my entire being.
Soon we would be sailing through the canal and I would be entering the Baltic for the first time.

[brian daley]

Acavus 3

We sailed down the Elbe to Brunsbuttel and then turned north into the approaches to the Canal. Although I had made passage along the Elbe before on my way to Hamburg I had never been close to this shore and was quite pleased to see how orderly everything was in the Lande, the state of Schleswig Holstein. The bright white houses with their red tiled rooftops and the verdant pastures that surrounded them seemed so peaceful. It was hard to believe that the hands that built this Heimat were the same hands that held the weapons that near destroyed our homeland just 16 years before.

The war came back with a concrete reminder once we were through Brunsbuttel locks and into the Kanal proper, for there on the northern bank stood the massive U-boat pens. As a feat of engineering they were amazing, but when one remembered the lives of Allied seamen that had been lost to the craft that sailed from there it gave one pause for thought.
After we passed the industrial conurbation we gently cruised some of the prettiest countryside .It was like a rural idyll, the emerald green fields filled with cattle ,the neatly ploughed leas and meadows surrounded by hedge rows and here and there stood huge barns and farmhouses with tractors putt ,puttering through the lanes and fields. As we sailed past some fallow field ,where the grass was waist high,we beheld a young madchen standing proud ,with the gentle breeze pressing her dress against her Junoesque form.Every sailors eye drank in her beauteous body, and then a disembodied hand reached from out the grass and pulled her down out of sight. That vision of loveliness has remained with me for a lifetime, and the envy I felt of the hidden swain in the grass.

We left the Kanal at Holtenau and sailed up the Kattegat and across the Skaggerak passing through straits so narrow that you felt you could touch either side. We were heading for Halden ,south of Oslo in Norway. As we sailed between Sweden and Norway ,a whaleboat put out from the Swedish side and some fisher men boarded us. They wanted to buy beer ,spirits ,cigarettes, tobacco and ,most of all, cigarette papers. At that time Sweden was practically a ?dry? country. Their beer was ?near beer ? and the tax on the other items mentioned was so draconian that they were out of reach for ordinary working men and women. Hence their presence on the Acavus. Deals were struck double quick as the fishermen kept a weather eye out for the Swedish coastguard.. We amassed quite a few Ore from our exchange but we would not be in Halden long enough to spend them .
The port was very picturesque, and at the berth we were moored at, great granite cliffs towered above us and at the top we could see the walls of a fort. During our lunch hour Keith ,Jim and I scaled the rock face and found ourselves looking down into a military barracks ; our appearance caused not a little consternation among the troops in the barrack square and we descended double quick to the quay.

Leaving Halden we sailed out into the North Sea on course for Trondheim ,which was about half way up the Norwegian coast. It was near midsummer and was daylight for near twenty four hours .It became easy to lose all track of time. Night was just a very pale twilight which lasted about two hours ,as we ventured further north night would disappear altogether.. Sailing through the fjords was a magical experience, the banks of the shore on either side rose steeply away from the water to form mountains so high that at times it felt like we were sailing through canyons, only these canyons were ,for the most part ,green and pastured. The sounds of cow bells could be heard from miles away and you heard people who were at work talking as though they were near to you. The sounds resonated around the fjord lending an, almost musical tone to voices. Whereas the buildings in Germany had been neatly ordered in almost uniform red and whites, here the Norwegians painted their wooden houses in the most glorious colours, bright blues and canary yellows competed with blazing scarlets on the beautifully fretted houses that dotted the hillsides. Sometimes a flaxen haired child would holler ?hello? and the sound would echo and re echo down through the fjords.
Trondheim has faded from my memory but our next stop, Tromso, is still vivid in my minds eye.
This was where the Nazi batlleship Tirpitz met her end.. The fjord was so peaceful that it was hard to imagine that just over 17 years before it had been the scene of heavy warfare with British and Russian bombers raining down destruction on that mighty ship. Now it was a whaling port, and the water was red with blood of some freshly flensed behemoths that were being butchered on the shore. When we looked over the stern we could see that waters below were alive with fish of all kinds. The lads were dropping lines into the water and were getting bites with every drop. The cook was pleased as punch because they would augment his stores for many days to come.
As the next day brightened ,we cast off from Tromso and sailed North ,past the most northerly port in Europe, Hammerfjest ,and around the North Cape to Kirkenes.
I had volunteered to night watchman in Kirkenes, purely because there were no real bars in this neck of the woods so I was saving my coin for a real ?Sailortown?..

Kirkenes is quite close to Russia , Murmansk ,the port that the Allies sacrificed hundreds of lives to keep supplied during WW11 was just a short days journey from there and the Russian border lay at the end of Varanger fjord to the south of Kirkenes . It was the height of the ?Cold War? when we were there and I was on the helm ,following the Norwegian pilots commands taking the Acavus to her berth. As we got within sight of Kirkenes a huge monument began to take shape ,towering over the roof tops of the town ,it was similar to Nelsons column. As we got closer you could see that the statue atop this column was a Red Army soldier brandishing a Kalashnikov sub machine gun. Our Geordie captain exclaimed ?It?s a bloody commie, a bloody commie? He looked questioningly at the pilot as though seeking an answer. It was not long in coming. ? Dat bluddy commie captain, and touzands like him ,liberated Norway from Nazis. Dat iss vy he is statue! ? Our poor captain blushed crimson.. He still looked puzzled and the pilot said ?Dey cum ,beat Nazis and dey go home ,iss O.K. yes??
I was amazed to hear that tale ,so at odds with the stories that I had heard from the rest of Europe.

As the hours turned towards ?night time?( it was bright all the time), the shore goers put on their best duds and headed off for town. They need,nt have bothered ,the town came to us; there through the dock gates were dozens of beautiful girls, and by god they were beauties. Not the flaxen blondes of south Skandinavia , no these were Sami, descendants of that nomadic people ,likewise known as Lapps. Raven haired and almond shaped eyes gave them an almost oriental look and they wanted to meet some ?Western boys?. They were not dockside trollops, just lovely young girls after some fun. We had one night here and I had blown it grand style. Some of the lads had a girl on each arm. I tried selling the nigh****chmans job but there were no takers ,and who could blame them .Here we were, in the Land of the Midnight Sun and it was almost Paradise. My arse was red with the kicks I gave it!!

[brian daley]

Acavus 4
We left Kirkenes with the crowds of girls waving from the quayside ,those who had been lucky enough to spend some time with beautiful ladies were looking moonfaced at the thought of leaving them behind ; such is the life of a sailor.
Shown below is the Fjord we traversed to get back from the land of the midnight sun, the picture was taken from the port wing of the Acavus?s bridge at just about midnight.

.
We were heading back to Vlaardingen and would be sailing down the Norwegian Sea and then into the North Sea, the weather was idyllic, nary a breeze to stir a wave, the sky clear and bright , a very comfortable passage indeed. And a long passage too.

We had some interesting people among our crew, my watchmate was a man from the home counties, he was a bit of a boffin, he ,like Jim, carried a tape recorder as well as sundry items of radio equipment. He was a regular tanker man, hardly ever went ashore and spent his spare time putting ships in bottles or building radio sets. I had only brought books and writing paper away with me and so the Boffin( I have forgotten his real name) offered to build me a loud speaker that was linked to his radio/tape recorder so that I could hear whatever he was playing in my own cabin.
It was like something out of the kids programme Blue Peter, he took the ear piece from a radio set, put it in the bottom of a jam jar and stuck a cone of chart paper in the jar which acted as the loud speaker. It was?nt high fidelity but it worked.
One Sunday morning we did a spoof radio programme on his tape recorder, it was me do street interviews in Dublin ,mimicking Irish accented members of the public on O?Connell Street. I played every part, interviewer and public. It took a lot of cut and splicing on the Boffins part , but we had what seemed like a programme. I invited our resident Irish man ,Larry, to come to my cabin to listen to my new made Jam Jar radio. We soon had a cabinful when I made a show of switching on my radio. Old Boffin had done it proud , there was introductory music and the programme began. Larry was over the moon ,he believed it was the real thing and at one point he insisted he knew the person being interviewed. Only Boffin and I knew otherwise. We never disillusioned him, we just could?nt get that station again when he asked.
I must mention the Bosun of the Acavus, he was the most unlikely bosun I have ever sailed with. A slightly built man of about 5 foot 6 inches , delicate features topped by a shock of white hair ,much like Herges Tin Tin. His cabin shelves were filled with volumes of classic tales and he had an Akai hi fi system on which he played L.P.?s of classical music ,Chopin ,Liszt, Mendelssohn et al.
I had developed a taste for the classics after being taken to the Liverpool Philharmonic when I was a pupil at Tiber Street and I used to sit on the step of the accommodation door and listen to some of the bosuns music.
He had a cut glass accent and he was ,without doubt , the finest bosun it had been my privilege to sail with, he did?nt need to be rough and ready, his quiet demeanour and his air of command led us through our labours. He was in charge without him having to say so.

Pretty soon we were tied up in Vlaardingen, and across the dock from us was a Singhalese warship.( Sri Lanka was still Ceylon then) Roy went all girly at the sight of it , ?I love real Navy men ? he said. We later found out just how much he loved ?real Navy men?.
As soon as we were tied up and all labours ceased, Roy was ashore and soon returned with a load of little dark skinned sailors. There was a queue of them outside his cabin door and he took them in ,two at a time, and had his merry way with the lot of them . I could?nt conceive of a human being doing such a thing with so many , there would have been at twenty of them I felt sickened rather than outraged ; when Roy finally emerged he looked so weird, like some crazed person. Still, each to his own.

Our next destination was Fredericia in Denmark ,this meant another trip through the Kiel Canal.
Fredericia seemed a nice little port, very sailor friendly, the Danes were descendants of those great seaman ,the Vikings so we felt very much at home there. The bar we frequented was just a short walk from the quayside , and you can see the Acavus at that very quayside below. The place was full of girls when we got there and we soon paired off with them, we were made very welcome by all of the people there , they said how grateful they were for the way the British had liberated them from the Nazis. Some of the older men related tales of the occupation and Jim was especially interested;he was a Dutch Jew and had had the horrifying experience of having his mother machine gunned to death in front of him when he was eight years old. He hated the Nazis. One of the old Danes asked Jim what he was ,?Dutch? replied Jim and with that the bar erupted. The men went to attack Jim ,they mistook Dutch for Deutsch and were too drunk to hear the difference. The howling mob chased us all the way back to the ship, Jim was almost blinded by tears of rage at being mistook for that which he hated most.



We left Fredericia without going ashore again, the last part of our cargo was for England, Middlesborough to be exact,. We would pay off there and go home.
I never saw Jim again after I left that ship, but I have never forgotten him, he had told me of his mothers killing long before we got to Denmark. A group of SS men had come into their street and called out all the people from their houses, Jim was stood in front of his mother ,her hands were on his shoulders and he could feel her fingers digging into him. They knew of the brutality which had been meted out to people by these butchers and were afraid of what was going to happen to them. Trucks pulled in the street and the people were being beaten into to them. His mother yelled something at the soldiers and one of the turned his machine pistol on her and killed ,leaving Jim drenched with his mothers blood. How you can remain sane after something like that is hard for me to understand ; to be mistaken for those same butchers???..

The journey across the North Sea was calm ,almost as calm as those fjords and we arrived in Middlesborough on a bright and sunny June morning, the 16th day of that month.
It would have been before breakfast that we docked because we were packed and signed off well before 10.00a.m. We found out that there was a train from Middlesborough station to Leeds at 11.00a.m., we could easily make that ,but there was?nt a train from Leeds to Liverpool until 6.00p.m.. I did?nt fancy hanging about for 6 hours in Leeds.
There were three of us who wanted to get home to the ?Pool, we asked one of the taxi drivers on the quayside how much it would cost to drive home. He was amazed ,a taxi from Middles borough to Liverpool, he asked if he could see his boss, if it cost too much he?d just take us to Leeds, there was the chance of catching a train there,a milk train ,it stopped at every station. So we loaded our gear and went round to see his boss. He came out of the office grinning like a Cheshire cat, he was going to take his holidays right now, he was going to Wales, Liverpool was on the way , he would drop us off and only charge us three quid each ( that is about ?200 pound in todays money) . We then drove to his house were he packed his bag ,said good bye to his mum and we set off down over the Pennines for a fantastic trip to home. It was high summer and we had the windows open ,the boot was chock full and the lid was up and we had to make two cases fast between the boot lid and the rear window, ropes passed through the rear car door windows and were lashed down on the rear bumper. We must have looked like hillbilly?s. It was a great ride down though ,we stopped off at quite a few pubs ,little country ones and some large road houses too. Somehow we got to Manchester ,someone knew a great pub there, a policeman saw us tumbling from the cab and asked us where we were from , I told him we were off on leave and he shook his head and walked away muttering .
It would have been a lot quicker going by train, I literally fell out of the cab at the top of our road just after 9 in the evening, Mum ,who knew I was coming home, had saved me my favourite , hot stuffed lambs hearts. What a homecoming I had!!

[brian daley]

Summer ?61

There was?nt a lot going on in the world that seemed of great importance to a lad of nineteen, the Americans had sent a man up into space ,Castro turned Cuba socialist ,Jack Kennedy was President and he and his wife Jackie were captivating the worlds young. A little known country called Vietnam was seeking help from the U.S. and we had a Conservative government who were looking after things, and they were not doing too well. Kuwait became independent from Britain ,Cyprus was a dangerous place for an Englishman. Eoka were fighting against the British and the Turks and Africa was exploding on to the world scene with the horrors of the Congo, and the Union Jack was being lowered on the East and West coasts of that benighted continent. All of this did?nt amount to a hill of beans though. I was footloose and fancy free and most of my old friends from my pre sea days were either courting or getting married. I wanted a girl friend ,but I did?nt want a commitment, dancing and snogging was all that I wanted really ,could?nt see myself working in a factory and going home everynight to watch t.v. No, I had a wardrobe full of good suits ,some spending money and a whole world to see yet, besides ,this leave I was going off to see my cousin Willie get wed.
The nuptials were to take place in Wigan, his fiancee?s home town ,all of the Hengler relatives were invited , I travelled up with mum and dad and we got to the chapel at the stated time ,however, it was a fundamentalist chapel and Willie had to kneel at the altar for two hour ,supposedly praying to the Lord for guidance on future marriage. When we arrived at the chapel there just Willie and Gordon knelt before the altar ,heads down in prayer. At the sound of our footsteps, he craned his neck to see who had arrived and then told us about the two hour bit. The pubs had just opened for the dinner session and so dad and I slipped out to have a quick one, as we went down the steps we passed a photographer setting up his equipment prior to taking the ?Wedding? photos.
After quenching our thirst we strolled back to the chapel and saw my mum and her sister Dolly with her husband Robbie ,getting ready to have their picture taken and they called us to join them. Picture taken, I ascertained that there was still some time to go and returned to the pub for another quick half, glass emptied ,I crossed the road and there was another party having their picture taken so I stood with them??and then returned to the pub where I had another half ,and when I sank that one returned and had my picture taken with another set of arrivals. Altogether I was in 8 of the shots,looking merrier with each shot.

You would have thought it was a funeral rather than a wedding, the preacher was full on ,preaching about eternal ****ation and carnal sins ;his voice rolled around that little chapel, full of doom and disaster.
After the service was over we went to a little pub just out of the town and had some pie and black puddings and plenty of beer. One of our mates from Llandudno had joined the Army and he came in his best uniform, and very smart he looked , but there were some colliers in the bar (we were in the snug) and they did?nt like soldiers. We found this out when our friend came back from the bar looking very upset, Uncle Bill asked him what was up and when he learned what was going on Bill pointed to me and Hughie ( another mate from Llandudno) and told us to go with him and see what the score was..
We went into the bar and Bill put his hands on his hips and asked ?Whose got a problem about soldiers?? His voice was very calm but full of menace. Three Brylcreamed Teddy boys looked at us and were about to sneer when Bill pointed to the door and told them to ?Go?now, while I?m still in a good mood !!? His voice was icy and did?nt brook no argument. They supped up quick and left, quietly. Many is the time I have thought about that incident, what was it that those Teds saw in Bill ? Whatever it was it scared the hell out them. Shortly after Bill got me to help him to take some ale back to the Brides family house, he had an old Morris and we filled the boot and after dropping the booze off we returned to the pub to find the Teds had returned with some of their mates. I was afraid that we were in for a bit of a battle, not Bill though. He stood in the doorway and said ? I?m just about to lose my temper with you lot??..? and ,as he was saying it, they ran ,every which way. It was amazing .
But then Bill was a man who had spent 11 years in the army ,6 of them fighting his way across the desert ,up Italy and into Germany, he was a killer ,but he was also a fantastic father and my favourite uncle.
Months later, when I was back at sea, I had a letter from Willie , calling me a lot of choice words, I was in every picture excepting for the one of the groom kissing the bride, he thought it was funny ,thank god.

Back at home, it was time to get ready for sea again, I had lost track of Keith Emsall, he must have shipped out again before I got back from Wigan. I went down to the pool a couple of times but there was no one I knew each time I went so I would take pot luck and ship out on anything.
Anything turned out to be the Marchon Trader, a ship that traded out of Whitehaven in Cumberland. I had?nt been to that neck of the woods and so looked forward to seeing how things panned out.
Before I left, my aunt Dolly ,who worked with Mum at Vernons ,gave the address of a young lady who was on her ?line? at work. She wondered if I would write to her , I trusted Dolly?s judgement ,she must be nice .So I began a penpalship with the young lady from Aintree.

I was given my orders to join the ?Trader, I was to get the train from Exchange Station , there were some other seamen joining her and we were to meet under the clock on the concourse.
Next day I got there about 9.00 am and there were two lads my age ,,standing with their gear. I went over and asked if they were going to Whitehaven and we shook hands and I learned they were Scots,we stood and waited for the man from the pool. A tramp kept on shuffling around us , he looked like Coco the clown, his cap had a hole in it and there was a tuft of ginger hair sticking through it, his eyebrows looked like a big ginger caterpillar crawling across his forehead and his nose was scarlet and purple. He had on an old overcoat of such dreadful tattiness and his toes were visible through the tops of his shoes.
I kept expecting him to tap us up for a few shilling. Jackie and Pete said he had been there for ages and they were getting a bit bothered about him. When our man from the pool arrived he gave us all our travel warrants?. Including the ?tramp?
We were shocked rigid, he ,it ,was joining our ship!!!?
The journey to Whitehaven was on a stopping train, it took the best part of the day ,the heat was intense and this guy stunk higher than a pole cat. A mixture of ripe gorgonzola, mouldy spuds and rotten meat. We were practically gagging. His kit consisted of a shopping bag, and that looked half full . Conversation was very limited in that compartment , we did?nt want to open our mouths because you could taste him!! This was a singularly interesting situation, who was going to have him as a cabinmate?

The pics below show some of the 'Traders crew, I'm sitting with the cook "hamming it up for the cameras.

[kdraper42]

Brian, If you find a publisher for you book, I would be very interested in you passing him on to me. You see , I too have so many memories of my childhood in Liverpool. Somehow though they tend to differ albeit we lived in the same era. Cheers Keith .

[brian daley]

The Trader

Although that train journey took place 48 years ago ,the ,memory of it lives with me still. There were six of us in that compartment, four for the ?Trader and two other innocents. It was a beautiful June day, the sky was eggshell blue and little white cotton wool like clouds served to heighten the blue of the heavens and the green and gold fields as we chugged our way north.
We were on a little steam train and we each took turns at the compartment window to breathe the clean fresh air. We had changed trains at Preston and were now on a milk train, which stopped at little halts and loaded milk churns for a dairy in Carlisle. This was in the days before the advent of industrial farming and the landscape we passed through was like a gigantic patchwork quilt. . The external beauty was marred by the malodorous stench that filled our compartment, it seemed to coat my teeth; being British, we pretended it was?nt there. We knew who the culprit was but were two polite to raise the issue.
After what seemed like an age, we drew into Whitehaven. It seemed a pretty little port , there was one fair sized harbour which had a breakwater upon which there were great mechanical extractors which were used for discharging the bulk phosphates. The Marchon Trader had been built for the phosphate trade and went out part loaded with odds and sods, then sailed to Heysham to pick up some more odds and sods; we sometimes took passengers on a barebones basis, they paid their insurance and meals, and came fully laden with her precious cargo. There were a few fishing boats that used Whitehaven ,but the main ?trade? was carried out by Fishers, another coasting company and the cargoes they carried were lethal. They carried atomic waste from the ,then newly opened, nuclear power station at Windscale. This waste was sealed in steel 40 gallon oil drums and dumped in the Irish Sea. Such was our innocence in those days that we actually envied the seamen on the Fisher line.
But, as standard went then, the ?Trader was a ?good? berth. The food was?nt too bad and it was two in cabin, not the Ritz but comfy. The Master was a man called Meekes ,he looked more like an office manager than a captain, but he did?nt like bull. The ship was sound , clean and well maintained, and ,best of all I did?nt have the hobo as a cabin mate!.
I was sharing with the bo?sun ,a guy called Georgie Branton, he had a weather beaten face(one of the lads said his mother used to chop wood on it when he was a kid) He was from Australia and was in his mid 40?s, he never said much excepting to tell us what to do, very slow to anger he would give everyone a fair go! Typical Aussie. Of a night time he would crack open a can or three and then wax eloquent. I can remember some fascinating conversations that took place in our cabin; well not quite conversations ,more like dissertations as old Gergie warmed to his subject.
?Y?know Scouse? he would open a subject ? I?ve read Einstein and pondered on his theory. He reckons that the atom; which all things in the universe is made of ?;here he would suck on his tinnie and give a small burp? An? these here atoms consist of neutrons and electrons and they do nuthin? but vibrate.
Everything is made up of atoms, even the bladdy atoms ?ave got atoms?
? An?everythin? is just vibratin?. If you take a look at an atom ,through an eletronic microscope ,yew kin see it looks like a universe, a bleedin? solar system. An? there?s millions of ?em.? He would look over the top of his can of Tennants and pronounce ?Oo?s to say we?re not part of some gigantic molecular structure?? We could be part of a feckin? tree, our whole milky way could be ? and here he took a match from his box of Swan Vestas and strike it, ?We could be a part of a matchstick , never mind about Commies droppin? the H bomb, we could all end up being burnt when some bastid lights a fag!!?
Conversations with George were never mundane, he saw the world as though he was wearing cracked glasses??.and I lapped it up ,made a change from football and sex.
The ?Trader was there(Whitehaven) for the weekend and that gave us a bit of time to get to know the town ; there was a hotel on the quayside and a main street that led out of the port and up into the hinterlands of the Lake District.
At the few bars we drank in that first weekend ,pub regulars would ask us ?Are ye off ower boat?? we quickly learned that they meant the ?Trader. A good many people worked for the phosphate company ,Marchon Products and were very proud of ?their boat? we three new crew found it hard to buy a round because the locals would insist on buying the lads off ?our boat? a drink. Most of the pubs we had visited were of the darts and dominoes type,no music and no girls. Still it was a nice little place and the beer was good
.
When we got back on board that first night ,we saw what looked like a thief going through one of the lads lockers. We grabbed him and were just about to give him a trimming when one of the engine room crew yelled at us to stop ?That?s ower Billy lads? he shouted ??E?s just carried that lad aboard? We released Billy and he shook our hands. He was a likeable rogue, he looked like a real gipsy ,with curly black hair, dark flashing eyes and hardly any teeth left in his mouth. ?Ah?ve bin in the Andrew lads? he said ? Ah can understand whut you must?ve thought ,but all you lads off ower boat won?t cum to no harm while Billys here. ? He was a registered docker and he did the rounds of the dock side pubs at closing time to make sure the lads off ?ower boot? came to no harm and got back safely on board. He sounded too good too be true ,but time showed us that he was the real thing. He dressed like a tramp, his garb consisted of a tattered old suit that had seen better days and a beret that was split at the back ,which covered his springy black curls. We never saw him clean shaven,his face always bore a five o?clock shadow. You would never dream that he had been in the Royal Navy but he had his medals to prove it.

Come Monday morning the ?Trader sailed out into the Irish Sea, which was dark blue and was full of white horses whilst the sky was dotted with fluffy white clouds. Good sailing weather. I took a spell at the wheel as we sped down toward Morecombe Bay, the sea was still filled with whitecapped waves and the wind was freshening as I relieved the helmsman . The wheel was huge, about four foot diameter and at least five foot high on its mounting. I was told what course we were steering and proceeded to work my shift. On every ship prior to this one I had either had chain and rod or hydraulic steering. The ?Trader had something I had never come across before???electronic steering. If you took two turns of the wheel to port, she would respond and head in the new direction , but she automatically centered the rudder herself. You did not take two turns to starboard to straighten up. I had a hell of a time getting to grips with that method but soon settled down to handling her correctly..
We had left Whitehaven with one man short and a new guy was waiting for us at Heysham. He was from Arklow in Ireland and was a nice quiet and unassuming guy..We still had Gerry and his terrible body odour and no amount of hints would get him to freshen up. Time , and a fireman would bring us some relief. But first we had to cross the Bay of Biscay and run down to Casablanca.

[brian daley]

Casablanca
We had an uneventful run down to Casablanca,the Bay was as flat as a pancake and the weather was warm and sunny. We spent most of time chipping old paintwork off and putting new paint on, pretty much the same as most ships I sailed on . Gerrys? body odour got fouler and we all kept as far away from him as possible, not an easy to do on a small vessel. We always tried to keep him down wind , but that was not always possible. I felt sorry for his cabinmate,a quiet inoffensive bloke from Workington,it was another man from Workington who would bring ease to his suffering

Soon we reached the harbour of Casablanca; a lovely place to look at from the sea, the harbour was quite huge and there one or two ships at anchor awaiting a berth. When the ships agent came board he informed us that there was a dock strike and it could mean us being anchored for quite some time. When the mail was handed out to us we also received warning of how dangerous it was to go ashore alone, there had been eleven knife attacks on visiting crewmen in the past fortnight. That gave us all something to look forward to!
Casablanca, the white house, was well named, the waterfront and the hills behind it were crowded with white painted,red roofed houses of every size and description. The French had colonised the country for nearly fifty years and it showed. From a distance this could have been a city on the Riviera , so beautiful did it look,the harbour had a number of ocean going yachts at anchor and there were suntanned men and women sunbathing and swimming around their vessels. I had never been anywhere that so much beauty gathered in such close proximity. One yacht was crowded with young bikini clad ladies , blew kisses to us. You could feel the testosterone rising amongst our crew. Such a quantity of beauty ,so near and yet so far. A couple of launches towing young beauty queens came around our vessel, they waved to us as the wove their way among the anchored vessels. Gerry sat on the gunwhale ,just out of smelling distance when Big Alan, Alan McMullan, came out of the engine room,right into the smelling zone around Gerry. ?Ere yew ,why don?t yew ?ave a fecking shower?? He roared as he pushed Gerry overboard. A great cheer went up as old stinkpots carcass hit the water. We put the pilot ladder over for him and when he climbed back on board he went silently into the accommodation to have his first shower in god knows how many years..
Big Al turned his attention to fantastical display of beauty adjacent to us .?F**K me lads,are yiz blind ? they?re givin? us the cum on ? he shouted at us ?Get the bloody jolly boat in the water an? git over there an? git stuck in? Within minutes we had that little jolly boat unshipped and safely in the water. We had to limit how many could come because she was not very big. She was only used for harbour work ,painting the ships side
Etc. As a consequence she had a rather dishevelled appearance, her woodwork covered in several coats of multi coloured paints, there were no oars either;Big Al shouted for a shovel to be lowered to us whilst Jackie unshipped the rudder to use as a paddle. Thus that motley crew lust driven men headed toward that yachtful of nubile beauty. As we got closer to those little nymphets their smiles turned looks of concern and they started to shriek. A little fat man appeared from below, he sleekly fat and stunk of money. With just a few commands he had that anchor up and the yacht underway within minutes. We turned back to the ?Trader dispirited and full of dreams of what might have been. The strike was over within a week and we got alongside the phosphate berth without more ado. The dockers who handled us were regulars and greeted some of the lads who had been with the ship . One of them was a slippery character, he had an armful of watches and a sack of hashish ,both items which were for sale. Some of the lads said the watches were a bargain and that you would get a good price for them in Whitehaven .This proved to be the case ,as we later found out.
We learned that there was a U.S.O. near the docks and we were allowed to use it. This was like an American version of the NAAFI ;it was more like a good quality restaurant and everyone was in civvies. I had my first proper salad baguette there and it was excellent. I had always avoided ?rabbit? food and this showed me what I had been missing. One of the men ,who hailed from Peterhead and was fluent in French persuaded us to go and see the real Casablanca . He took us in to town and we were impressed by the wide boulevards and pavement cafes. .The place was vibrant with colour and the traffic flow was a procession of French and American cars interspersed with graceful horsedrawn carriages.. A group of us settled in one of the pavement cafes and had a round of beer. A post shower Gerry was seated among us . Pretty soon we had a shoeshine boy appear at our table , his price seemed so low that those of us wearing leather shoes let him get stuck in. Gerry was the last person he came too,the lad took one look at Gerrys? wrecks and gave Gerry some coins ?Get new shoes? he said as he left the caf?. The insult never threw Gerry. After that we went our separate ways, Jacky the man from Peterhead (I wish I could remember his name ) and I made our way to a bar that Peterhead knew about;it was Jackys?and my first visit to the place so we followed our leader.Le Diablet was a typical French bar ,all chrome and mahogany. There was a group of Frenchmen at the bar who nodded at us as we entered. They were quite voluble and seemed to be cracking jokes, Peterhead put a finger to his lips motioning us to be quiet. He then spoke to the group in French, what he said had a profound effect on the Frenchmen. With a flurry of hands they ?pardoned ? as though their lives depended on it and sent us down three steins of lager.
We asked Peterhead what that was all about and he said that he had told to stop insulting us or they would be sorry for doing so.. It?s amazing what a bit of lingo can do!
We drank up and bade them goodbye ?????and we ended up in bed with those lovelies we had seen water skiing. How Peterhead knew about these places was amazing, a proper sailor some would say.

[brian daley]

Whitehaven

There was a sad case we met with in Casablanca,it was an English man who some two or three years before we met him had embarked upon a journey that would take him around the world. His means of transport was an old British motorbike,a Royal Enfield I think. He had lost all his paperwork shortly after arriving in Morocco and could not leave the country because the authorities refused to acknowledge his existence. He was stuck within the port area and survived by begging off the ships. He used to give rides on his machine in exchange for cigarettes or money. He seemed a decent enough bloke and we made sure he ate whilst we were there; I often wondered if he ever got home. On our journey home that time we carried a peripatetic priest; he never wore the soutane ,just a pair of chinos and a tan shirt;around his neck he wore a huge rosary and he had an old BMW bike which still bore its desert warfare coat of paint. He did?nt have any English at all but seemed to cope in the same way we coped in France ,with large gestures and much pantomime. He had a gentle nature and spent the journey to Whitehaven quietly exploring the length and breadth of the ?Trader.
We never found out what he would do in England, bring Christianity to the natives? Someone had tried that before,and failed!
He was a constant source of gossip in the messroom and the night before we were due back at our home port some of the lads invited him to have a drink and a game of cards. I was on the 4 to 8 watch and he was sat down in the messroom with a couple of lads and some engine room crew. They had their bottles of duty free booze and were playing poker. When I went to get my head down for the morning watch they were hard at it, they were going to show this sky pilot how they could hold their booze. The priest seemed to be enjoying himself. When I got up for the morning watch the priest was still sat at the messroom table ,glass in hand and playing patience. On the deck and banquette lay the survivors of that nights debauch ,snoring and farting ,deep in whisky sodden sleep . The priest looked as fresh as a daisy.

We were soon tied up in Whitehaven and the sky pilot rode off to begin his missionary work in England.
The weather was beautiful that summer and that little port twinkled in the bright sunlight, some of the lads were signing off ,Peterhead had decided to look for another berth and a lad from Arklow took his place,two other deckhands left and two young guys from Poto Vogey joined in their stead. I never saw Poto Vogey on a map. Their accents were so strong that I could barely understand them. They spoke at high speed and they squeezed out their words as through a press., ?Ahm tallin yuhh, yeow gotto watch ovrythunk thase guyes dew? They were real farmers and would?nt have lasted five minutes on a Liverpool crewed boat. One was carrotty haired and always wore a trilby and the other had a thatch of fair hair and spoke very quietly. They were strict churchgoers and thought Jacky and I would burn in hell for our fornicating ways. Jacky and I drew close during our time on this ship,he was as fair as I was dark and we had no trouble in pulling the ladies.
Gerry was still with us, and he still stunk to high heaven but he had a secret that Jackie and I found out quite by accident . Gerry had no shipboard friends, he did?nt encourage camaraderie ,he was a loner. When we were in Whitehaven he would go his own way and that suited the rest of us. On the Saturday night ,Jacky and I sought to sample the delights of the bars further away from the docks, there was a singing house just on the edge of town and we thought to have a pint there. As we neared the pub we could hear a guy singing a gentle ballad in a chocolate smooth tenor, when we walked in the lounge we saw the singer was Gerry. We were banjaxed, he looked like Coco the clown and sounded like Nat King Cole. When he finished he came across to us and told us to keep what we had seen to ourselves ;he was doing it for money!!
Later that night Jackie and I clicked with a couple of girls and we spent the rest of our time in port with them, they were pretty and fairly easy going but my girl was looking for a relationship and I was?nt up for that, I was feckless and fancy free and any girl was fair game. Oh those empty headed days of vain youth. I had a pen pal, she worked with my aunt in Vernons Pools, I enjoyed her letters and she must have liked mine for she always wrote back to me. I trusted my aunts judgement and looked forward to dating this girl when I got home ; I did?nt want to complicate matters by getting entangled up there.
While we were in port Jackie decided to buy a new suit, we had them tailored in those days. I went along with him just to keep him company. The sales assistant was good, measured Jacky up and started the business on me. I told him I did?nt like British tailoring, the trousers were never right and the jackets never seemed to hang properly. He said he could make a suit to fit me and that I would be happy with it or there would be no charge. I said that I would bring a pair of American jeans in and he could make a template out them for the suit trousers. I chose black alpaca and had a shawl collar with a full draped back. That little tailor made me the best suit I ever owned. I had it for near ten years.

With our new crew members it was time to set off for Casablanca once more, this time there were no strikes and everything went off smoothly
Jacky and I saw the summer out on that boat and then he and I went our separate ways, he I never knew where and me , I began a trail of misadventure that led me into uncharted seas. .