The World Turned Upside Down
I made my way to Leman Street in dockside area, the Red Ensign seamans hostel was there and it was quite close to Dock Street Pool where I hoped to get a deepwater ship.
Aldgate East was the nearest Tube station to my new address, I was hoping that it was going to be very temporary, M. was still being paid an allotment by me and my funds were limited.
I emerged from Aldgate East station into a murky London day ,it was?nt called the Smoke for nothing, the air was smutty, wear a white shirt and you would?nt walk a hundred yards before little black flecks would appear on your cuffs,collar and shirt front.. You dare?snt rub them off ,they would smear and when you washed your shirt a rust spot would appear.. It was best not to wear white in London then.
I booked into the Red Ensign and got the keys to my room. When I went to unpack I found a clean square rig had been left in one of the drawers, I tried it for size and it fitted me ,I let the guy at the reception desk know of my find and he told me to keep it.
I had a look around the hostel, it was adequate, clean ,good rooms ,a t.v. lounge and a good canteen. I had enough cash to stay for a fortnight or more. I was?nt going to take the first ship I was offered.
Mick had warned of some of the characters who used to frequent these places , they could spot an easy roll a mile off ,don?t flash your cash was his last words to me. When I went into the T.V. lounge I could see what he meant. The place was full, it was near tea time on a Saturday and the betting men were huddled near the t.v. awaiting the results. Grim faced,papers and football coupons in hands,hoping their teams, or horses had done as they wanted . The atmosphere was quite fraught ,I was reminded of the many Saturday nights at home when my sisters and I had to keep absolutely silent as the clipped tones of the newsreader read out the results. It was thus here, only a hundred times more tense. Just as the music that announced the beginning of the results programme ended ,a big fat bearded man entered the lounge and headed straight for the t.v. ? Heyyy!?he cried in squeaky Kiwi accent
?Don?t yer know the Goons are on the other side? switching the set over as he said so.
There was the puppet of Colonel Bloodnock berating Bluebottle when a hundred anguished howls of rage erupted in the lounge. The air was blue and Kiwi departed , his back full of invisible daggers. He was a genuine character and I saw him many years later on a question time programme talking about transcendental meditation. He was a hippy ahead of his time.
I had a shower and headed up to the West End, it was Saturday and I was in the mood for a good night. I gravitated around Piccadilly Circus ,Leicester Square and Soho. I quickly realised that London nightlife would best be savoured in company. Maybe it was just the way I was feeling ,but all those bright lights and the hustle and bustle of tourists and night outers just served to underline how lonely a person could be. And the place was full of hustlers and cottagers. I took a slow walk back to Aldgate passing through the City and Fleet Street.
The early editions of the Sunday papers could be bought from the newspaper offices around about midnight and I got an armful as I strolled back .
I had an enjoyable Sunday morning, breakfasted in the canteen and then just lay back in my room catching up with current events.
I met a couple of guys down in the lounge that night , one was a local , well he lived in Ealing, and the other was from Newcastle. The Ealing man was called George and the other ,well,I only remember him as Geordie. George was living in the Red Ensign because he was leaving his wife, Geordie was there because he had just come out of hospital after breaking his arm on a Norwegian tramp steamer. He was destitute and was hoping he could get back to sea.
I spent quite some time with them and George asked me if I would like to go home with him and make love to his wife, as desperate as I was ,I was?nt stupid.
I got a ship, the Athelcrest and I would be going out to join her in Rotterdam at the weekend so, on Friday night I invited George and Geordie to go up the West End .
After a few drinks we went to the Lyceum and had a great evening, company always makes things better. Geordie disappeared,we thought he had pulled and as midnight approached we made our way out of the dance hall. Outside was chaotic , people were clustered in groups and I began to hear snatches of conversation, John Kennedy had been assassinated. It is difficult to convey the scenes I witnessed then ,men and women clutching each other for comfort ,groups of young girls openly weeping. It was like a prelude to some great disaster and in a way it was. I was leaving in the morning and would witness more scenes of sadness before the week was out .
When we got back to the Red Ensign we found Geordie there , with his arm in a sling again.
He had fallen in the dance hall and refractured his arm, he was in a desperate state. I gave him the money for his fare home and went upstairs to pack.
We had an early start ,the new crew had to muster in Dock Street and we would be taking the boat train to Rotterdam ,in the care of a Pool official.
The mood of men who met next day was sombre, that shooting in Dallas echoed around the world. It certainly put my own problems in proportion, they were just a handful of dust compared to that which faced the world. I, like a lot of other young people around the world had so many hopes pinned on John Kennedy, he would lead us out of the Cold War, a war that had existed or the whole of my life thus far. There was so much speculation as to who were the real killers , the American Military /Industrial complex that Eisenhower had warned of in his resignation speech was thought to be the main suspect. We would learn more as time passed. For now we had a train and a boat to catch.
The Pool official in charge of our transport was a huge blonde man, a lot of the crew knew him and they shared some of their beers with him on the train. We were a disparate crowd, from every corner of the British Isles. One or two had been at the Red Ensign and I was on nodding acquaintance with them. There would be time enough to learn who was who as we journeyed eastwards.
By the time we boarded the ferry the Pool man was well in his cups, as we journeyed across the North Sea he got drunker still on the duty frees. By the time we reached the Hook of Holland he was as drunk as a lord .As we were passing through Customs and Immigration he lifted the Customs official by his shoulders and put him aside ?We did?nt need this malarkey last time I was here, you b*st*rds were waving Union Jacks then!!? We were very embarrassed, but the Dutchman was good humoured enough to let it lie.
On the train to Rotterdam he fell into a drunken stupor and we escorted him to our new ship.
The old crew were departing for their home leave when we arrived,they had been away for over twelve months and were looking forward to Christmas at home. Some of the old crew stayed on board for the next trip, the bosun ,lamptrimmer and carpenter remained . They were company men and would be there for the duration.; the chippy was a fellow townie and he seemed to be a very friendly , the bosun was from London and was so weatherbeaten that he looked like he had been made out of leather. The lamptrimmer ,the only one of the trio whose name I remember was a little Irishman called Willie Brennan. He was a nephew of Brendan Behan the author of the ?Quare Feller? and was very loquacious ,almost Dickensian,in his way of speaking.
Our cabins were twin berth ,but quite spacious, the doors were in little recesses and pairs of cabins faced each other, it made things a little more private than facing right out into a working alleyway. My cabin mate was a southerner, his name and town have been lost in the mists of time,but he was a nice guy. He was on the same watch as me and the guy in the cabin next door ,Tam Goldie , was also on our watch. Tams cabin mate was an odd one , a Creole form the Seychelles , his name was very Welsh,Mark Morgan ,and I will dilate upon him as my story unfolds.
We were still learning of events in Dallas through the BBC Overseas news, the assassin had himself been shot by a known criminal ,Jack Ruby, the waters were getting muddier and we had enough pundits amongst our deck crew to keep things stirred up.
We had a young JOS, Arthur was his name, he was from somewhere down the Estuary, this was his first trip as a JOS and he was feeling his way into the job. There was also an AB who had stayed over from the previous trip. Big Benjie was an ex Royal Navy man who looked like he had just stepped off a packet of Players cigarettes. He had a proper naval beard ,above which there were a pair of twinkling blue eyes. He looked every inch a Jolly Jack Tar, he was what was called canned goods and poor Arthur became his target. In fact we had a cook who was of the same persuasion and he had a ?best friend? ,who was a young man whose family had escaped from East Germany and was now a deckhand aboard the Athelcrest .
The second cook was a young guy of West Indian extraction who now lived in London and was a very friendly person.
We learned that we would be escaping the northern climes and would be setting off for Karachi in West Pakistan. That suited me down to the ground, escaping the winter in home waters. After rock dodging for the best part of the year, it was a treat to get out into blue waters again. The crew were mostly deep sea men ,and trampers at that, my cabinmate had just spent over twelve months away on a Royal Fleet Auxilliary , Mark had just done an around the world run on an old Bank liner and Tam had done a long run too. They were good watchmates, laid back and in no hurry to get anywhere ,being at sea was what suited them most,and, looking back, it began to suit me too.
The Athelcrest was a molasses tanker and there were hardly any derricks to overhaul , our main tasks were watch keeping and scraping and painting, which we did endless days of.
We did?nt drink much at sea , a couple of cans at most , our evenings and free time were spent chatting , playing board games , reading and making and mending. Mark was a wizard with scissors and needle and thread and it was he who taught me how to make my own clothes. He wore a beautiful white duck canvas seaman?s cap and I asked him where he got it.
He told me he made it and I asked him how ? Get some duck canvas and I will show you? I asked the bosun if he could let me have a piece of the treasured cloth and he told me to help myself. Mark traced the pattern on the cloth and I had to cut it ,following his instructions. He then showed me how to make the peak , which would be stiffened by an insert of thick cardboard. He taught me to have patience in doing the needlework, tiny stitches ,so small as to be barely discernable, it took nearly a week but the finished article was excellent and lasted me for many years. As soon as I finished my cap I commenced work on a pair of jeans; I unpicked a pair of Levis that were destined for the ragbag and used them as a template. Weeks later, and well into the tropics , I had a pair of duck canvas Levis .again ,they lasted a long time.
Mark was an incredible character, he owned a plantation in the Seychelles and was on the run from one of his many wives, he owed too much in alimony and could not face the prospect of going back. After we had been together for a few weeks he called me to his cabin to show me his ?little treasures? as he called them. I wondered what his little treasures could be.
When I got sat down in his cabin, he pulled out a butter fly collectors case, a wonderfully veneered piece of work which opened out into two sections. It was about 3 foot wide and 2 foot long and had about 30 ,or 40 , little glass compartments either side. At first glance I thought I was looking at some brightly coloured insects and then Mark lifted the case closer to my gaze. What I was looking at at was little tufts of pubic hair tied with different coloured silk ribbons ,and beneath each little exhibit was the name of the owner of the tuft???and the date that hair ,and the virginity was taken. I sat gawking at the exhibits, there were at least sixty of them and each one represented a deflowering. I thought ? what a dirty old man? but reality proved to be a different case as I found out later.
Gradually relations become settled , shipmates become friends and you ease into a a kind of routine. Mark was a ship board friend but not someone I would choose to go ashore with,he was at least 30 years older than me and was interested in different things. My cabinmate, Tam and a chap called Harry Gambie ,became go ashore mates. Tam liked a good argument and I was?nt averse to the cut and thrust of a good debate, Harry and my cabin mate ,being of more equable dispositions acted as counterbalances to our fiery northern characters,we were perfect foils for each other.
It was Christmas when we arrived in Karachi, and not a joyous time at that, there was a famine there and starvation was to be seen everywhere you looked , sometimes it looked at you.!
We were sat down to dinner on Christmas Day; somehow ,some starving children appeared at our portholes looking in to the messroom. Gaunt faced and silent, they looked at us as we prepared to start our dinner. Not a bite passed our lips, we gave it all to the kids,there was no way we could have eaten while they hungered.
I went ashore on my own that night , it was too claustrophobic on board but no one fancied a shore run. The quay we were on was a long way from the dock gate and half way down it, there was a tea room, the night was quite humid so I thought I would stop and have a lemonade. An old gent dressed in American summer clothes came in and sat at my table.
?Are you off that limey tanker ?? he asked. I told him I was and he asked if I was on my way ashore,again I replied yes. ?Don?t go, if you value your sanity go back on board now? I must have looked puzzled, ?Son ,there are things outside that gate that defy human comprehension, children maimed so that they can beg; you will see untold suffering and now there is starvation as well? He asked me where I was from and I told him Liverpool,?That?s where I was born son, in Kirkdale? When I told him that I was also born there he smiled and asked if I liked curry . I?d gotten a taste for it in Blueys and answered yes. ?Well if I don?t do anything else ,I?ll treat you to a curry like you would?nt believe.? So saying he led me out into Karachi and down some narrow alleys until we came to a tiny little curry house. It was plain and sparsely furnished but the staff there knew him, a gingham cloth was put over our table and the little Bengali waiters began serving a meal from heaven. Old Scouse lived in Boston now and was an American citizen, he was on a Yankee boat that was on a regular run here and he had been coming for many years. We passed an enjoyable couple of hours before departing to our own ships, I was glad that I had met him and did?nt fel the need to go and look at the misery that lay in those streets, we would be gone tomorrow, but to where we did not yet know
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Originally Posted by kevin
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