Hullo Old Home

Nice one Brian. Just caught up with this, I shall read it later. Keep 'em coming.

Deffo worth a re-read.

Kypros
World events took a hand in deciding what fate had in store for me. In the first week of June the Middle East exploded into the headlines when the Arab nations around Israel were making plans for the invasion of the Jewish state. The television and press were putting out news items on the situation and things began to look perilous for the Israelis. I was’nt too bothered about what was afoot , the Holy Land was a long way away and I had enough problems of my own.
In the first week of June I took the lingerie model to the Shakespeare night spot, the top of the bill were Ronnie Dukes and Rikki Lee, a husband and wife act. They were accompanied on the piano by the mother in law. It was a very funny show. As we were coming up to the end of the show , Ronnie received a note from someone in the wings. He read it and then stopped the show. We thought it was all part of the act. He came to the front of the stage and said “Ladies and Gentlemen, I have great news………Israel has invaded Egypt and Syria” There was silence while we waited for the punch line. He read on, detachments of paratroops have landed on the Golan Heights and in Sinai !!” Light began to dawn in the audience. “ It’s the biggest bloody Jew drop in the world!!!” Applause began to ripple in the audience and he shouted to the waiters “ Tell the Boss ,no one’s going home just yet, it’s party time!!” His mother in law started playing “Havan agila” and the jubilations went on until the wee small hours of the morning.
I was in the Legs Of Mann a couple of days later and the news was on the little TV behind the bar, a tall , rangy American was apoplectic. He was ranting about the Jewish conspiracy and Americas support for the Fascist Israelis. I sunk my beer and made a quick exit.
Down at the Pool I was given the Moss Hutchison liner, the Kypros. Her destination was …….Beirut, Haifa, Alexandria and Cyprus. An interesting itinerary, given the situation obtaining in those lands.
My family and friends thought I was mad to even thinking of sailing, but I was just glad to get away.

I joined the ship on the 12 th of June, I had said my good byes to everyone and kissed a final goodbye to my lady from Anfield. This ship would be a new start. I forget how old she was ,she looked smart and she was medium sized and a lot of her crew had been on her the previous trip ,that was usually a sign of a happy ship. There were two Welsh lads from the Valleys, one of the ,Jimmy was always singing ,he had a good tenor voice, his cabin mate was from the same village but was much quieter than Jim. The deck boy was new too and I seem to remember it was his first trip,called Owen ,he was a nice young man.
There was a new AB ,he was called Joe and he was a very experienced sailor. He was big, had jug ears and a broken nose, he was a veteran of Korea and was not the kind of man you would give lip to. His cabin mate was an Ulsterman who had a choleric temper and was to be avoided when he had had a few drinks. He was as Orange as they come and made Ian Paisley seem a cuddly little person by comparison. It was best to steer clear of religion when he was around. The bosun was a man from Malta, Brinkat was his name, the lads called him fingers and those who had sailed with him before called him Fingers, I never found out why. My cabinmate was a young man from Bootle called Billy Leatherbarrow. , he was a tall ,well built man with an easy going disposition. We would get along just fine.
If my memory serves me right ,the Kypros had four hatches, there was nothing that I had’nt handled before and this voyage was going to be a milk run, excepting for the war that is!
We were nearly down to the Mediterranean when we had our first change of port, we were going into Casablanca, it was near two years since I had been there, there were very few changes to be seen, it still looked pristine and a lot of us went ashore to the USO for a drink and a dance or two.
There was one deckhand who hardly ever went ashore, his name was Roger and he came from Oswestry in Shropshire. His accent was almost Welsh and I asked him why it was so ,in answer to my question he showed me where Oswetry was, almost in Wales. The reason Roger hardly ever went ashore was that he had a fiancée in his home town and was saving to get married. He was quite humorous and did a good job on deck but he was’nt a proper mate.
When we left Casablanca we were told that the ports in Lebanon ,Israel and Egypt were considered unsafe and that we would be going to Limassol and Famagusta in Cyprus to discharge the cargo. A collective sigh of relief went up in the mess, and some of the old Cyprus hands were looking forward to Famagusta. The last time I had been there it was’nt very pleasant . When we got to Limassol we found that the Greek Army were in charge, there army checkpoints everywhere and the Turkish Cypriots were hemmed into ghetto’s in Famagusta and Limassol. Speaking to some English squaddies that came aboard to unload some military stores ,we learned that the Colonels Junta in Athens had sent the Greek Army in to bolster its claim to the island. I would’nt have liked to be a Turk there at that time.
It must have been the height of summer when we were there, the temperatures were in the 90’s and the beach at Famagusta became our favourite place. The bosun used to let us have job and finishes so that we could get some beach time in. I met a young woman from Hackney when we were there. She had narural flame red hair ,freckles and emerald green eyes. She was hiking around the world in her gap year and we paired up just for the time I was there. She was working in a bar owned by a woman from Lancashire, she ,the Lancashire lady, was well known to sailors, she had been there all through the troubles and always gave a warm welcome to lads from Britain. She always let me stay behind with the girl from Hackney when she closed for the night.
One night she came into the girls room distraught , her budgie has just fell off it’s perch .Dead , she could touch it and would’nt go into her room while the corpse was there. She asked me if I could take it away and give it a decent burial. I wrapped it in a serviette and dropped it into the dock on my way back to the ship. Just as I stepped away from the edge of the quay the earth started to move. It was a weird experience, I had had a couple of Brandy sours but I was far from drunk. It was like being on a cakewalk at the funfair, the ground shuddered and then all was still. I had just enjoyed my first earthquake!
Pretty soon we were almost empty of all outward cargo, we now began the task of loading for home. We loaded tons of Cyprus potato’s and would be going up to Kyrenia to load some carob nuts, I had’nt been there and I was told that it was beautiful, that gave us something to look forward to.

Shown below are two photo's of the Kypros alongside in Famagusta

Hi Brian! I enjoy reading all your stories, and pleased to see you are back to good health. I do have a request for you! maybe before your MN time but in 1951 I was serving in Cyprus, Farmagusta, and a merchant ship, the Porlock Hill, was wrecked on the rocks near the port, the army were called on to help search & pick-up survivers, we as medics set up an Aid Station in the camp nearby, Did you hear of this ship wreck? or do you know if there is a report and/or photograph of the event? just something I would like to add to my scrapbook if such does exist. Cheers mate:PDT_Aliboronz_24:

Hi Norm,
I could'nt get a photo but I have got a lead. Google www.wrecksite.eu. It has the location and details of the vessel, plus of course the time and date. Best of luck with it ,
BrianD

Cheers Bri! I'll have a look at that. Ta mate1

Nice one Brian.

Northern Cyprus

We sailed east along the coast and then turned west at the end of the panhandle. The scenery was quite breathtaking, this end of the island was known as the Karpaz and the very tip of it, Cape Apostolous was very near to Turkey. As you cruise along the northern coast the mountains rise up and seem to grow the further you go. There were crusader castles at the crest of some of the mountains ,the first we saw was Al Kantara , it looked very imposing and seemed to gleam in the sunlight, this was in a time before the package tours had reached that fractured island so there were no multi storey hotels or holiday parks. Kyrenia was a revelation, the little harbour nestled beneath the mountain range atop which stood more castles, St. Hilarion being the most prominent.
Adjacent the docks stood Kyrenia Castle, it was still in use as a military base then and was not open to the public.
The old Venetian harbour was on the western side of the castle and was like a little jewel, vessels entered the harbour on the eastern side of the castle and the outer harbour wall had a crenellated topl which would have had sentinels based upon it in olden times . The inner harbour was classically Venetian, semi circular with Merchants houses cum warehouses ranged along the landward side, all the vessels were saw there then were fishing boats and some yachts ,the main port was to the east ,where we were docked. The Greek army was much in evidence here and the Turks were living in barricaded ghettos , barbed wire fenced them in and the Greek soldiers manning machine guns at the Ghetto entrance were warning the Turkish Cypriots not to venture beyond them after nightfall . Our sympathy lay four square with the Turks ,they were well and truly the underdog then. We did’nt linger long in Kyrenia and were soon on our way to Morfou Bay where we would load a cargo of fools gold, iron pyrates.
We would be anchoring offshore and loading from barges, it would not be easy to get ashore , there was no launch available ,I did’nt have any money left so it would’nt be worth going anyway. The little town looked inviting , there were no high rise buildings the highest points were the church steeples and the minarets of the mosques. It would be nice just to have a roam around , and it was Saturday so there was no work to be done……………
The Ulster man provided the answer, while we had been in Famagusta that lady from Lancashire had told him he would knock years off his looks if he dyed his silvery locks black. He had heard that I was going to try and get ashore on one of the barges and asked if I would get him some hair dye from the chemists. He gave me three Cypriot pounds and told me I could have what was left if I bought some dye. I jumped at the chance and took his money. One of the bargees agreed to take me ashore in exchange for some cigarettes and I went and got changed into my go ashore gear. The two young Taffs and the peggy came and asked if they could go ashore with me ,I told them I only had a pound or so, I would’nt know how much until I had bought the dye. They said they did’nt mind ,they just wanted a walk around. So ,the barge had four passengers when it headed back to the jetty.
When we stepped ashore ,we arranged with the bargee to pick us up ,he told us that there would be no problem as they would be working until midnight .
As we walked up the ramp to the shore we were greeted by a chubby little taxi driver. “Allo Eenglish people” he said with a smile that went from ear to ear, “ I am George ,this my taxi” he said pointing to an old Austin Cambridge. “ Pliss ,I take you round Morfou“ I took the three pounds from my pocket and told him that that was all the money we possessed and out of that we had to get some black hair dye. “Iss no problems“ he said . “ I take you to pharmacy and then I show you Morfou”
We stepped into the old banger ,clean but ramshackle, he was very proud of his in car entertainment , and old disc player with a letterbox slot into which he would slip his 45’s. This was affixed to the underside of his dashboard and held in place by electrical tape. He told us that he had been in the 8th Army during WW2 and was Montgomery’s chauffeur during the desert campaign.
When he drove off he put some bouzouki music on and proceeded to wave his hands in time to the music, he was so full of life, you could have plugged him into the National Grid and he would have lit up Liverpool.
The chemist was closed but George shouted something through the letter box and the pharmacist came and opened up. He found it difficult to understand why four young dark haired men wanted to buy black hairdye. George said that he said that he thought we were odd, but we got what we came for . I had George do the deal and he had the money so we never knew what it cost. It was now mid afternoon and he said he would take us for a Meze. I thought we would’nt get much and agreed to his suggestion. The drive to the “restaurant” was marvellous , we took the coast road west of the town and it was empty, absolutely empty. The scenery was breathtaking The sky was devoid of clouds and was duck egg blue, the sea was ultramarine with white topped waves,the shoreline was of sun bleached rocks of a blue grey and we could hear the waves crunching upon the shore with only the sound of an occasional gull screeching lazily on the wing.
George pulled the car on to what appeared to be some waste ground just above the shore. There was a little wooden shack, it’s woodwork weathered to the same grey as the rocks so that it appeared to be a part of them. A little old lady was sat in the shade of the over hanging roof and she stirred awake as we came to a halt. George jumped out and pulled a table to the middle of the parking area. We fetched some chairs and the old lady brought out a calico table cloth; soon she and George had filled the table with little dishes ,each containing something different. George then brought out an old wind up gramaphone and a small table to put it on. A large bottle of Ouzo appeared ,the music began to play a we four had the most magical afternoon unfurl before us.
As the music played we could hear the surf rumbling below ,this was life at its very best. Each little dish was a revelation, stuffed olives, yorgthi, anchovies, marinated peppers, the colours of the food enhanced by the golden sunshine, as each dish was emptied it was replaced by others, the ouzo was drank with water,making it milky, and the steady refrain of the music seemed to release us into a Grecian idyll. George started to dance, as chubby as he was the music seemed to transform him, he was dancing in the style we now call the Zorba’s dance. He got us all to our feet and coached us dancing in the Greek manner.
There was no one to laugh at us and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.
The sun was low on the horizon when we left that magical little place and drove slowly back to Morfou ,we four thought we were going to the jetty to get a barge back ,but no, George wanted us to see more of his little town.
I can remember the little squares and narrow streets,all was quiet and empty. We asked George where everyone was ,he put his hands together and placed them beside his ear ,”sleepin’” he said.
We came upon a square that was decorated with flowers and bunting,at one end there was a stage upon which there we a drum kit and loud speakers, he told us that there was a wedding party going to be held there at nightfall. He then drove on some until we came to a larger square which had similar decorations but here there was a stage at either end ,it was a very large square.
George then told us that we would go to that wedding party , but first we would go and sit by the sea. We four thought he was mad, lord knows how much the Meze had cost, let alone the taxi fare. We sat watching the sun dip below the horizon ,our skin warmed by that marvellous afternoon sun ,now cooling in the evening breeze. The strains of music began to waft our way and George told us to get back aboard ,” Now we have some good time eh?” When we got back to the big square it was full, at a table on the far side of the square ,mid way between the stages ,stood the bride and groom. There was a queue of people lining up to shake the grooms hand and pin money on to the brides dress. George made us line up with him and I pointed to the bride, “We have no money” I told him.”Iss Okay” he replied. When it was our turn ,George pulled a pound out of his pocket and pointed to us , the groom shook our hands and the bride gave us a dazzling smile. We four were treated like superstars, obviously British sailors never got to this port. We found out what the two stages were for ,a rock band was on the one and a bouzouki band was on the other, they played at separate times and the whole evening went with a bang. There was a huge feast and the drink flowed freely, we put our newly taught dance lessons into practise with the ladies, not young ladies , you could’nt get near the young ladies ,they were ring fenced by chaperones.
Pretty soon the sands of time ran out and we had to head back to the jetty. George took us up to the bride and groom again to wish them well and we bade our hearfelt goodbyes. One of the men put a full crate of Coca Cola in my hands, it was so touching. That was the real Cyprus and we were sad to leave it.
We four took our farewells with George at the head of the jetty ,he was all that was good about Cyprus, he gave us one of the best days of our lives ;a bit like Zorba really.

,Below I have shown the beach at Famagusta and the Karpaz ,Kyrenia Castle , Al Kantara Castle, St Hilarion Castle , Bufavento Castle,Kyrenia from the sea and the shore line by Morfouplus some of the lads on the Kypros when in Famagusta..

Love it Brian.

Just started reading these Brian. They are very good. Well done.

OOPS !!!!

Aah but it was good to be alive that summer, the voyage back to home waters was peaceful, the seas were calm and the summer weather stayed with us through the Med and up to Northern France. We were not going back to Liiverpool ,we were going to Two ports in France and then to Ghent ,in Belgium, and then on to the Surrey Commercial Dock in London.
We were halfway down the Med when the most amazing thing happened in the sky above. I was on the twelve to four watch and was doing my trick at the wheel when the 2nd Mate started to become very animated. It was about half past one in the morning and it was a velvety black night, a lilac tinge appeared at the top of the sky and was spreading throughout the heavens, lilac turned to pink and then an almighty tearing sound began to be heard. The 2nd told me to look as I most probably never see anything like it again. Oh, I looked alright, impossible not to, the sky was full of wonderful colours heliotrope ,pink ,purple and red. The tearing sound turned to a roar and then ,down from the heavens highest point there appeared a flaming mass ,streaking across the sky, the waters were ablaze with colour as the passed across the western horizon. And then it was gone and the sea and the engine were the only sound to be heard. I never found out what it was ,the 2nd mate opined that it might be a satellite falling to earth, whatever it was ,it was spectacular.

Le Havre was our next port of call, apart from seeing the liner France ,there is hardly anything else that I can recall about the place ,excepting for the ridiculous prices that they charged for drinks at Le Disco, it was worth it because I had the pleasure of a French ladies company in my bunk that night..
The next day was Sunday and the docks were filling up with family’s out looking at the ships. I was standing by the gangway and a family of four were looking at our ship with a keen interest. The father hailed me and asked where we were from ,in answer I asked him if he would like to come aboard and have a look around. They were more than happy to do so and made their way up the gangway . I took them up to the bridge and answered most of their questions, their English was impeccable, they took photographs of each other on the wheel and then I showed them the lifeboats and the decks from the bridge. They were aboard for about a half hour and then I escorted them back to the gangway ,they thanked me profusely and the father shook my hands and I felt something being pressed into my palm, he winked and touched his forehead in salute. When they had gone I looked at what was in my hand and found a bundle of Francs. I forget how much it was ,but I remember that it was more than enough for spending money in our next port, Dunkirk.

Roger ,the eternal fiancé, came ashore with me in Dunkirk, he turned out to be good company ,we did a round of the bars and ended up in a little estaminet not far from the docks. There was a wedding party in there ,they were simple folk and very welcoming they were too. There was a little dance floor and an accordianist and an acoustic guitarist and a drummer were making music that seemed ageless. It was very French . Roger and I were quaffing our lagers enjoying the sight , several generations of the family were on the floor jigging away to the Gallic refrains. At length a young lady appeared at our table and made signs that she would like us to join them. We did and enjoyed ourselves immensely. We danced with several ladies and they were very forgiving for the amount of times were stood on their toes. It was a lovely, innocent night.

From Dunkirk we sailed to Ghent, I had never been there before and was really surprised at how good the place looked. We arrived on a Sunday ,a very sunny Sunday ,I was to be night watchman and we would only be here a couple of days.
The ship was alongside , made fast and the derricks and hatches were made ready for work ,all before lunchtime. As soon as the last item of labour was completed I showered and changed into my go ashores so that I could have look around the town and maybe sample some of the famous Belgian beers.
I had a hurried lunch and failed to persuade any of the lads to accompany me in to town, they were going to do some bronzying and go to town later that night. The town centre was only a little walk from the ship and it was very picturesque too, lots of mediaeval buildings crowded amongst the baroque and 18th century. Nearly every lamppost and building were festooned with flags and bunting and a lot of people were dressed in 14th or 15th century clothes; I saw a tall building that looked like an old gaol ,the walls tall and forbidding, pierced from the ground up with heavily barred windows. There was a bas relief on one of it’s walls showing a young maiden offering one of her breast’s through the bars to an old man imprisoned within. I later learned that she was the old mans daughter and she kept him nourished by breast feeding him. He survived and went on to become one of Flanders leaders. The decorations were in celebration of that time.
I found a little jewel of a pub just off the main square, it was about 500 hundred years old ,half timbered with leaded glass windows. I entered and found that it was just a single room ,unchanged since it was first opened , the walls had blackened oak panels and the ceiling was a masterpiece of the plasterers art. There was a tiny half circular servery behind which sat a lady who looked like she had just come out of a Brueghel painting, her strawberry blonde hair and her ruddy complexion made her look like a Dutch serving wench.
She had absolutely no English and I had to point to what I wanted, a dark beer. I sat sipping my beer and people watched through the leaded windows , it was quite fascinating, there was every manner of attire being worn out there, it was almost like watching a walk through time. I’d had about three large glasses of this wondrous brew when I felt the call of nature, but where was the W.C. ?
The room was a perfect square, ,there was the door I came in off the street,
I could’nt see another door anywhere. I went across to the lady behind the bar and said in my fractured French, ”Where is the toilet please? ” She ,being Flemish, a fact I was unaware of, smiled and said “Ja,ja” and came around the bar and put her arms up for a dance, there was a little polka playing on a tape.
So there we were ,me bursting for a pee and she almost leading me around the floor. As we were thus engaged I noticed one of the locals push one of the blackened oak panels through which he walked. Noted!!
When the music stopped I headed through the same door to relieve myself, I was shocked to find the urinal set into the wall of a courtyard in which there children playing. I need’nt have worried ,it was an accepted custom.
When I went back to my table ,the barlady was sat there and there was a litre of blond beer too. Close up she was pretty, not beautiful but easy on the eye. She took a sheaf of photographs out of her purse and showed me them ,on one there was a big blonde man with two toddlers, she pointed to her wedding ring and then to the man in the picture ,I understood. The children were hers and he was her husband. The other pictures were variations of the first one. She had pulled her chair close to mine as she showed the photos and I was very aware of her womanhood. We danced awhile and held each other a little closer, time seemed suspended and then her husband came in. He was very happy to see her dancing and rattled away in Flemish, he took some money out of the till and waved us all good bye. He was obviously a popular man because all the customers were smiling and waving good bye at him.
I learned that the lady’s name was Janine and she was feeding me the best of her beers and we danced nearly every dance, our clinches becoming more heated with every dance. I was twirling her around the floor when three of our lads came through the door, I waved and pointed to my seat and they sat there while waiting for me. Roger told me that I had blown the night watch job ,someone else was doing it because I was’nt there at the appointed time. I was too caught up in what was happening to worry. Janine was letting me take liberty’s when we danced, and she was reciprocating, where was this leading too?, her husband was a big man, I was still sober enough to worry about little things like that. And then some one put on a slow ,sexy dance and we near made love on the floor.
I whispered the old word for sex in her lovely Flemish ear and her response was amazing. “Ooh Jaaa!” she crooned into my ear and then she turned to the girl who was acting as bar maid and said something to her. The girl handed Janine some money and her coat and then Janine pulled me toward the door. I yelled goodbye to the boys and stepped out into the darkness. Janine hugged and kissed me and pulled me toward a little hotel………….there was no room at the inn. Back in the street we stood and mauled each other and then tried another hotel……..it was the same story. I forget how many hotel we tried ,we were desperate. I was feeling like an unexploded bomb and Jane was as taut as a violin string. As we walked through those cobbled alleyways, looking for somewhere to slake our lust, the street lights were out and we could barely see were we where we going. At length we came to an opening in the old mediaeval wall ,it was stygian, we could barely see each other in the blackness. Janine stopped and we started making foreplay, I thought she would explode, trembling with passion she bent forward ,her back toward me ,she pulled her skirt up and stepped out of her panties , I was aching for her,I moved toward that special place and then…………………. The world exploded!!! The black hole where we had felt so safe was illuminated by an incredible light and the voice of God was thundering through the sky. I shrivelled and turned around and there sat an audience who had come to see Son et Lumiere. Our hidey hole looked like a castle entrance and the massed gasps of the audience led me to taking a very sharp exit stage left. My last sight of Janine was of her still bent over and waiting ,her face looking toward the audience, a mask of sheer horror. Some uniformed men made to chase after me, they never stood a chance ,footwear was smoking and I did’nt stop running until I reached the ship.

The next night I ventured ashore in a different direction ,I did’nt want to be recognised , I found a fairly modern pub and went in for a pint. When I walked through the door a hush fell over the drinkers and I knew that they were talking about me. It turned out that they were rugby players and one of them came over to me. He told me that the whole town was talking about last nights spectacle, some of them had actually seen me and invited me to join them on a pub crawl. Little did I know it but the object of the crawl was to show me to as many people as possible. The chap who had welcomed me turned out to be a surgeon and he was a personal friend of Janines husband. This was getting a bit too rich. Pretty soon we landed back at Janines pub ,both she and her husband were behind the bar. I was petrified. She caught sight of me and came round and gave me a real back hander, my head was ringing. Her husband shouted something to her and she left the bar. He smiled at me and poured me a beer. Through his English speaking friend , he told me how last night had given the town one of the funniest sights ever, he said hundreds of people were sorry to have missed it.
I was very ,very drunk by the time they put me in a taxi to go back to the ship.
Forty odd years have passed by since that night and the events are deeply engrained in my consciousness , I was truly sorry for the distress that I had caused Janine but I could still see what people saw as comic. I had to learn not to be so lascivious.

We learned that we were to be chartered by Cunard and the ship would be renamed Aurania and she would be going up the Great Lakes. I was’nt going to miss that for the world. We had a weeks leave ahead of us ,we would catch the train home and enjoy our short stay ,we were all coming back for the next voyage, all that is, excepting the bosun,he had had enough of her.

The Great Lakes

The Kypros docked in Tilbury and we were signed off and departed for our seven days leave. I spent my time off in Liverpool and it was the usual round of pubs and dances, it was’nt a very memorable leave. It was good to see the family and to get a bit of Mums home cooking but apart from one incident on my first full night at home it was boring.
I usually went out with mum and Dad for a drink at the KTA club on our estate, on this particular Saturday Mum wanted to stay at home to watch something on t.v. and so Dad asked if I would like to have a pint with some of his mates, I did’nt want to spend the entire evening with them but said I would have a few jars and then slope off to Liverpool and go clubbing.
Instead of going to the Railway as usual the five of us went off to the 12/5 club in the far side of Kirkby. It was owned by the Transport and General Workers Union and was quite nice. There was a dance advertised for later that night in the ballroom upstairs. I had noticed a few nice looking girls going through to the back room and thought that I might stay for the dancing, save a journey to town.
One of Dads mates was a truck driver who lived across the road from us ,he had a nice family and a good looking wife, but he was a terrible womaniser. We five were sitting in the lounge bar and there was a group of ladies sitting on the banquette against the rear wall . The truck driver sat nearest to them and was eyeing them up. The ladies husbands were stood at the bar and took a very dim view of this. Dad suggested that they leave me there and they go back to the Carters Arms ,a pub at the top of our estate. They sank their pints and all but the trucker ,let’s call him B, made to leave. “I’ll stay with your Brian, Bill” said B “Keep him out of trouble” So Dad and the other two left and I was stuck with B.
He started asking the ladies if he could buy them a drink ,they were shaking their heads and were studiously avoiding eye contact with him. The men at the bar were glowering at me…..what the hell was I doing here? I felt the call of nature and went out to the Gents W.C.. As I was standing at the ****oir on of the husbands came in and growled at me “Leave our wives alone or yer fackin’ dead” He was huge, built like a Russian tank. I told him that I had no interest in their wives, it was the prat sitting next to me that was making the nuisance of himself. “Well fackin’ stop ‘im or we’ll do yer anyway !” he said.
I went back to B and told what had happened . “Take no notice of them gob****es” he said, and carried on womanising. Why is it that your body lets you down at the worst moments!? I needed another pee , badly. The husbands were giving me the hard stare; I was between a rock and a very hard place. Nature forced me back to the gents, and two big husbands followed me in there!!
I never got chance to open my fly, a huge hand grasped my lapels and drew me toward its owner . This guy had sparks coming off his teeth “ I fackin’ warned you” he yelled his other hand balling into a fist. “I’m dead” I thought . The the door opened and in stepped Tommy Molloy, the bosun’s mate off the Empress of Britain. “Hey lads” he said ,pulling the guys fist back . “ I’ve been piping what’s going on and yer barkin’up the wrong tree. Leave him alone!” My lapels were freed and they told Tom that it was really the b*st*rd who was with me that they wanted. Just then B walked in ,whistling a merry tune. They turned on him and Tommy told them to take it outside. One of them gripped B’s arm and propelled him through the doors into the carpark. The second husband did’nt intervene but stood and watched events. B was looking a bit sick and just stood there. “ Yer wudden lissin t’yer mate ,yer stupid tw*t, ‘ave some o’ this!” so saying ,he smashed his fist into B’s face. There was a crunching sound and B’s left eye was surrounded by exposed bone. One punch, that was enough. “gerrim the f*ck outta here” the big guy said ,wiping his knuckles on B’s handkerchief.
I led B home, on the way there he was muttering that we should go back there and give that fellow what for. “ I coulda done ‘im”
It was’nt quite the night I had expected, but it was interesting,what story would B tell his missus?
While I was still on leave I saw a “ghost”. I was walking along Kirkby brow when I saw the young kid who had fallen into the Thames while attempting to scull back ashore after dropping us off at the Adroity back in 1963. We thought he had drowned and mourned for him then. I had left the Thames and Everards and so thought for these past few years that he was no more. It was great to see him as large as life. I showered him with questions and learned what had happened that terrible night. The tide was on the ebb when he fell overboard he managed to grab hold of he gunwhale but could climb back aboard the jolly boat. He had no idea where he was going and he could’nt see any lights. He drifted right down to Thameshaven, were the boat fetched up against the pilings of a jetty. The tide was out and he let go of the boat and proceeded to climb up one of the pilings. There were barnacles on the piling and he cut himself on them as he made his way upward ;by the time he reached the top he was very bloody and very,very muddy. There was a watchman’s hut on the Jetty and it was lit up . Exhausted he dragged his body toward the light. When he got there he saw an old watchman sitting in a chair dozing, our mate tapped the window to attract the watchman’s attention . The old man looked up from his slumbers and near passed out ,he thought it was a ghost . When the old man recovered from shock he called the police and ambulance and the young man was taken to hospital, and here he was now, working ashore, no more jolly boats for him!

When we returned to Tilbury we found the Aurania had a Cunard funnel and ,on the afterdeck , something that rang a warning for the future……..a container.
Pillar box red and corrugated, little did we know that our time was passing and that we sailors would be consigned to history . But that was in the future, we were still enjoying the present.

Nice one Brian. Keep 'em comin'.

The Great Lakes 2

When we rejoined our vessel we found that she was being loaded with the very best of everything that Britain could offer to the American market. This was in the days of the loose stow, seems incredible that we carried our cargoes like that. The only nod to modernity was that some of the cargo was palletised, this still meant the the only thing that stood between the goods and the thieves, was a polythene cover. We, all of were a little larcenous in that were felt that anything was fair game. I can imagine some people will feel outraged by that statement ,but it was an accepted fact ,we always helped ourselves to some of the cargo. I got a superb pair of hand made shoes, They were part of a loose stow and the pallet was damaged during the loading, they were already written off. The holds were like Alladins caves, camera equipment was loaded side by side with all manner of British biscuits, Scotch whisky ,motor cycle wear was next to rolls of steel, pig skin jackets were on open stow adjacent engineering equipment and shortbread and fruit cakes. We were not stupid, we would not dream of broaching personal property, in fact we nearly got into fisticuffs with some French dockers when we some them attempting to prise open a passengers luggage that had been stowed in the fore peak. Our deck boy help himself to a load of chocolate creams and was very proud of the fact that he could get the entire contents of a box into his mouth, he looked like a very large hamster when he had fitted in the last chocolate. We sailed from London and went to Dunkirk ,where we loaded fine wines and brandy, lots of it. Billy, my cabin mate, and I got a few bottles of Hennesy 5 star which we would use as a nightcap when we had finished our
watch.
We certainly never felt like thieves, we never stole to sell stuff and our captain never expressed any thoughts on the matter. Captain Cooney had been at since since the early 1940’s and knew which way was up ,so he did’nt feel we were like the 40 thieves. But Mr Cooney, our lord and master had never sailed in American waters and was as straight as a die, oh poor Mr Cooney was in for the shock of his life. To give you an idea of what our captain was like, picture this image ,Alfred Hitchcock wearing a captains uniform and peaked cap. He had never come up against organised crime; starting with Quebec ,he would be subjected to non stop coercion at every port, Canadian or American ,on the whole of our outward journey.
When we got into Quebec ,the shore agents paid for security men to sit in each of the holds to watch out for pilfering. We saw mass pilfering taking place and the guards kept their faces averted from it. We learned , from one of the junior officers ,that some very heavy duty characters had tried to interest the captain into taking out “insurance” against the broaching of cargo. Mr Cooney was British and could not countenance doing business with “gangsters”. An awful lot of cargo never got to the end user there. Montreal was the second chapter in the same story. And we were there for quite some time !
While we were in Montreal ,Roger and I went to see Expo ’67, it was marvellous.
A huge area had been developed into a gigantic exhibition centre, all the great nations, and a lot of small ones too, had built pavilions which were filled with the products that were the best that that country could make. ,there were huge queues at each pavilion and the biggest pof them all was outside the British pavilion.
This was when all things British were highly prized and respected, the Beatles, the Mini and the Mini skirt, the E type Jaguar and the Rolls Royce, James Bond and the Aston Martin. Winklepicker shoes and long hair. The North Americans could’nt get enough of them. Roger and I spent the whole day and a big chunk of the night looking around ,but we barely scratched the surface. Some of my most lasting memories are of things that we going to come in the future, the T.V. telephone, it is here now, but back then they did’nt have lcd screens but somehow they had a working system that were local on the site. You sat in a booth and there was a telephone on a desk and a very small t.v. screen on the wall above the phone.. There six booths, three at either side of the pavilion. You picked up the phone and pressed one the buttons ,marked 1 to 3 ,and this connected you to the booths over the other side of the pavilion. The booths were crammed with teen agers trying to make dates over the phone. I got a teenager from Buffalo and she squealed with delight because I sounded like a Beatle and my hair was like theirs too.
When Roger and I were queuing up to get into the British pavilion we were joined by two young ladies from Iowa, they had herd us talking and freaked out because we sounded like you know who. They were nice, but Roger was engaged to be wed and he could’nt possibly play around.
One exhibit we went to was called Circlorama. This was a film system ,based on a Russian invention ,that gave you a 360 degree picture. I had seen the Russian film at a cinema in Piccadilly Circus in 1963. I was impressed then, it was embryonic, you could see the separate screens, about eleven of them ,but the effect was not lost. You had to stand for the performance, there were no seats ,just a series of hand rails. We saw a charge by Cossack horsemen which was breath taking,and there were other similar sights. Here, in Montreal, Disney had bought the rights and the auditorium was huge, there were hand rails ,as in London, here we really needed them. The film began with red curtains right around the auditorium , they looked real, they began to open and a shot of the ocean appeared as the curtains opened and then disappeared. We were in a plane and were flying toward the land on the horizon, Canada; as the plane banked and turned you could hear the audience gasp and sway with the movement. Everyone was gripping the hand rails. You could not see where the screens were joined, it was a seamless 360 degree picture and was marvellous. The Plane flew right toward a Mountie , who saluted us and said “Welcome to Canada” and the film went on to show us the greatest spectacles that were to be seen in that country. I often wonder what happened to that system, it made the Imax screens look puny by comparison.

From Montreal we entered the Saint Lawrence Seaway, a wonderful piece of marine engineering, this gave ships access to all the great cities that lay on the shores of those great lakes and we were scheduled to go a lot of them.
The only drawback to going up the Seaway is the lack of sleep; you are on call the whole of the time you are in the seaway, you have to take your ship through all the locks and I remember being exhausted by the time we cleared the last lock and entered into Lake Ontario, and what an entrance that is . Here you pass through an area known as One Thousand Islands, there are Islands and Islets, .Eyots and just small lumps of rock, and on nearly everyone of them someone has built a house. Some are huge mansions, some like castles in Spain ,there are log cabins and Victorian brownstone ,each one unique, and all of them envied. A fantasy waterland that is shared by America and Canada.
Our first call in Lake Ontario was to Rochester in New York state; this was a company town ,and the company was Kodak. It was everywhere, it’s effects were seemingly benign, we did’nt see the usual poverty that was common in most American ports, the town had a neatly clipped appearance and the streets were almost empty during the day ,everyone was at work. I found myself sat in an almost empty bar one afternoon. There was one other customer, a grizzled old man. He came and sat down beside me and introduced himself. He was an English immigrant ,had been there since before WW2, sounded like Alastair Cooke with his mid Atlantic accent. He told me about Kodak City ,as he called Rochester. The company looked after it’s own ,he said that the workers had pensions and hospital care, all owned by Kodak, as were the cinema and theatre .He reckoned it was like Cadbury’s in Britain, all the workers had a house, the only thing they did’nt do was pay for your burial. He had already taken care of that side of things and he asked me if I would like to see his grave. I must have looked shocked, but he told me that it was on the route back to my ship and he could give me a ride and show me the grave en-route. I wished that I had brought my camera with me, for his grave was something else! It was a monumental affair ,done in terra cotta, it had angels and cherubim adorning each side of the headstone ,they were all looking at the redstone plate in the centre which had engraved upon it “ Here lie the last mortal remains of ……………/………..
Born 1893 died……,The date and epitaph would be put on when he had shaken off his mortal coil. I told him that it was rather unusual to be so well prepared and he told me that the city fathers had passed an ordinance forbidding the buidilng of upright monumental head stones from December 1967, and then he pointed to the other new and unoccupied plots that were nearby.
From Rochester we went to Toronto a vast sprawling town that looked very American, it was here that Roger and I discovered Canada’s dark secret , the gravy sandwich! I kid you not. We had been out and about sampling the different brews and felt the need for a bit of supper on the way back to the ship, there was a nice clean short order café not far from the docks and we entered to see what was on the menu ,and there it was ,amongst the sandwiches ,Gravy Sandwich . I forget the price ,but we ordered two, after a short wait the counter hand brought us two soup plates in each of which there were two rounds of buttered bred ,almost covered by a rich ham gravy. It was bloody marvellous!!
The thing I did’nt like about Toronto and the other big Lake ports were the pubs, they were nearly all full of striptease artists, pole dancing was yet to come and it was so tiresome to sit and watch some poor girl grind away at the top of a bar counter to whatever tunes were on the juke box.
One night I got talking to a Toronto policeman who was a Londoner, I told him about the not stop strip joints that seemed to pass as pubs ,and asked him if he knew any English type pubs. “Go to the Jolly Friar in York Street, you can have a nice quiet drink there” I thanked him and made my way to that establishment . It was quite gloomy when I walked in ,low lights , very murky. I went to the counter and held up my money to show I wanted service, a barmaid appeared from the murk and asked what I would like…………..she was totally naked ,and so were the waitresses. He obviously had a sense of humour ,that British Bobby.

Shown below are the new Bosun and Joe,an A.B.,my cabinmate Billy Leatherbarrow and a view of the St Lawrence Seaway as we head west.

Niagara
The theft of cargo continued in the ports we were visiting . We heard, on the grapevine , that Captain Cooney was adamant against dealing with the gangsters, he thought there must be some honest men North America . Sadly for him ,we had’nt met them yet ,Toledo was our next stop ,totally unmemorable but for two things, first I was asked for proof of identity in every bar I went to and ,secondly, one of the bars we were in had an 18 stone stripper performing on the top of the bar counter, the punters were crying “Keep ‘em on, for God’s sake keep ‘em on”
We next went to Hamolton, still the pilfering continued; security guards read newspapers ,refusing to see what was going on in front of them. We had stopped our little bit of larceny, what was going on was way above our heads. Whilst we were in Hamilton ,the Mate organised a coach trip to Niagara Falls, it was a Sunday and everyone who was off duty booked a place on the coach .
The journey to Niagara was very nice, we travelled through farmland , it was summer and the fields were ablaze with colour, the pumpkins and squashes were ripening and the heads of Indian corn were rich and heavy with seed.
Every so often we would come across a roadside stall where the farmers were selling their produce, the coach driver stopped at one such stall and we bought an assortment of apples and plums, they were so succulent that they were consumed before we got our destination. Roger and I paired up to go sight seeing, it was hard to decide where to go first ,we were on the Canadian side and could get close to the Horseshoe falls, the were crowds of tourists everywhere ,so we got in where we could.
The waterfalls are beyond description, to stand by the cascade at the Horseshoe is so exhilarating, the roar and crash is awesome, it is hard to pull yourself away, to watch the little Maid of the Mist navigate through boiling waters until she gets almost beneath the raging torrents ,keeps the watcher enthralled. To get a bigger picture ,you can take a funicular and stand at the bottom of the Seagram tower and see the mist rising, perhaps, two hundred feet above the falls.
The rest of sights included a cable ride above the rapids , the queue was too long for us to take a ride and we wandered through a little park that was nearby. It was quite placid after the spectacles of the roaring waters and it led us into the main area of Niagara town. This was tawdry compared to the show mother nature had put on with the falls. There were the sideshows and gift shops as at Blackpool or Margate, but they seemed so tacky. We noticed a sign that pointed the way to an “original English pub”. We made our way toward it and found a non descript building that was no older than its neighbours, it was only on entering that we found out that it was a bar. The original English pub bit consisted of furniture and fittings that had been brought over from the U.K., from the look of them they had been taken from a pub that had been bombed in the Blitz ! There was a dart board that was so badly damaged that it was beyond use and the counter looked like it had been used as a sawhorse. Or maybe the English pub that they were taken from was one used by Millwall supporters.
After a walk around the town, we returned to the falls again and sat people watching, whilst thus engaged we met a young who had overheard us talking and he asked if we were from Liverpool. I nodded to him and told him that Roger was from Shropshire. He told us that he was from Walton but his boyfriend was from Vancouver. He must have seen from our faces that we thought he was gay; he told us that people in Vancouver talked of men friends and girl friends, and no , he was’nt gay! He stayed with us awhile because our accents reminded him of his childhood.
It was a tired and weary crew that boarded the bus for “home” that night, the journey back was quiet as we were left with our own thoughts of what we had seen and heard.
Our next call was at Detroit ,Motown! It was’nt a happy place at that time, full scale rioting was taking place and we were cautioned about going ashore. Roger and I took a stroll to see if we could find nice place for a drink, what we saw on our up from the waterfront was terrible, this was’nt just a riot ,it was war. Street after street was filled with shells of burnt out storefronts, hawkers stood in alleyways their car boot facing the street ,they called out “ Hey, c’mon see, we got good stuff for you!” The peddlers were not poor people ,they were mostly middle aged men who looked like your average shopkeeper ,their car boots were full of looted goods. We saw fur coats, watches of every kind , T.V. sets, all manner of goods could be had for peanuts. We turned and headed back to the docks, that was a sad time for America.

I am going to post some pictures I took of our day out in Niagara, the first picture is of the park,then we have the cable car ride over the rapids,next is a picture of the Niagara falls on the American side. There are two pictures of the Maid of the Mist ,passing the American falls and then heading into the Horseshoe.looking down from the foot of the Seagram tower we see the pavilion at the side of the Horseshoe and the mist rising way above the Falls. The Seagram Tower is next ,and then last,but not least ,is Roger ,standing at the side of the Horseshore ,with Niagara providing a backdrop.
BrianD