Another hook poised in mid-air, carrying a bundle of what I'd now learnt to call 'general cargo' - i.e. miscellaneous boxes and cartons containing heaven knows what. Directions were shouted and the sling slowly descended into the depths of hold no 5 of the SS 'Capetown Castle'. Far below, the Liverpool stevedores grabbed it and stowed the boxes into various corners and recesses of the cavern-like hold. It was painfully slow going; a ship's hold is gigantic, or so it seemed to a greenhorn 19 year old, just out of school. I'd been on a passenger ship before, and enjoyed it, but watching the almost imperceptible loading of this great cargo ship (she was to take about 2 weeks to load at Liverpool and then go to Avonmouth and Rotterdam, as I recall) wasn't really a lot of fun. I suppose she sank slightly with the weight of the newly loaded cargo every day, but you wouldn't know it.
I huddled further into my anorak; Toxteth dock in Liverpool wasn't the warmest place to be on a bleak March day. I shivered. I've still got 5 hours to go, I thought. Not for the first time I wondered whether my gap year plan (a voyage or two as a cadet purser in Elder Dempster Lines to West Africa) was such a great idea. Of course, it hadn't been my idea at all: my father knew a director of the line, and thought no doubt that such an experience would soon knock the public school cockiness out of me.
The plan had been that I was to arrive in Liverpool a week or so before my ship sailed, and during that time try to glean something about international shipping and trade. So for the past few days I had been assigned to a foreman of some kind, and had been trying to see how a ship was loaded and with what. I lost tremendous face with my naïve questions - they must have put me down as a very ignorant southerner - and a bit too posh too, no doubt. I noted that prior to loading the cargo seemed to be piled into stacks labelled 'CT, EL, PE and DB'. When I asked what this meant the foreman, looking at me witheringly, said: "Capetown, East London, Port Elizabeth and Durban, of course! Don't they teach you anything at school?" I cringed and wished I hadn't attended a school which considered geography not 'academic' enough to be merit being taught at all.
I did glean a little bit about stowage despite being bored rigid most of the time. As Durban was the 'discharge' last port, cargo for that destination, I learnt, should be stowed at the bottom to avoid expensive shifting later on. That was called 'overstowage' apparently. "Why not simply assign one hold to each destination?" I queried brightly of a tally-clerk. This produced another withering look. "No good, chum. For a start, she'd buckle after PE if only one hold was full - too much stress on the hull; you've got to keep her trimmed all the time. That's what's called 'keeping an even keel'," he explained. "And another thing - you've got to put the heavy stuff at the bottom - you can't have those eggs for Durban stowed under that bulldozer for E London, now can you?" I saw the force of that and reflected not for the first time how little I knew, and how poorly prepared for real life I seemed to be with my history A levels and coming second in the 800 metres (or half mile as we called it then).
At last 5pm came and I wandered along the quay to the MV 'Tarkwa', the cargo/passenger liner to which the director had in his wisdom assigned me. We were to sail for Sierra Leone in a couple of days. There's nothing worse than being on a ship between voyages. I seemed to be the only crew member so far on board, and I ate my meals surrounded by stores and a bevy of people (all men) who all seemed too busy with their own little jobs (electricians, engineers, carpenters, watchmen, cleaners ,etc., preparing the ship for sea) to engage in conversation with me....I can't remember now why I was there at all - perhaps it was cheaper than putting me in an hotel.
What I seem to have written so far seems a) not to have got me very far either on my voyage or through my gap year
and b) to have painted a very depressing picture of life in the docks.
However, things now started to improve rapidly. After dinner I was leaning over the taff-rail rather depressed (it was drizzling and Toxteth, as I had already discovered, didn't seem that exciting a place, night or day) when two new blokes came up the gangway; they were carrying sea-bags and seemed friendly and about my age. They seemed to know their way about, and made straight for the 'Apprentices' cabin. There were 4 berths there, and only mine was occupied (I never did find out the difference between a cadet and an apprentice). I hurried after them and introduced myself. "Oh hi, nice to meet you, we'll just grab these 2 berths by the porthole" said the taller one. "and then let's....."
To find out what we got up to in Liverpool and more about sunny West Africa, tune in for the next thrilling episode.....
I huddled further into my anorak; Toxteth dock in Liverpool wasn't the warmest place to be on a bleak March day. I shivered. I've still got 5 hours to go, I thought. Not for the first time I wondered whether my gap year plan (a voyage or two as a cadet purser in Elder Dempster Lines to West Africa) was such a great idea. Of course, it hadn't been my idea at all: my father knew a director of the line, and thought no doubt that such an experience would soon knock the public school cockiness out of me.
The plan had been that I was to arrive in Liverpool a week or so before my ship sailed, and during that time try to glean something about international shipping and trade. So for the past few days I had been assigned to a foreman of some kind, and had been trying to see how a ship was loaded and with what. I lost tremendous face with my naïve questions - they must have put me down as a very ignorant southerner - and a bit too posh too, no doubt. I noted that prior to loading the cargo seemed to be piled into stacks labelled 'CT, EL, PE and DB'. When I asked what this meant the foreman, looking at me witheringly, said: "Capetown, East London, Port Elizabeth and Durban, of course! Don't they teach you anything at school?" I cringed and wished I hadn't attended a school which considered geography not 'academic' enough to be merit being taught at all.
I did glean a little bit about stowage despite being bored rigid most of the time. As Durban was the 'discharge' last port, cargo for that destination, I learnt, should be stowed at the bottom to avoid expensive shifting later on. That was called 'overstowage' apparently. "Why not simply assign one hold to each destination?" I queried brightly of a tally-clerk. This produced another withering look. "No good, chum. For a start, she'd buckle after PE if only one hold was full - too much stress on the hull; you've got to keep her trimmed all the time. That's what's called 'keeping an even keel'," he explained. "And another thing - you've got to put the heavy stuff at the bottom - you can't have those eggs for Durban stowed under that bulldozer for E London, now can you?" I saw the force of that and reflected not for the first time how little I knew, and how poorly prepared for real life I seemed to be with my history A levels and coming second in the 800 metres (or half mile as we called it then).
At last 5pm came and I wandered along the quay to the MV 'Tarkwa', the cargo/passenger liner to which the director had in his wisdom assigned me. We were to sail for Sierra Leone in a couple of days. There's nothing worse than being on a ship between voyages. I seemed to be the only crew member so far on board, and I ate my meals surrounded by stores and a bevy of people (all men) who all seemed too busy with their own little jobs (electricians, engineers, carpenters, watchmen, cleaners ,etc., preparing the ship for sea) to engage in conversation with me....I can't remember now why I was there at all - perhaps it was cheaper than putting me in an hotel.
What I seem to have written so far seems a) not to have got me very far either on my voyage or through my gap year
and b) to have painted a very depressing picture of life in the docks.
However, things now started to improve rapidly. After dinner I was leaning over the taff-rail rather depressed (it was drizzling and Toxteth, as I had already discovered, didn't seem that exciting a place, night or day) when two new blokes came up the gangway; they were carrying sea-bags and seemed friendly and about my age. They seemed to know their way about, and made straight for the 'Apprentices' cabin. There were 4 berths there, and only mine was occupied (I never did find out the difference between a cadet and an apprentice). I hurried after them and introduced myself. "Oh hi, nice to meet you, we'll just grab these 2 berths by the porthole" said the taller one. "and then let's....."
To find out what we got up to in Liverpool and more about sunny West Africa, tune in for the next thrilling episode.....
No comments:
Post a Comment