Gap year 1960s style - Part 2

What my two new friends proposed was a night out on the town. The suggestion doesn't seem that newsworthy now, but having come straight from boarding school, it seemed a novel and slightly daring idea at the time. My memories now were the incredible care they took with their hair (Brylcream was the rage then) and their easy familiarity with the girl behind the bar - "That'll be 3 more pints, please, luv."

 

Soon enough we were at sea, leaving the rain and Toxteth (famous for riots around 20 years later) in favour of the Irish Sea. Our cabin was now full as we'd been joined by an engineering cadet. I had my first inkling as to on board hierarchies (or should that be prejudices?). My two mates from the pub  - remember they were deck (i.e. navigation) cadets - looked down on this poor lad; it seemed throughout the ship that deck officers (in their own opinion at least) were superior to engineers, on the grounds, I believe, that the latter were a recent development, coming in only after the days of sail.

 

One of my jobs was to organise the passengers' 'sports'. Although primarily a cargo vessel, we had about 60 cabins, and were carrying a miscellaneous bunch, chiefly colonial servants and their families returning to work in West Africa, plus oilmen and a few wealthier Africans. I particularly remember Senator Asemoto, from recently independent Nigeria, who entered the deck quoits and seemed to be allowed to win on account of his age and stature. The other sports were the somewhat more active deck tennis and ping-pong. While safely tied up at the dockside, most passengers signed up for all three, and I spent my first hours in the office happily making various draws, including match times, etc.

 

Unfortunately all my plans came to naught:  even in ordinary conditions the Irish Sea can be fairly rough, and table tennis, even with the table bolted to the deck, became quite challenging; but worse than this the passengers almost all failed to keep to my meticulous time-table. I would go along to Mrs Robinson in Cabin E4, knock on the door and shout out that she was supposed to be on the promenade deck for her match: "Go away!" she would groan, "I'm sea-sick!"

 

My main task though was to assist the Chief Officer, who was in charge of all cargo activities. Prior to arrival at Freetown (it got better once in port), this proved somewhat tedious work, involving drawing up stowage plans, getting books ready for the tally-clerks to use at discharge, etc. Soon I was in trouble: the 2nd and 3rd Officers were keen on bridge and asked me to make up a regular four (I forget who the other was). The only time neither officer was on watch was 12 - 4pm, but that was exactly when I was supposed to be working. Of course, finding my work particularly boring at the time, I weakly agreed; inevitably I was found out and given a severe reprimand by the Purser.

 

Apart from that, the sun was out by this time, and life was slipping into a pleasant enough routine: I was regularly thrashed at deck golf by my cabin-mates, but enjoying the pool which we shared with the passengers and helping to arrange film evenings, etc.

 

Finally from the mast-head came the familiar call: "Land Ho!" At last my first sight of Africa.....

Gap Year 1960s style

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.....