大象传媒

I went up for my mate鈥檚 ticket, I went to Nellists Newcastle. By then the war had started. Duly got my mates ticket. Headlams, even the officers had to provide their own bed and bedding and soap, towels. I decided this was no good. I would go for some other company where they would provide these. The company I chose was Ellerman Wilsons of Hull, they did provide everything. What a change it was, what a change in ships. I joined the Thurso smaller ship than the Larpool. Principally built for Mediterranean trading. We went up the Adriatic trading around the Italian coast, Sicily and back home. Coal out, wood, mainly beech from Yugoslavia, very often already made up for assembly at home. Thousands of deck chairs already to assemble. Another thing we used to being from Yugoslavia was Acetylene. This was a compound which when you added water gave off acetylene gas. Acetylene gas used for cutting steel. By then the war was on. By then the war was on

We did quite a few voyages backwards and forwards until Italy joined the war

When Italy came into the war and closed the Mediterranean I was still on the Thurso, a very very happy ship still third mate. The Ministry of Transport took over and we were sent all over the place. One voyage we loaded coal for Kingston Jamaica. We got away out into the Atlantic and the steering gear broke in such a position, as there was not much we could do to repair it. The Mate was absolutely useless, but finally others took over and got things sorted out. We found that by adjusting the engine speed we could steer the ship, very crudely but we could steer the ship. We had been in convoy till we broke the steering gear, but then of course we left them. It was war time, we were on our own and one night we were just steaming along nicely and steadily and there was one hell of a ware came and the lifeboats, which had been strung out ready for launching in case of a torpedo. The weather one was pushed through the davits because the lifeboat was longer than the gap between the davits. There was not a bit of wood above 6 inches when it had finished. Water went down the engine room through the skylights the deckhouse racked the cargo shifted, we were in a hell of a state. The lee lifeboat filled with water and bent the davits we had to let that go so then we had no lifeboats. The old man Captain Maldine was a nice old gent but never a master of a ship. Anyway we never started the engines in the dark. As soon as daylight came we started the engines up and by adjusting the engine speed we could steer the ship. As soon as night came, which was very early then because don鈥檛 forget we were up near Greenland it must hare been November December time.

We finally made just outside St Johns Newfoundland. Then we broke radio silence and got assistance to steer us into St Johns. There we stayed well over Christmas whilst they made us some Lifeboats and did various bits of repairs.

Finally we were fitted out and of course sailed down to Kingston Jamaica. Well it was a beautiful voyage once we got nicely down near Kingston, beautiful summer weather; it is a beautiful place. From there we went to Surinam. There we loaded crude sugar. To get home we had to go across to Freetown, then catch a convoy coming up north to England? We got home and discharged the sugar. On one voyage we came home and the engineers. They were scotch boilers, which meant that the gases went through the tubes, and the tubes kept leaking. To repair them, they had to draw the fires, and an engineer had to get wrapped in wet sacking and crawl in the back of the furnace and put a stopper in. You can get a stopper that you can work from one side but we had not got any. I think those men deserve medals as big as frying pans for crawling in there. As soon as the tube went we had to drop out of convoy. We came home to Bristol. There they retubed all the tubes, which meant that we were about a month in Bristol

To go back to the Larpool. The firemen, three watches of firemen two each and one trimmer. One of the first jobs a watch did when they came on was to clean one of the fires. Three fires to each boiler six fires. Each watch got two fires to clean. One man on each to clean it. The previous watch used to put a layer of fresh coal all over the fire. Then as soon as the new watch came on they turned half that coal on top of the other half. Then proceeded to rake the clinker. There was very little ash by then, it was just clinker, and they raked that out. All the clinker out. It used to come out and fall down at their feet very hot. white hot all the fumes and that right at their feet. When they had cleaned one half they put the coal both halves over at the other side and cleaned the other half. Then spread the coal about and started to stoke the fire up. It was one hell of a job especially in tropics. If you go down to the engine room you couldn't touch the handrails. You had to hare a cloth otherwise you burnt your hands. On deck you could literally fry an egg. On the deck you could not walk hare foot on it at all; it was that scalding hot. They used to come up after cleaning a fire absolutely wringing drowned wet. But haring got the fire cleaned
They used to then start and stoke up and then get the ashes up; clinkers up get it up and throw it over the side. The cleaning of the fire was a terrible job. There was one trimmer to both watches. He had to trim the coal forward so that the fireman could get it nice and easy. They used to burn 12-14 tons of coats a day, so you can see that that trimmer had a lot of coal to shift. Admitted it was night on his doorstep but some of it was along way away. One trimmer I particularly remember was called George Dale. We used to call him the "Bunker Beast" because he used to go on watch in the tropics, and all he had on was a belt. A horse belt, not an ordinary mans belt, and a pair of boots, and that was his dress. That was to keep his belly up. He weighed 18 stone when he joined us and he weighed 14 when he left. Mainly due to more sensible food and lack of beer and so on. One of the things they used to say about him was that him and his wife had a business going round the various markets in Whitby area selling pottery crockery. If there was not a sufficient crowd round his stall buying pots he used to juggle them and all of a sudden let then drop. That attracted a crowd of course. His business collapsed mainly because him and his wife drank too much

Whilst we were in Bristol it was there I saw a daylight raid, aircraft raid. A spectacular sight, these airplanes, they said they were Italians, came across broad daylight, flying very high. Beautiful visibility. All of a sudden there was a puff in the middle. Then there was planes everywhere, parachutes, planes coming down all over the place. Most spectacular sight to see. I believe the losses on the Italian side were quite heavy because the fighters had got in amongst them and really sorted them out.

In the Thurso, we were in convoy going across the North Atlantic. It was the last voyage as I was coming home to go up for my ticket, Masters ticket. We loaded some heavy cargo. I cannot remember what the heavy cargo was and then topped it off with cork, cork of all descriptions, granules; slabs you name it cork, and duly joined the convoy. I do not remember if we joined it straight out of Lisbon or went to Gibraltar to join. Anyway we joined this convoy, coming home. We were somewhere off Lisbon, which makes me think we went to Gib to join the convoy. Somewhere off Lisbon one night the ship two ships ahead of us in the column was torpedoed. By the time we got to where that ship was there was nothing to be seen, nothing at all, we just more or less steamed over the top of where it actually was when it was torpedoed. There was no more sleep that night and we were all clothes on and every thing and in the early hours of the morning we got hit right aft. Right close to the propeller and most of the crew was aft so most of the crew went. Just the DMS gunners. They were the nary chaps who were sent with the merchant ships to man the guns because we had some guns. Defensively equipped Merchant Ships hence the DMS. They were the only ones to get out. We duly took to the boats and I was in the Port boat, which was just above my accommodation. So I got up there and the boats were slung out outside the davits ready for launching. When we released to launch it the wire strop caught in an obstruction on the deck, so I said, "I鈥檝e got an axe". So I dived down below and put my hand on the corner of the chest of drawers in my cabin picked up the axe, went back up with it, but exactly where I put my hand was my wallet with my money in, my watch, and a Rolls razor. So you know where there is a good watch, off Lisbon!!
Went up on deck got the lifeboat free and we duly took to the lifeboat pulled away from the ship. After a while, the ship was slowly sinking, we heard screaming and shouts from the ship "come and get us come and get us" we said "go to hell with you". What had happened, was the chief steward and the chief engineer as soon as the ship was torpedoed had darted along to the bonded store broke it open and drunk as much whisky and that as they could. Then discovered we had left the ship. So we said, "To hell with them if they were so keen on spirit they could stop there". So they went and launched the Jolly boat but what they for got, they forgot to put the plug in when they launched it so the thing duly sank under them, and the cargo was cork the ship by then had sunk and there was cork all over the place popping up and these bales of granulated cork were gone down with the ship and coming up and exploding on the surface and there was cork everywhere.
Anyway I heard later that they did save them, they did pick them up, the rescue ship picked them up.

We the May flower, might be the Marigold I cant remember which corvette, it was a corvette picked us up out of the lifeboats, and we landed at Liverpool, and of course we were fitted out and came home and went up for the Masters ticket

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