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While I was up for my master’s ticket Rene and I got ready and got married.

Eventually I got my Masters ticket and I applied back to Ellerman Wilson and they put me as 2nd Mate of a ship. Cannot remember the name of the ship. But eventually we were sent to load various wartime goods, shells, so on and so forth, ammunition all sorts of things and cased petrol. Of course petrol was the main thing. Now cased petrol was in what they called flimsys, and by goodness w ere they flimsy. You believe me, there were two of these very flimsy tin cans packed in a carton and they each held maybe 2 gallons each. They would only just stand up to their own weight more or less. So we duly loaded this, we were under very secret orders. We did not know what was happening. We duly sailed and eventually turned out that we were part of the landing of North Africa. We took this ammunition, cased petrol and so on and discharged it. I think it was Bone we discharged it. I am not too sure I think it was Bone. Then we traded along the North African coast. Traded is not the right word. What we were doing, we were ferrying war supplies forward from the back ports. It ended by loading cased petrol in flimsys.

I was staying at Uncle Johns as well, and when we had finished our honeymoon we both came back to Uncle Johns. She stayed the rest of the week there and I went back to school at Newcastle. Eventually on the weekend we went home to Middlesbrough. We were ferrying these war supplies and on the last occasion we went to Bougie to load cased petrol for taking forward. The cased petrol had already been loaded and discharged from another ship. A bigger ship and it was getting pretty ropey. We loaded this and there was petrol everywhere. Swilling about all over the place, 100 octane, there was all sorts, 89 octane, or was it, 79 can’t remember. There was different octanes and petrol everywhere and the ship reeked of it. Anyway we finished loading the petrol and we were all battened down and I had noticed in the DEMS gunners accommodation there was a fan working there and this fan was really arcing round the segments. The fan was to try and get some of the petrol fumes out because it really reeked of petrol. Anyway towards the evening there was a crunch and the petrol went up. It went up aft first. Blew up DEMS gunners legs and because they were on deck, and did one or two other bits of damage and as soon as it went up aft I turned round to dire into my cabin to pick my bits and pieces as I went in so the flames followed me, burnt my face a bit not a lot, and I turned round and went out on deck and by the time I got out on deck the falls that is the block and tackle that lower the lifeboat were burning and the boats were starting to burn and I. The gangway was just round the corner from my cabin so I went round to the gangway and when I got there the radio operator. I don’t know how he had done it, was hung upside down on this ladder. It was just an ordinary ladder because it wasn't very steep. He was hung upside down on this ladder, and his coat tails were actually brushing the quay. Would he leave go that ladder, not on your nelly ! So I said "To hell with him". So I ran over his hands and immediately I stood on his hands he let go of course having let go he just flopped on the quay, picked himself up, and went. We went away across the quay, and the heat from that ship was really something.

We were eventually taken; I was taken along with one or two more to a tented hospital. There were some queer cases in there. We went this tented hospital to be treated because the Master had got his hands badly burnt, and one or two more bits and pieces. As I say the DMS gunner either his leg or legs were broken and one or two more bits and pieces but nothing serious everybody, everybody got off

This tented hospital was really luxurious. But eventually I could not stay there long. I wasn't really damaged. I was not hurt much. So we were discharged from there and we had to catch a train from Bougie to Algiers. The night came when we were to catch this train. We went down to the station and got aboard the train and the train was pretty well packed. Then we went along the train looking for somewhere to go and we found an empty compartment blinds drawn no lights and we thought smashing an empty compartment we got ourselves in the compartment and discovered why it was empty there was no glass. By then the rest of the train was full so it was hopeless. So we had to grin and bear it, and by! What a cold journey that was. It took right away till about ten o'clock the following morning to get to Algiers. Stopping, starting, shunting, and puffing. It is not all that far if you look on the map, it is not a terrible long way. But by! it was cold that night

By then of course I had been kitted out in Army clothes overcoat great big overcoat and so on and so forth, army boots and so on but by! it was cold. But we duly got to Algiers and they put us up in an hotel there. The hotel gave us two meals a day, macaroni and peas for break fast, and macaroni and peas for tea and that was it. You did not get anything to drink except water, that was it! Well you can imagine we got hungry. Trailing around Algiers, I did appreciate those army boots. I wished that when they got us home that they would let us keep them. But by! Those army boots were perfect. We trailed around there. The people in the hotel there, they did their best for us, they knew we were getting very very hungry. So one day they dished up some quails. Well some of them took one look at them and said "Frogs legs!!" I said, "Aye them's frogs legs all right". So we ate them, they wouldn't, they wouldn't touch them. We ate them, they were beautiful. I say they were quails not frogs legs. You could see they were not frog’s legs, but we kidded the others that they were. Anyway after a spell I can’t remember exactly how long, fortnight something like that we were put on board the Sumeria to come home to England. Well she was a liner, and it was six courses for breakfast, six courses for lunch, and six courses for tea so on. Well for the first two days I did not pass a course up I can tell you! I really pinned my ears back and ate, but after two days I had to steady up I just couldn't manage it all. But it was most boring on the ship, absolutely deadly boring. There was nothing to do and nothing to read. We were just on your own, on your tod. Just somebody else to talk to if you wanted to, nothing else nothing to see nothing. It was absolutely shockingly boring. But eventually all good things come to an end we got back to England, and they kitted us out again. Took the army boots as I say, which I was sorry to loose. Kitted us out again and I went home.

I went to the Merchant Shipping place that told you which ships to go to and I was sent to one of Constantine's of Middlesbrough the Wearwold. To join this ship in Glasgow. Well it was wintertime by then, dead winter time, only once went into Rene came up to join at the ship. When we got aboard the ship, or she came there I had to get four blankets, four more blankets. I had already got two, I had to get four more blankets from the steward, and she had to stitch two together longways and one across the bottom to make one blanket to cover us with on a double bunk, even then it was only enough, just bare. What had happened is that they had been washed somewhere, badly washed, and shrunk like hell? They were lovely thick blankets, they were beautiful. But shrunk to hell. Any way that's what Rene did to make two decent blankets

We went light ship out to America, and we had a bit of a pounding going out. The ship was light as I say that meant that the forrard number 1 hatch was about 20 ft out of the water and it developed a leak and the leak was very high up. So you can tell how much that bow was rising and falling. It would be rising more than 40 feet. When the bow went down into the water the propeller raced like hell, and when it came up the propeller nearly stopped. We developed this leak and we tried to do something about it and when the ship was rising you couldn't move because you were too heavy, when the ship was falling in the water you couldn't move again because you couldn't grip on the plates you were too light so you had to more in betweens. Anyway we duly got to the States and loaded. We went to Newark New Jersey to load timber there. While we were there the 2nd engineer blew the working boiler down, so that it was nice and clean for the next voyage. And to do this they waited till practically all the pressure of steam was gone and then they just opened the drain valve and what steam was left blew the water out having first pulled the fires of course having got rid of all the furnaces it blew the water out it duly cooled and they went inside the boiler, they were scotch boilers. That meant that you had one boiler working and one boiler under repair but he blew the wrong boiler down, he blew the working boiler down which had the fires in and everything and a result was that the furnace crowns that is the crowns they are like round things corrugated round, and the tops of them collapsed down onto the firebars, just collapsed straight down. And of course put the fires out when they started leaking so they then had to send to England they couldn't get them in the States had to send to England for some more crowns and when they examined the crowns in the other boiler they found that they were rotten and needed renewing so that was six crowns they had to get from England, well this was Newark New Jersey Christmas time, by gum it was cold, in my cabin I had sheet one of these blankets I was telling you about, then news paper, then another blanket, then news paper, then a counterpane, and then topped off with my overcoat greatcoat and every morning I used to hare to pull it away from the bulkhead where it had frozen to the bulkhead it was very very cold it was rough. There was supposed to be some heating there but it was an absolute failure the central heating system just did not work.

Well we duly loaded timber and came back home to England and I was very very pleased to leave the ship I can tell you.

So I left that ship and I was next sent to one of Roltners I was to go and join this ship in Montreal where she was being built well we went out by passenger ship, well passenger ship cum cargo, and it was another terribly boring voyage.

What four of us did we played Bridge every day all day for some thing to do because there was nothing outside there was only water to see, it was dammed cold it was dark most of the time, so four of us played Bridge. By the end of that voyage I could play a bit of Bridge I can tell you but I have never touched a card since

We got to New York and we were sent by train to Montreal and I put up in an hotel all wages paid everything like that quite a luxurious hotel and eventually we were told, we heard that you could get jobs in Montreal. So we scouted around making electrical switchboards and so on, some of the switchboards were to go onto the ships they were building we would have our breakfast and the hotel used to fit us out with a lunch I used to go to work, come back to the hotel, get washed and changed, then have my tea I was living in the lap of luxury I can tell you. Before I went there I did not realise how down I had got I had really got run down and I think that what they were doing, they were doing this deliberately, sending crews out to these ships and putting them up when they were getting very run down when the people were getting run down so that they could build them up a bit ready for another go. When we got there the keel had been laid for our ship and that is all so we saw everything as it built all the way up through the stages. Anyway eventually the ship was built and had to pack the job up and join the ship and we loaded grain, grain for North Africa. We came back across to North Africa, discharged the grain.

Where did we go?

With that ship we finished up at Rio, I'm still wrong.

We finished up at B.A. whether it was another voyage or not I can't remember but somehow we finished up at B.A.

There loaded a general cargo. Cargo of all sorts of things, for example number 1 hold, the lower part of number 1 hold was filled with hides salted hides just as they had come off the animals put down and salt put on them. There was grain there were all sorts which we brought home to England

There must have been more than one voyage.

Then on the next voyage somehow or other we got to Rio and there loaded iron ore There must have been something in between.

But we got to Rio. This was Christmas again because we actually finished loading on Christmas day, finished loading and we had to get ready to sail well you can imagine what the crew was like on Christmas day. What a job we had getting that ship ready for sea from Rio we had to go straight across by ourselves to Freetown there to pick up convoy. Convoy for England.

We came home

Can't remember the voyages exactly

I left the ship and I went and joined one of Headlam and Sons’ ships Sanstrae now the Fort William which was the Canadian built ship and the Sanstrae the hull form was exactly the same on the two ships but there the similarity ended the Sanstrae was a wonderful ship, if you wanted 10 knots from the engines you got 10 knots but you couldn't say that with the Fort though you might get 5 and you might not. They were fitted out really perfectly were the Sans every convenience you could wish for. The fridge for keeping all the food for the crew was part of one tween deck and we had 6 months meat in perfect condition most of the time on that ship because wherever we got to a place where we could take fresh meat we would fill it up because we very often went to places where there wasn't any. There was a dairy compartment there was a veg compartment there was iced drinking water in the alleyways and things like that really it was a wonderful ship there is dozens of other dissimilarities between the two ships.

Sanstrae was a wonderful ship. On the last voyage on it we went out.

We went out to Australia and loaded Zinc concentrate in Port Pirie and loaded something else in Port Adelaide and then went to Melbourne, We were only there a day. Melbourne it absolutely teemed down and I never even bothered to go ashore.

Port Pirie was extremely dry and you could see the salt all over the place, we were invited to a dance by some of the local girls and one of the came to pick us up and it was dark of course and as we were driving along in this car you could see thousands and thousands of eyes looking at us thousands of them they we’re rabbits anyway you know what happened to rabbits in Australia. Eventually we went across to Timaroo, in Timaroo we loaded wool for home.
We came home via the Cape Horn we went out via through the Suez when we went out to Australia and we came home via the Cape it was a very very interesting voyage.

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