大象传媒

After my service in "E-Boat Alley", I was transferred to Holyhead to the Contraband Control Service. This consisted of a small drifter which carried two officers out to ships coming into Liverpool, Holyhead and other ports, so that their cargo could be inspected. I was the signalman and it was my job to challenge ships coming in to port - mostly from Dublin. The main ships were "Cambria" and "Hibernia". Ships from Portugal were also checked as Portugal was not involved in the war. Security was tight as was shown when we were in for a boiler clean. My wife came to visit and was looking in a shop window when she was challenged by two men and escorted to the police station. Apparently she answered the description of a spy they were looking for!
Sometimes there was not much to do and we put out a drift net to catch herrings. We also caught dogfish which we used as bait for our lobster and crab pots. The ships engineer used to use the rough skins of the dogfish to polish the brass in the engine room. We often had a crab or lobster to take ashore. We pickled or fried the herrings. Because we had fish free from the sea our canteen often made a profit! Previously on the Gleaner if you wanted a dessert you had to get the ingredients yourself, make it, and ask chef to bake it often bribing him with a tot of Rum.
A short time after this I was accepted for officer training and I went down to Hove to the King Alfred training school. After this I did further training as a navigating officer and still more training in Greenwich. My first appointment was to HMS Ross part of a flotilla of minesweepers or "Smoky Joes", the last of the H.M. ships which were fuelled by coal. On this ship we were overrun with cockroaches. We had to have them chemically killed. We had to go into dry dock and all leave the ship. Even after this some of them survived. When we needed a boiler clean or to coal ship we went into Swansea. All the ships company were involved in coaling - shovelling the coal into the hold - the only exception being the captain. This was typical of a Royal Navy smaller ship's crew which were very much like a family together.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.