大象传媒

Pre-Seagoing - Nautical College pranks.
These recollections of a Newhaven Merchant Navy apprentice, or (Cadet) depending which company took you on, are quite personal and not necessarily to be construed as how all colleagues behaved.
COLLEGE PRANKS
During the earlier part of the 39/45 war with Germany it was my decision to follow a family tradition and serve in the Mercantile Marine, so with typical (mis-guided) enthusiastic patriotic (idiotic) bravado, along with a couple of other chums went scurrying along to Leith Nautical College to enrol, through the large glazed oak portals into a busy tiled entrance hall adorned with beautiful ship models, some of them cut away to show the method of construction which we were to learn a lot about later, in the middle of being so engrossed in the superb detail of these glass cased works of skilled craftsmen - the place was absolutely seething with a mass of humanity, many in uniform having a last minute smoke - no smoking in the lecture rooms - a friendly feminine voice behind us suddenly asks, can I help you lads, this turned out to be the College Secretary who ushered us into the administration office, and upon learning that we had come to 'join up', produced lots of forms to be filled in, which in turn were required to be counter-signed by a parent, pay the requisite fees, then told us which books were needed (the problem of obtaining them from the Nautical Bookshop was very acute due to war time shortages) although the college had a few available, second hand of course, I thought we were going to be charged 'sea prices' for them, but it proved to be quite reasonable, and eventually showing a modest profit because several were sold on to the next intake.
Now last but not least the obligatory all important Board of Trade 'Eye-sight' test certificate, essential before being admitted to the deck department of the Mercantile Marine.......what is that, for goodness sake!, our ever so patient college secretary, Miss Johnston, looked at us as if we were complete idiots - which in fact we were because that was the first thing we should have all undertaken - right, off you go to the Shipping Master's office, in the same building as the Customs House, organise said test, obtain photographs, a Seaman's Identity card etc. Being a relatively short walk from the college we found the appropriate door, the college had seemed busy until squeezing our way into the shipping office, through the noisy smoke laden atmosphere we pushed forward through the crowd of men who were there to sign on or off Ships Articles, to the counter, in due time a somewhat harassed clerk noted our requirements at the same time trying to pacify and allocate each and everyone to a ship, most of these men had newly arrived or about to depart on convoy duty, had we but known (with hindsight) it would have made us run a mile and joined the 'Sojers'. Right be here 'free ferty' sharp for eye test, tho' not if yer wear glasses, the fee is five shillings (25p) payable now, non-returnable, - with our dwindling capital so unexpectedly depleted we realise this had better work.
After a meagre impoverished (even worse being war time) lunch we duly return to shipping office, which now by contrast is quite silent from the morning visit, after the obligatory form filling we are individually escorted into a darkened room and placed alongside what I later learned to be a lantern, which projected a pin-point light onto a screen, which seemed miles away, and indeed was meant to be, the actual test is to determine if a prospective candidate suffered from colour blindness.
The Shipping Master conducted the exam in a very strict but fair manner - answer the questions exactly as to what you see, after a short while in complete darkness, which was to allow the candidate time to get his eyes used to the surroundings, a voice from the other side of the lantern asks, can you see anything!, no sir, right oh sayeth the voice - at which time a nice round white light appears away in the distance - (this was in fact a mirror to create the impression of long distance) no problem methinks, anything now! yes sir a bright white light. This was followed by a series of coloured lights, which became (apparently) smaller and smaller, the white would be shown three or four times in succession then a green or red, combinations of all, each time getting smaller, went through the sequence, as the navigation lights would have been displayed by vessels at sea, this seemed to on for a long time although in fact was barely ten minutes, 'ah that is fine said the voice, just one more....when the light appeared I quickly replied, blue and in the same breath could have bitten my tongue realising there were no blue lights in the pattern of navigation lights,................................good lad said the voice, at the same time switching on the room lights, that last one was not part of your official test, it represents a convoy stern steering light, included as you may encounter such a light shown at the stern of a vessel in convoy if you get to sea.
The test concluded with the familiar Opticians letter test board, reading at a given distance individual letters ranging from outsized to very small, first with one eye covered then the other, being a typical teen-age smart alec I quoted the bottom line, 'I asked you to start at the top sayeth the voice, sorry sir, hen ever so carefully going through the jumbled lines of letters to the last.
Duly issued with the Eyesight Test certificate, together with the bright red Seaman's Identity book numbers of which were to be recorded in the Discharge 'A' Certificate book, I was finally allowed to return to the college which by this time had long since closed for the day. Bright and breezy I reported on the appointed morning and entered as a Deck Officer Apprentice/Cadet in course No. 223, taken to the classroom, which was right at the top of the building, commanding an ideal view over the dock area.
Within a very short time it became obvious that this type of work was so vastly different from day school so recently and eagerly left behind, instead of being treated as school pupils we were now expected to be and behave as adults, this was quickly brought to the fore at 10 o'clock coffee break (or in college/merchant navy parlance 'smoke oh'), quick dash outside for those that wished to, and could afford it.
The work became progressively harder with a tremendous amount of home work which the tutors were exceptionally patient with, routine class work was all quite fascinating, interesting and very disciplined, a generous degree of tolerance for those finding the work difficult, to some students, the obscure but essential navigation problems were straight forward, others found such tasks beyond them, we only had a couple drop out of our year, in addition to the daily 9 to 4 lectures we were required to attend evening classes held in Victoria School, Newhaven, to absorb ship construction, stability and cargo stowage, it certainly was not a pleasure trip.
Friday afternoon became a form of compulsory P.E. games, except the sports were confined to 'Life-boat' drill - in later years at sea this same activity were indeed known as Board of Trade sports - before being allowed to join a ship, yet another certificate had to be obtained by deck candidates, that of a Lifeboatman, and being incorporated in the overall Cadet course our Friday afternoon became the vehicle for obtaining such necessary qualification, I enjoyed every minute of it; The college lifeboat was situated at the edge of the dockside wall, situated in the West Old Dock, a set of old style radial boat davits were fitted to the quayside, with a standard ships life-boat placed on the same kind of chocks as would be found on any ship, fully equipped and rigged, slung from conventional wood blocks and rope falls.
The drill being that it was to represent lowering, and recovering, a boat for real, having been charged to go straight to the boat station right after lunch break, in the beginning all us youngsters being keen to get afloat had the boat in the water, all ready to go, before m'tutor - Captain McKay - arrived and politely asked if we could let him see, from the beginning, the boat being lifted off the chocks and lowered correctly into the water, dutifully all hands, usually about eight of us, would hoist the boat back up to the davit head, swing it inboard and lower it back onto its cradle and felt proud when he declared that was first class, then go through the entire procedure again, once away we rowed with gusto and when conditions were favourable did a bit of sail work, little did we grasp that our worthy instructor knew to a fraction how long the afternoon exercise would take and would always arrange to arrive back in time to stow all the gear right on knock off.
On occasion when the lock gates to our wet dock were open we were allowed to venture out into the broader expanses of the dock complex, by the time reaching the outer pier ends we had to beat a hasty retreat back to our base, great fun and the amount of learning was easily absorbed in an effortless manner, there were no failures for the Life-boat certificate.
An interesting diversion came our way during a convenient holiday break from lectures, during our normal class studies we were privy to many items of classified information on the College notice board, 'Most Urgent' - M.O.W.T. urges each and every member of the Merchant Navy of all ranks and departments, to become a trained M.N. gunner - help save your shipmates and ship, usual current proficiency and victual allowance, - being constantly bereft of financial solvency, parent subsidised, we were always on the look-out to enhance our limited expendable income - even a bit roof top Air Raid fire-watching!, [most firms were obliged to have employees carry out the duties, who were generally glad to get a locum] for which the government paid an allowance to the individual, 2/6d (12.1/2p) per night plus camp bed, we usually were selected to be used as stand-in watchers for those having a night off.
The relevant Royal Navy gunnery training establishment being but a few minutes along the road found us rapidly enrolling under the guidance of an aged 'Pusser' Petty Officer, and equally smartly being accepted, an be eer' ait-or-clork sharp as like, Mun'mornin. Well, there we were being bundled in with battle hardened Atlantic or Murmansk convoy veterans of such dangerous voyages, but nobody asked questions, all being on the same side.
After reporting to the regulating Chief Petty Officer we were passed to the Chief Petty Officer gunnery instructor, of some twenty odd years regular Royal Navy and who knows how long in the reserve - my name is Ogden, 'enery, but you shall ha'dress me as chiefy. First morning was spent hearing about the various types of guns being fitted on board ships, mainly Lewis, single, twin and 303 rifles - yes gents, rifles, for ter be used in h'exploding floating mines, but we shall concentrate on our friend the Lewis co's thats wot you will av'e on board. Now gents this is your best fren on board yer ship, Lewis Mk V, this ere weapon has bin responsible for more aircraft losses by M.N. gunners than any other weapon - no mention, that at that time, no other weapons were generally available - our class of ten comprised of deck officers, the practical side consisted of learning how to strip the gun down to the last nut and bolt, then put it all together again, and being taught to load, aim, fire and clear simple blockages. The parts to be kept lubricated and most important of all, the ability to beg, borrow or scrounge spare Lewis gun bits from any source.
Second part of the course we were assigned to 'live ammunition' gunnery practise which was conducted at a quiet sea-side sand dune range some fifteen miles from our base, with the ever efficient instructor shepherding us on board an S.M.T. bus (didn't have coaches then) complete with trailer! - this transpired to be a gas generator to run the engine, the gas storage bag, rather like a mini-barrage balloon, was fitted on top where normally external luggage would have been stowed. The trailer, very similar to a small fire pump had a mini-boiler, the furnace being stoked with anthracite coal to make the propellant gas, the solid fuel was stowed in the rear boot of the bus.
Upon arrival at the firing range, strewn with huge concrete blocks - anti-invasion tank traps, yet another lecture on Lewis gun firing, this time at a target towed by a rather slow and quite old bi-plane, the actual target in the shape of a wind sock trailed a long way behind the plane, at a given signal the gun operator had to fire several quick bursts aimed a shade ahead of the target, the CPO in charge had a device similar in appearance to a boat-hook firmly attached the barrel of the Lewis gun, to prevent any trigger happy aspiring gunner from traversing the wrong way an so endanger the aircraft. Our personal 'shot' at firing only took a couple of minutes though it seemed much longer as the aircraft took ages to turn in a wide circle - we did learn later that the amount of ammunition was very limited so the whole exercise had to be rather stretched, then discussed in detail, with lunch in between - one bottle of beer, small, and one round of Spam sandwich (it was better than having to spend our 'lunch allowance'.
Time came to pack up and get back to base, shortly after leaving the bus driver pulled up in a convenient lay-by, very little civilian traffic to bother about, and told us the boiler needed stoking, well we young un's turned out to give a hand, the shovel wasn't much bigger than a domestic fire-side type, but we in our youthful exuberance soon filled the little furnace and had all the gauges dancing, thereby adding another aspect of life in the Merchant Navy, then continued on our way back to base, albeit at a pre-stage of such a worthy career.
Alas the gunnery course finished much too soon for us, even with another Certificate, no more free lunches or beer money, back to the grind of learning, after a supposed two week holiday, the time literally flew by, apply for jobs and scan the daily Royal Mail delivery; at last, a Shipping Company willing to entrust their vessel, well not exactly, they were acting on behalf of the Ministry of War Transport, it was rather akin to having just passed a car driving test, got a bit of paper to prove you can do it, so now you go out and really learn how to drive, long weary days at sea on a variety of ships did nothing to dampen my spirit, on and up that long wobbly ladder towards the top.