1957 Christmas Vancouver BC


I have heard from Davy Makin and Vic Pitcher this Christmas season. They are old shipmates and I spent Christmas with them in Vancouver BC sixty-one[61] years ago in 1957. Actually I have known David for  71 years because he too came from Bath and we were Catholic children being educated by Nuns of the French order La Sainte Union when we met.
Earlier that year [1957], in May, we had joined the tramp-ship “Bradford City” in London. [ If any of you have seen the TV drama called “Call the Midwife” we were moored where you see a two funnel ship in the opening scenes.] I had been promoted to Third Mate, I was 19 years of age, David Makin [same age] was the Senior Apprentice, and Victor Pitcher [17] an Apprentice. My best friend [God love his soul] also 19 years old, and my shipmate on the “Fresno City,” joined the “Queen City” as Third Mate in London at the same time. His ship was crewed with Lascars [Indian Seamen].  We sailed away around the world as usual.
I say usual but that wasn’t quite true the Captain was an alcoholic and oftentimes mad as a hatter. For example he had a gun, a Colt Woodsman semi automatic handgun that held twelve 0.22 rounds, and one day released the cook’s pet pig and tried to kill it with everyone ducking for cover! The crew were a rough bunch, and one took a swing at me with a crowbar so I broke a rib for him. Fortunately we had really competent First Mate, Barclay Thomas, from South Wales. He was competent and tough we became friends and I later sailed with him again under better circumstances.
Anyway by November we had just finished discharging coal from Newcastle in Australia in Kawasaki, Tokyo Bay. And so we set off for Canada crossing the North Pacific in the depths of winter a distance roughly 4,700 miles if you go north about and ride the Kuro Siwo or Black Stream. The passage we made, just south of the Aleutian Islands, was bitterly cold with howling gales for over three weeks to get to Vancouver. During that time we had to clean the ship from coal dust etc and erect shifting boards and feeder bins. We were to load wheat for Europe in Canada.  The majority of that hard dangerous work was undertaken by the apprentices and myself, 17/19 years of age, and the Mate. I do not think that I have ever been so cold as on that voyage. Our hands were both calloused and blue black.
Vancouver was great, we had a brief refit in the Burrard Dry Dock before the relatively quick process of loading prime Canadian hard wheat for England. The two places to welcome young seafaring lads were the Stella Maris and the Flying Angel, the first was the Catholic Club and the second the Church of England Mission to Seamen. Sometimes there were dances with chaperones on hand but always tea and tab nabs [cakes] served by kind ladies in floral frocks. On Sundays we would go to Mass in the morning and Evensong late in the day. We had a beautiful supper on Christmas Eve at the Stella Maris.
Davy Makin fell in love with the C of E Padre’s daughter Susie, an absolutely vivacious bustling lass with auburn/red hair who was totally unaware of her charm. She was a gem and loved the company and life in general, she would be about sixteen I guess.  Anyway poor David had to worship from afar and he was sad when we sailed out for Panama and Europe. It did not help him that everyone knew he was smitten with Susie and insisted on singing the popular song from October that year *Wake up Little Susie” by the Everly Brothers.
Me? I was happy, very happy, after all I was sailing homeward bound to marry my Tina in May 1958.      


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AN ISLAND NATION

Image
AN ISLAND NATION Island Nation or EU satellite state? Last night Jeremy Paxman, on the 19th May 2016, presented an objective view of the European Union. It is clear that the EU intends becoming a federal state and that the United Kingdom would become subsumed into that bureaucratic nightmare. I give you an alternative - the open sea  and the Commonwealth. We are an island nation off Europe but not part of Europe.The Commonwealth needs us and we most certainly need them - they are the World. It is not a pipe dream, the building blocks are still there - just - and it is predicated on the following :- “The Charter brings together the values and aspirations which unite the Commonwealth - democracy, human rights and the rule of law - in a single, accessible document. The Charter expresses the commitment of member states to the development of free and democratic societies and the promotion of peace and prosperity to improve the lives of all peoples of the Commonwealth. The Cha
Read more

Where You Stand and Prejudice (2016)

Where you stand and prejudice. I  have written before on the Newfoundland aphorism of “where you stand depends where you sit.” With that saying in mind here are some of my thoughts on that most contentious of subjects - prejudice, -  racial or ethnic, take your choice.  I look to where I came from, my origins, and then look at what affects my life today.  I come to the inevitable conclusions that prejudice is illogical , not Christian, and most certainly not productive.   My Grandfather, William Hogan, and Grandmother, Mary Ellen, were part of the Irish diaspora that took place in the latter part of the 19th Century. William Hogan was born in 1857 in Cappoquin and Mary Ellen in 1860 in Cork. The Great Irish Famine took place over the years 1845 - 1852 when approximately one million died; the Irish population fell by 25% due to death and emigration. Ireland’s rural population had rapidly grown in the Nineteenth Century. This was because a large family was an insurance of continued
Read more

I was called a Flat Earther

Image
Gordon Brown called me a "Flat Earther" FPI trawler in ice. In December 2009 the Prime Minister, Mr.Gordon Brown, called me a "Flat Earther". His remarks were pointedly directed at anyone who harboured any scepticism of Climate Change and that included me. Now I am a retired Master Mariner so that epithet seemed somewhat silly as I have spent a life time sailing over the horizon and not falling over the edge of the world. Anyway I have decided to briefly write about my experieces at sea and let you judge me and tell me if I deserve the sobriquet "Flat Earther". In 1954 my Father indentured me to Sir William Readon Smith & Sons of Cardiff, tramp ship owners, as an Apprentice Deck Officer. I was just sixteen years of age. My life long affair with weather and climate started at the same time as my voyage to command and management in shipping. I was eight years with tramp ships, man and boy, and sailed away for anything up to a year circling th
Read more