Joining a new ship was always an exciting event, but sailing wasn’t all a matter of battling the locals in foreign ports. There was also the music. Most of the ships I sailed on had a guitarist or two in the crew. Skiffle bands were soon formed, generally using a converted tea chest as the bass. We improvised using soap cans for drums. A great fun instrument we made was called a boomps-a-diddly. The contraption was made with a broom handle. It had nails driven into it. Each nail had been loosely driven through some metal bottle tops. The effect it produced was quite a loud clinking, shaky sound similar to a tambourine, when bounced up and down to the rhythm. There was always a singer or two on board; remember this was the age of Lonnie Donegan and Tommy Steele. We had some great nights often taking a turn to play our home made instruments and singing the pop songs of the day.
There were many and varied stories told of our Tommy Steele. He was a steward at sea for a while. Tommy often performed for the crew in the Pig and Whistle, as the ships bar was known. Legend has it that Tommy was always quite happy to perform a few numbers in the dockside bars while carousing ashore with his shipmates. In any event this proud Bermondsey boy was well thought of by his shipmates. And that is the premium accolade that can be bestowed on you as a seaman. Tommy left the sea and went on to pursue a show business career. He became an international success as a professional entertainer. We were all proud to claim him as one of us.
Other entertainment at sea was often provided by gay stewards. They seemed to have a knack of forming concert parties or duo’s and performing various little comedy and dance routines. They really came into their own on what was known as Channel Night. That was the term used to describe the time when a voyage was nearly completed by a British ship and we were safely home and back in, or closing on, the English Channel.
On the bigger ships with larger crews this night was celebrated with a party. There was always one for the crew members who had the good fortune not to be on watch and a separate one for the passengers. They were generally uproarious affairs. A happy spirit born of soon being home, seeing loved ones, family and friends after a long and sometimes arduous voyage pervaded the air. A newfound enthusiasm seemed to invade everyone, even the hardest cases on board. The celebration was usually held in the crew bar, the Pig and Whistle. The most famous one that I recall was on the Highland Brigade, a sister ship to the Highland Monarch. There were the usual early starters waiting for the bar to open and when it did a great cheer went up. Pints of McEwen’s Strong Scottish Ale were flowing. Laughter was beginning to burst out; enmities from the voyage were forgotten. Promises to meet up together for further voyages were solemnly declared. The Chief Officer and the Bosun weren’t such bad blokes after all. The ship’s cook had done his best. A popular Irish AB, his name really was Pat, was persuaded to sing and didn’t take too much persuading. He sang a medley of Irish songs, all the usual ones, with most of the gathering joining in. Pat had a warm voice and sang with pride and a tear in his eye. The challenge was set and there was a clamour to sing. The “Me next, me next,” call was echoing round the bar. It brought back to me a distant, but warm, memory of the classroom uproar of my childhood.
Next up by common consent was a humorous rendition of that famous Liverpool song I’ve mentioned, Maggie May. Not to be confused with the popular Rod Stewart version of today. It was led by a Scouser fireman who sang it as if he owned it, which to be fair, was how Scousers always did. As that finished the London boys immediately commanded the floor with Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner, which was always a favourite with everybody. Again all joined in. It seemed a singsong was the cure all for all ills in those days. Things were going well and Ginger, a real genuine Cockney boy by birth and by nature, jumped up on the hatch and sang the old Cockney classic, ‘My Old Man’. I think it was a song made famous by Flanagan and Allen, a wartime London duo. In any event Ginger sang it with great gusto and feeling. His performance wasn’t that great from a singing point of view, but it showed his pride in his heritage. That night I came to realise how important town and national identity songs are and why we cling to them. Some real pride became evident as they were sung and it was enjoyed right across the age groups. For me it was one of life’s important lessons learnt. As the singing began to subside a flurry of activity started on the back of the hatch.
A steward placed a Grundig tape recorder and player by a screen he had erected. With a fine stage presence he then quieted down the throng and introduced ‘The Swinging Sisters’. The music started and from behind the screen out danced three fully made up gay stewards in drag. They all had blonde wigs on, bras, flimsy skirts, stockings and suspenders. A great roar went up as they went into a dance routine. They danced and mimed to an old Andrews Sisters’ song. They were terrific. They were high-kicking and stepping. I’m sure they enjoyed it as much as we did. The catcalls and lewd shouts didn’t affect them, they just danced on. The electric atmosphere, the dance and the music built up to a crescendo. It finalised with them dropping off their skirts and then flipping backwards from bending over. Their pants or knickers now exposed were made from a Union Jack. The dance climaxed to a sign hoisted behind them that boldly proclaimed ‘Many a battle has been fought under this flag’. It would have been a showstopper in any venue, but here it was special. The cheers, clapping, whistling and laughter would have graced the Palladium. It was a Channel Night to stay in the memory of all who were there. The Swinging Sisters stopped for a drink and mingle. They were then herded up to the passenger’s party to perform again. Their act was received uproariously there as well. The Swinging Sisters efforts had provided a treat for all. They must have put long hours into the rehearsals. I think their routines did more to overcome the anti-gay prejudice of the time than any amount of politically correct ranting does these days.
I had many reasons to remember that particular Channel Night; apart from the Swinging Sisters and the singsong. That trip on the Highland Brigade was particularly memorable because on board with me was my friend, Bill Horwood, the Mill End boy whose clothing, confidence and appearance had so fortunately inspired me to join the Merchant Navy. There was another Mill End Boy sharing this trip with us. We had all by chance been paid off our last ships at about the same time and found ourselves at home in Mill End on shore leave together. We had gone out to a pub called The Fox and Hounds in Croxley Green. We had heard it was jumping and it really was. Bill Haley records were pumping away on a record player; one of the Croxley boys, Doug Joiner, used to take it there with his record collection. Doug was a steward, so we wouldn’t have run across him much at sea; however he was a good bloke, so the fact that he was a steward couldn’t be held against him. Fifty years later Doug and I met up again and become firm friends. We had both become members of the same golf club, West Herts, a fine members club in Croxley. That however is another story, so we go back to the matter at hand. We three had enjoyed such good times on the leave that we had decided to join our next ship together. The third member of the trio was another local boy and great friend of ours, Dave [Dinger] Singleton, who features significantly later in this tale. He was a guy who had the bottle to jump ship with me in Sydney and ringbolt to New Zealand. We did some tough growing up together. The streets of Sydney were pretty mean when you are a stranger, broke and nineteen. But those times hadn’t arrived yet; this was the Fox and Hounds night out. We were having a good time; the music and company were great, but there were no girls there, which didn’t suit us. The Croxley boys may well have been able to enjoy themselves without girls; and the fact that they could do that, though a cause for concern, is entirely a matter for them. We three Mill End boys however, had normal attractions for the opposite sex.
“Let’s go down to the Cart before it’s too late and all the crumpet’s been snaffled,” said a visibly concerned Bill.
“Yeah good move,” replied Dinger, “It’ll be swinging down there.”
So there was a sense of urgency as we left the Fox. Time, as they say, was of the essence. We were not sure how we would get to the Cart in time to hopefully interest three ladies and attract them to join us for further activities. Then it happened, as if by a miracle; in front of my eyes stood a gleaming Morris Minor with its driver’s door slightly ajar, inviting me in with keys in the ignition just waiting to be turned. I jumped into the driver’s seat and the lads followed me. I had only just learnt to drive and didn’t know the car but that wasn’t enough to stop me, so off we went. We careered back towards Ricky like a drunk and horny homing pigeon. The boys were really enjoying the ride. The traffic was so light that it should have been hard to have an accident; however, I managed to. We were having such a good time driving along that we had decided to pass up on the Cart. We had wheels; why not carry on to the Green Dragon in Denham, another honey pot for girls but rather more upmarket and harder to get to without transport. Dinger was very excited at the thought of some upmarket crumpet. He always had ideas above his station, which was probably brought about by his going to a posher school than vagabonds like Bill and me.
Picture the scene, a nice new motor and three healthy young fairly inebriated males. Each with those beautiful old-fashioned white fivers that really felt and looked like money in their pockets. White fivers that would be flashed around in pursuit of upmarket ‘totty’ in posh Denham. I think it was those thoughts that clouded my judgment. By now we were hurtling along the Main Road, eager to give the posh totty a chance and not be disappointed, by missing out on us. Bill and Dinger unfortunately were singing, both flat as pancakes. Frankie Lane’s ‘I Believe’ was well butchered. I was hunched over the wheel, like I was in the lead at Monza in a Formula One Ferrari, not an eight horsepower Morris Minor. Somewhere about ‘above the storm’ in Bill and Dinger’s rendition, our own storm struck. A Vauxhall car had pulled out of the Halfway House car park. It just shot out onto the road. Even with all my imagined skill, the crash couldn’t be avoided. “Hold on!” was all I had time to shout in the pre-seat belt era. Crash! We hit it in the rear driver’s side. The impact spun the Vauxhall around to face the other way. We had both stopped by now. The other driver, who was on his own, got out of his car, shouting. He wasn’t hurt. Not a word was required on our part; we climbed out of the car and all legged it in different directions. About half-an-hour later we all wandered into the Cart separately. The night was coming to an end and there were no unattached girls waiting for our arrival. We made the decision there and then. We would head up to the pool first thing in the morning and join a Highland boat so we could give those South American girls a treat. As a bonus we would also be out of the way of any repercussions that might arise from our purloining of the car. And that’s how we three came to be on the Highland Brigade together.
Anyway back to the cheery Channel Night. Lots of beer was downed, lifelong friendships were sworn and songs were sung. Stories of previous trips were swapped, sometimes, but very rarely, old disputes surfaced due to alcohol. They were never allowed to go on too long before a couple of the older AB’s stepped in and broke it up. Unfortunately this night it got a bit more serious. Somehow or other our Bill got into an argument with a belligerent Scottish greaser and in a flash punches were getting thrown. In the scuffle they crashed into a group of greasers. One of them started in on Bill as well from the side. Dinger quick as a flash nailed him; then for a couple of minutes it was on for young and old. Two or three of the deck crowd jumped in to help us as we were outnumbered by other greasers who had joined in. Luckily for all concerned, probably us the most, the Bosun and a couple of QM’s and two older AB’s broke it up before too much damage was done. Apart from Bill who had an enormous shiner. We all shook hands and got on with the party, which was a great one and all was forgotten and forgiven.
By now, I had become established as a seaman. I had done a run job over to Hamburg on the Melbourne Star; a run job generally refers to a short Continental trip. It took about three weeks and apart from the crossing, we were in dry dock all of that time. I took myself off to the bars in the Reeperbahn. It was as famous for the music there as it was for the red light houses. It was a pretty lonely time as short run jobs are usually the preserve of the married guys and they used to shun shore trips on run jobs for obvious financial and other, shall we say, more personal reasons. The Beatles played some of their early gigs in the clubs on that notorious street before they made the big time. The most notable thing that happened on that little trip was my meeting a nice German girl. She very kindly took me to her home to meet her mother and family and have a meal. Our brief, sweet little liaison lasted about two weeks and then sadly I had to sail off back to the UK. We had done the usual thing that teenagers do, we exchanged addresses and declared that we would like to see each other again and both promised to cause it to happen. Ich Liebe Dich. It was the first foreign phrase that embedded itself in me. She said it with much feeling. She later wrote to me what it meant. Life however was beckoning me on and as soon as I got back to England my old friend Dinger and I teamed up again.
As a result of some general carousing we decided to ship out again. What wonderful independence our chosen occupation gave us. We were still teenagers, but with this unique opportunity to travel, while fulfilling an important job. It may sound like we were frivolous and just there for the fun, but in fact you can believe me when I say British crews were very good and capable, with a well-disciplined work ethic. I speak for all the guys I sailed with, or went to sea school with, for all merchant seamen, when I declare that we may have been young, we may have played hard, but we knew our jobs and responsibilities at sea. We were well trained and we were proud to belong to that prestigious but now decimated British Merchant Navy. Sadly, it and the type of men it attracted are no longer wanted. Fortunately for us shipping was still in full swing in the late fifties and we were in demand. We could almost pick and choose where we wanted to go. Well, this was the case provided your discharge book was clean and contained no bad reports. The general rule of thumb was that the system allowed us to choose from three offers of ships; if you didn’t take one of those, the choice was lost and you had to go where sent.
On a fine early summer morning in July 1956 Dinger and I making our way to the shipping office at the Pool of London. We were both well in funds as we hadn’t been home long from previous trips. We treated ourselves to a taxi from Aldgate station down to the docks, but stopping in an East End café for breakfast, somewhere in or near the Commercial Road. With cash in our pockets our independence and appetites knew no bounds. The shipping office had all the usual suspects there. There were the smartly dressed, young ‘Teddy’ boy types, mainly deck crowd and stewards, probably seeking jobs to take them to New Zealand or South Africa. Then as always an older motley group who seemed the worse for wear from alcohol. They were mainly greasers, engine room staff. Where we were generally around our twenties, the engine room crew were always much older; I never worked out why that was. Our turn came up with the harassed clerk. We handed him our discharge books.
“Two OS’s,” said Dinger, “what’s on offer?”
We were offered a shell tanker; they always tried that one on. No thank you, one down, two to go. “How about this one, an Ellerman line ship to East Africa?” asked the clerk.
We looked at each other, “No thanks”.
We were both thinking that things weren’t going well. The clerk smiled a quite malicious smile. He has seen it all before. He felt very much in control now. I suppose in his job he saw guys like us picking and choosing where we would go in the world. While at the end of every day he probably hopped on his bike to an old terrace, or rooms, or got the tube home to the same old thing. Who wouldn’t be pissed off after arranging fascinating voyages to sun-kissed destinations for young, free guys all day long? He came back to us with a cunning look on his face.
“There is this ship; she usually sails out of Newcastle; she needs two ordinary seamen.”
Dinger asked where she was going.
The clerk made a big play of looking at his paperwork, “oh very good,” he said, “this is interesting; how do you two fancy a trip to Finland via Newcastle for a load of pit props?” We looked at each other. Not a lot of choice here, we nod; why not, the other two choices were worse, weren’t they?
“Okay then, get yourselves down to the Tate and Lyle sugar wharf. You’ll find the Sandhoe there. She’s due to sail for Newcastle in two days’ time and she’s already overdue.” As we left the office with the appropriate paper work, Dinger turned to me and said, “I think we got the best of a bad lot, besides I couldn’t put up with you for two years on a tanker.”
He delivered those lines with a worryingly straight face.
“I know what you mean,” I responded. “I wasn’t looking forward to getting you out of all that shit you would get yourself into in East Africa.”
I was hoping that exchange was a draw, but I think he got me. We made our way to the Connaught Arms, a popular seamen’s pub. Neither of us was ever a big drinker; but visiting these pubs around the docks was always an experience for us country boys and it was always likely you might run into an old shipmate. We chatted about the unknown Sandhoe. We were in no rush to get around to her, but at the same time we were keen to know more about her. All we knew at that stage was that she had just returned from the West Indies with a cargo of raw sugar, so she was berthed down by the huge Tate and Lyle’s processing plant in Canning Town, being unloaded. It slowly dawned on us that she had just carried a cargo of sugar from the West Indies and her next trip was going to Finland for a cargo of pit props. There was no doubt about it; she had to be a jobbing tramp. Let’s face it; we had committed ourselves to an old tramp steamer, worse still, out of Newcastle. Christ, that said it all; she would be rough and when we found her, we were right, she was.
The MV Sandhoe was, as we had suspected, an old type tramp steamer; she was only three thousand one hundred and seventy three tons. She plied her trade for her owners, Sharps Shipping Company, wandering the oceans, picking up cargoes wherever they were offered. Before the advent of ships with refrigerated holds and the development of regular food trade routes, the old tramp steamer was in its heyday. They were generally owned and operated by small companies. In our day they were rarely seen in the Royal London Docks. They were struggling to survive in the new world of co-ordinated, regular shipping schedules by much larger and more economic ships. They laboured on for a while until they were dealt the deathblow by the new frontier of shipping - containerisation. The age of the romantic tramp steamer, glorified in old black and white movies featuring ‘Humphrey Bogart’, ‘John Wayne’ and co., was dead. More’s the pity; something valuable died with them.
I can clearly remember standing on the Tate and Lyle wharf, looking at this rusty, run down ship. Her paint was fading; her decks and bulwarks were shabby. She reminded me of a sweet old working class lady in need of some TLC, trying to bravely face the end of her useful life. Her holds were open and dockers were busy unloading her raw bulk sugar with huge grabs, which swung from the arms of wharf cranes. We stepped aboard and found the Skipper in the officer’s mess. He was a gnarled old Tynesider who had spent his life on coasters and tramps and it showed in every line on his face and in every movement he made.
“So they’ve sent me a couple of cockneys,” was his opening gambit. To all Geordies anyone from the south near London was a ‘cockney’ and not well regarded. He studied our discharge books; we both had a few trips under our belts by then and there were no blemishes on our records.
“I see you’ve been good lads,” he said in his Geordie voice and I was expecting a burst of ‘Blaydon Races’ to follow. He looked at us, those deep lines on his face almost showing his thoughts. “Okay, you can sign on now, but you’ll find this a bit different from the posh ships I see in your books. We don’t stand on ceremony lads, I just want you to do your jobs, is that okay?”
“Yes, that’s okay,” I said.
“Right then, we sail for Newcastle the day after tomorrow. We’re there for a night then we’re off to Finland for a load of pit props.”
I should perhaps explain here, for the uninitiated, that pit props were lengths of lumber cut to size for use in coal mining tunnels. The Skipper stepped out of the mess and called out for the Bosun, who duly appeared. He must have been loitering nearby.
“Take these two and sort their cabins and watches, they turn to in the morning.”
With that the Bosun said “This way, boys.” and led us to the sparse bleak accommodation. Oh well, it’s only for a few weeks, so why not try something new and take advantage of this rare chance to see Finland? We turned to (started work, in sailor talk) the next morning. Our first jobs were battening down everything to make ready for sea. The discharging of the sugar had been completed late the night before; everybody had worked late to achieve that. We hosed down the decks and bulwarks; they were coated with a sticky film of raw sugar. The speedier unloading allowed us to sail a day early, so that afternoon we slipped the moorings and made our way down the Thames. It was about four o’clock and we had got clear of the Estuary. Southend was well astern of us.
How strange it was for me whenever I passed that iconic landmark while at sea; memories flooded my mind of childhood trips there. They were usually on coaches, but on one memorable occasion we made the trip on the Royal Daffodil from Tower Bridge. That outing was with another Mill End family, another lot of Horwoods; Mill End was full of them. They had a boy of my age we called Binga; he grew up a typical Mill-Ender and was involved in many of the skirmishes we got ourselves into and in true local fashion he never backed down. As I recall it, Dad had bagged a biggish win on the greyhounds. In my mind I saw myself again standing on that long pier on my own, while the other kids’ interests were in the rides and excitement of the famous Southend Kursaal. I was captivated watching the ships slowly disappearing from view and fascinated by where they were going. Treasure Island, Mutiny on the Bounty, Horatio Nelson, Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian and the like had been my staple reading diet. It was at that point that I believe the sea cast its magic spell on me. Now it was my lot to be on those ships that seemed to disappear so mysteriously over the horizon. The smoke from their funnels charting a trail to a destination that presented such a mystery to the observer on land.
The all-important job of allocating the watches had been tasked by the Bosun; fortunately I’d had a bit of luck in pulling the four-to-eight, the favoured watch. I went up to the bridge to relieve the last helmsman from the twelve-to-four, known as the ‘graveyard’. The Skipper and Chief Mate were both there; the Pilot had been dropped off. The helmsman I was relieving advised me of the course, which would take us into the North Sea. The Sandhoe operated on the old magnetic compass, not the easier modern ‘gyro’.
“Steering North Nor’ East,” I repeated to him, as was required to be done whenever the helmsman was changed. Another trip was underway, another experience awaited and it was comforting to be sharing it with an old friend from my hometown. Newcastle here we come. I was looking forward to the stop in Newcastle; it was an opportunity to look up some relatives I hadn’t seen since I was seven or eight years old. Late in the following day we found ourselves nosing up the Tyne, that river so revered by Geordies. In those days of busy shipping the major shipbuilding yards on the river, which along with coal mining, provided most of the work and financial opportunities in and around Newcastle. It was this mighty Tyne, the ‘god of all’, that was the vital link, which for centuries had powered the economy, enabled growth and promoted the prestige of this very northern city.
My knocking on that familiar door reverberated around an old terrace tenement in Byker. I remembered it well as my mother had brought us all there just after the war. We had stayed for quite some time, being boarded around various ‘aunties’. My grandfather, ‘Sammy Gilchrist’, was a bit of a legend in the area, sadly for the wrong reasons. Many of his antics are recorded in a book, A Shieldfield Childhood, published by the Newcastle City Libraries and Arts Department and written by Joe Hind, a very distant relative. Grandfather, Sammy Gilchrist, apparently was one of those nuisance drunks whose actions caused discomfort and havoc all around them. The tales about him and his exploits are legendary. They range from pub fighting with only one arm to womanizing and verbal abuse. Old Sam had been badly injured in the First World War while serving in the Northumberland Fusiliers. He had lost an arm, he had a steel plate in his head, he had lost an eye in the, ‘Battle of the Somme’ and add to all that the fact that he had been gassed, you begin to see him sympathetically. In those days there was no, or very little, support to assist the returned soldiers, wounded or otherwise. So I guess with all that he suffered it’s reasonable to excuse his erratic and brawling behaviour. It was popularly held in Byker and in family folk law that he was to be recommended for the VC. It was bitterly unfortunate that the senior officer, whom he had rescued in combat, where he had received his multiple wounds, was later killed in a subsequent battle before his recommendation and report could be posted and actioned. Such is life, though one wonders what changes and benefits that fateful death of the officer destroyed for Sammy and his direct family.
Sammy appeared at the door. He was wearing an old grey collarless heavy shirt that was tucked into a pair of blue serge trousers, held up by a pair of stout old khaki army braces. The whole attire topped off with a flat cap, the type that was the Geordie badge of office. I thought it was probably the same one he had worn nine or ten years previously. I went to speak, but before I could he said, “Bonnie lad, you’re Sarah’s boy.”
His loss of an eye and the addition of a steel plate hadn’t interfered with his memory; I was both impressed and flattered. Dinger and I followed him inside. It was dark and gloomy, as it always had been, but childhood innocence shields you from such unpleasantness. As a young man my vivid memory of this place, with its outside shared toilet, was now matched by its gloomy reality. My grandmother, who had been chair bound, had spent agonising years here. In my mind’s eye I could see her sat in that great chair, often given to crying. Then I realised it must have been with frustration at the stunted life she was forced to live. I sensed immediately the reason behind my mother’s early flight to the south, for release from what must have been such a miserable situation. Not just brought about by the primitive living conditions, but also by the depressing penury that surrounded this abode. I gave old Sammy a few quid and left, not sadder, but definitely wiser. In a way it was like burying a ghost and I never returned there. The visit had explained a lot of unsaid things that had sullied our lives as children. But now as a seaman I had created the opportunity to move on and not be bound by the ramifications of the past, in the same way as my mother had done before me.
On the trip up through the North Sea, we discovered that the Sandhoe was the very worst sea ship we had ever had the dubious pleasure of sailing on. Her steering response was slow, she yawed very badly to starboard and so to keep her steady you had to hold a permanent half turn on the wheel. In a way it was lucky we had that early opportunity to learn how to steer her, before we had to navigate across the North Sea, then up through the Skagerrak and then turn down the Kattegat, a testing stretch of water. Fortunately it was in the northern summer and storms were less frequent. The next hurdle was the big one though; we had to negotiate the very difficult island studded waters of the channel separating Denmark’s Copenhagen, from Sweden’s Malmo. It’s as tricky a stretch of water to pass through as any in the world. The old Geordie skipper never left the wheelhouse while we were manoeuvring through that difficult channel. As we steamed through it sometimes appeared that we were heading to beach on one of the Islands, a gap would then appear where we had to take on that hazardous pass to the Baltic Sea. Once through we then had to beat our way north up to the ‘Gulf of Bothnia’ and on again, sailing up Finland’s west coast and to a welcome sanctuary in the bay close to where the town of Jakobstad was situated. Tranquillity and almost permanent day time; these were the pleasures in being so far north in the summertime. We were enjoying something like twenty-two hours of daylight. It was very strange, but as a consequence of that the night times were gloriously light and peaceful. Jakobstad was set in a beautiful picturesque area of Finland. Perhaps the whole country’s like that. The town in those days was small and most folk seemed to know each other and they were friendly and happy. Over the course of the few days we were in that small town, we became quite well known. The bar we frequented was always pleased to see us; we spent our money and were no trouble. Well actually Finnish beer at the time was so weak you’d have had to drink an awful lot to get yourself ready for trouble. We worked all day helping the local stevedores load the pit props and our main job was to assist the Second Mate with making sure they were stowed securely.
Everything was going along smoothly; we spent our time in the same bar most nights. Then out of the blue, completely from left field, trouble struck us. It was entirely unprovoked by us and did not involve any of the locals. The troublemakers were a group of Finnish lumberjacks who had come into town for some sort of celebration. Apparently they had been out in the forest for quite some time working and for them it was party time. The only problem was that the local girls preferred us, more gentle young foreign souls. And there weren’t enough of them to go around for us, let alone them. One of the age-old causes of war was about to be launched and it was no place for the faint hearted. This didn’t go down too well with the bar owner who could see what was coming and was exceedingly concerned about what might happen to his bar. His sensible move was to immediately try to close up for the evening. The lumberjacks, however, who had brought their own drink with them, (it was some sort of firewater), were well liquored up by now and were not about to go anywhere. I don’t know if it was fortunate, or unfortunate, but there was a wild redhead engineer with us (I think he was Irish). He was also very boozed up from drinking on the ship, prior to coming ashore. He was actually a very aggressive character, who had been pushing for a fight with us a couple of times; but none of us wanted to take him on. Not so the lumberjacks. It didn’t take long and off it went; the engineer was embroiled with a couple of the Finns. He was doing okay, but they started to get at him. We didn’t like him and didn’t really want to get in this; we were severely outgunned, by weight, age and numbers.
Our girls were trying to get us out of there and we were all for going when it spilt over as one of the Fins threw a bottle and hit one of our lads on the head with a glancing blow. The die was cast; there was no choice now. It completely erupted; tables and chairs were smashed and thrown. It was more like a gigantic wrestling match involving everybody and it was going badly for us until, believe it or not, the girls joined in. Now the Finns really are very nice people and there was no way that they could hit or hurt the girls, who were shouting abuse at them and attacking them alongside of us and were probably doing more damage, I’m embarrassed to say. In any event their actions stopped us getting a severe thrashing; of that I’m sure. Unfortunately, although in hindsight it might have been fortunate, the riot police arrived just about then. They sailed into the Finns with their battens and they didn’t hold back; it was brutal. They had obviously had trouble with this group before. They started throwing the lumberjacks into the ‘paddy wagon’ and they quickly got them all locked up. We thought, that’s it, we’re okay; let’s carry on with the girls. Oh no, life isn’t as easy as that; there is always a surprise around the corner. The police were standing in the road and seemed to be having a conference and they appeared to reach some sort of agreement. With that they turned around and grabbed the red headed Irishman and put him in the back of a car. As they did that two of them collared me and put me in the car with him. It was a case of they had to have transgressors from either side and for some reason I had been picked on as the support act to the redhead Irishman.
So that’s how life is, you have to take the good with the bad, only this time the bad was very bad. The Finnish police must have had training in ‘corrective treatment’, or maybe this crew suffered from a twisted sense of humour. In their wisdom, complete with stifled chuckles, they put me in a cell with another drunken Finnish lumberjack, luckily not one of the group who had been in the bar brawl. However, notwithstanding that, it still didn’t make for a very comfortable night. This guy was right off his tree with whatever this local firewater was that they seemed to get hammered on. He spent half the night crashing around the cell yelling, then singing and kicking the door. He would then turn his attention to me, glaring at me and spouting unintelligible words. He was huge, well over six feet, very burly and a nutter. I can’t say it was the best free nights’ lodging I ever enjoyed; but I can say this, if it was meant as a deterrent, it worked. I am not saying I went in there as a lion, far from it, but I certainly came out next morning like a lamb, to the huge mirth of the station police. There again so did the redheaded Irishman. He was very subdued for the rest of the trip, which almost made the night in the station worthwhile; actually, on reflection, it didn’t.
The remainder of that trip was uneventful, which really suited me. The old Sandhoe was completely loaded out with the pit props, the holds were full and we had secured them as deck cargo as well. They were stacked and belted up to and above the ship’s side rails. We had to walk across them, to get the fo’csle head and also the poop deck astern. We must have looked like a floating timber yard. I must hand it to the Skipper; he knew his job and had carefully planned the loading, particularly the deck cargo stacking. The thing was he also worked at it himself, he left nothing to chance. Even though she was a scruffy little tramp, she had the benefit of a top-flight skipper. Luckily the return trip was blessed with glorious weather, so apart from the cranky steering, we enjoyed the trip back to Newcastle. We tied up in one of the Tyne docks and were paid off in North Shields. We could have stayed on for another trip and we were asked to, which wasn’t bad for a couple of southerners. So there it was, another voyage completed, another country visited and a completely new experience of ships, so life’s learning curve was being attended to.
We didn’t hang around in Newcastle; we had plans which included a couple of local girls back in Ricky and our home town in summer was a really nice place to be. Even more so if, like us, you had some leisure time available and money in your pocket. At that time the ship owners paid us off with those big old fashioned white fivers. They really felt and looked like money and possession of them increased the feeling of wellbeing. Significantly at that time, I came to realise that I had achieved what I set out to do. I remembered the time that with envy I had seen Billy Horwood, strolling through Ricky High Street looking tanned, confident and without a care in the world. My envy had caused me to pledge myself to follow Bill and aspire to that same situation. I felt a glow of real accomplishment inside. I had done it and in the process improved my life and sense of worth. This new life had bought me great options, which had not been thought of or available to me before that fateful meeting with Bill. I think that meeting was an early and very timely crossroad in my life.