Open Writing

I spent three years at sea on ocean liners with the Union-Castle Line sailing around Africa. I made my first four complete voyages on the mail ship Stirling Castle, sailing between England and South Africa. The same captain and purser were there for all four as well as most of the other officers. It was a very happy ship with a great atmosphere. Each of those trips had something special or unusual about it. One time, the engineers made a small mistake when filling the indoor First Class Swimming Pool, positioned one deck below the First Class Saloon. Instead of using seawater pumped in from the ocean, they took bunker oil from our own double bottom tanks. This made a fair mess before it was noticed and the pumping reversed. The pool was closed for days while some poor person had to scrub it clean and remove all traces of oil, and fill it again with seawater.

Another time, while 'swinging round the hook' in Mossel Bay, unloading cargo into lighters and passengers by wicker basket onto the waiting tugboat, on the starboard side, some of the crew noticed a very large shark idly swimming close to the ship on the port side. The water was so clear and calm, it was easy to look straight down and see it lazily turning this way and that, even if his dorsal fin did not break the surface. Someone went off and came back with a big piece of meat from the galley, together with a rope and a large hook. But try as he might, he could not get the shark interested in taking the bait and after cruising around us for quarter of an hour or more, the shark left to explore other more interesting things.

I have two separate, clear memories of Durban. One was the noise we endured when they decided to chip old paint off the side of the ship. This mainly happened in Durban when we would rarely have any passengers aboard. Teams of workers would be hung over the side on platforms and they would attack the hull with small, sharp hammers. This could last for hours before they repainted the exposed patches. Another time, an accident occurred on the quayside alongside us when a dockworker fell from one level to the next on the tiered loading platforms. Our doctor and nurse ran to the site the moment the Bridge called them, and the man was tended on the quay until an ambulance arrived to take him to hospital. Later, the workers assembled to express their extreme thanks for the speed and nature of the support given by the ship to their man.

Other instances involved stowaways and DBSs. Our ships were an attractive target for stowaways, particularly failed immigrants who wanted to get home. Usually they would be found within 48 hours of sailing when they became hungry and had to find food. When uncovered they were put in the isolation hospital, under guard by the Master-at-Arms and kept locked up till we next reached port. After that they might be returned by the next ship or arrested by police when we finally docked, depending on the circumstances.

Sometimes a crew member would miss their ship, occasionally through illness or accident, other times because they were drunk and lost track of time. Mostly they would not be taken back on board when that ship returned and so needed to be sent home to England. The British Consul in each overseas port had an arrangement with British ship owners to cover such occasions. The crew member would be placed on the next available British ship heading for England in a category called 'Distressed British Seaman', or DBS. They would be fed and allowed reasonable freedom in the crews' quarters, but no work or wages, and landed on arrival.

© Rodney Gascoyne