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A Mystery Voyage with the Bank Line:IntroductionHaving spent three years at the London Nautical School and after taking the General Certificate of Education in six subjects, including Navigation and Seamanship, the next step was to go to sea. It was first necessary to pass a full medical examination and eyesight test. To avoid oil tankers and experience worldwide trading, I signed indentures in 1955 at the age of 16 with Andrew Weir's Bank Line and joined, as the junior of three apprentices, a brand-new ship M.V. Foylebank at Harland & Wolf's shipyard in Belfast for a five-month trip to U.S. Gulf ports, Australia, South Sea Islands and home. When we were in Houston, Texas, we were berthed next to an old Bank Line Liberty ship (generally referred to as Sam boats) the Ivybank, loading a similar assortment of cargo for Australia. We exchanged visits and their junior apprentice went back along the quay crying after seeing our new and much nicer accommodation and facilities. I wrote to my parents that “the ship (Ivybank) was the worst I had ever seen. It was absolutely filthy and the quarters were just shocking. I hope I never see her again in my lifetime.” So, you can imagine my thoughts, when after three weeks leave over the New Year period 1955/56, I received orders to take the train to Hull and join the S.S. Ivybank, that had followed us back from Australia with a bulk cargo of ore of some kind. On the train I met two of the other apprentices joining, the 18-year-old senior apprentice, Terry, was an old London Nautical School boy, as also was the first trip junior apprentice, Tony, an old form-mate who had stayed on at school for an extra 6 months. The second apprentice, John from Dover, joined later and was a year senior to me. The overnight (non-sleeper) train arrived in Hull at about 5am and we had to kick our heels in the cold until 7am when the nearby seamen’s club opened so that we could get a hot drink and some breakfast As soon as they opened for the day we made the required visit to the company’s agent in the fabulously named “Land of Green Ginger” where we were given the location of our ship and found her high out of the water with a perilously steep gangway to lug up all our gear. The joining date was 18th January 1956.We later discovered that the ship was launched as W. Walter Husband at Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard Inc. Baltimore, completed as the Samyork on 10.01.1943, bareboat chartered to the British Ministry of War Transport and managed by Andrew Weir & Co Ltd. The ship was purchased by the Bank Line in 1947 and renamed Ivybank. Her gross tonnage was 7,256 and her dimensions were 423.9’ x 57’ x 34.8’ . She had a triple expansion 3-cylinder steam engine giving a service speed of 10 knots, oil fired boilers, steam auxiliaries and steam winches on deck. The SAM name used on many of these ships came about not because of ‘Uncle Sam’ but because it referred to the initials of the chosen design of ‘Superstructure Aft of ‘Midships’. Most Bank Line ships accommodated the crew either forward in the foc’sle on the older ships and aft on the newer tonnage. On Liberty Ships all the Officers and crew lived amidships in the one accommodation block and on entering at main deck level, you were initially conscious of the distinctive smell of steam escaping from the engine room and that special charismatic aroma coming from the Indian crew quarters – and, presumably, a mixture of the various oils they used on themselves and the curry and spices used in the galley. The ship’s complement was composed of mainly British officers, with a Lascar crew, who were the usual mix in those days of a few younger Indians (Hindu) and a lot of East Pakistani’s (Muslim), all recruited in Calcutta and who were, in general, a very good crew being always sober, steady and reliable. Once on board the ship, the two senior lads took the forward starboard cabin on the main deck which was a large room next to the dining saloon and with the apprentices’ toilet and shower a little way down the alleyway. Us two juniors found we had a double-berth cabin one deck up on the boat deck with two small rear facing portholes over the main galley and engine room skylights. We discovered that this small cabin was known as the ‘iron lung’ and was fine in the cold weather of the European winter, with a radiator, leaking steam, providing excess warmth but as we travelled into warmer weather, we found out why it had acquired its nickname. There were however two wide curtained and comfortable bunks with spring mattresses on top of a further sprung frame, a wash hand basin, a short daybed/settee and two wardrobes, but no desk on which to study or write at.Repositioning Voyage (January 1956)We were a further three days in Hull before proceeding to Antwerp to finish discharging, leaving on 26th January, bunkering at Flushing in snowstorm, and then making a light-ship re-positioning passage across the Atlantic Ocean, bound for Galveston in Texas to take up the regular US Gulf to Australia/New Zealand service; but where we went after that was anyone’s guess. The Captain had chosen a great-circle route, which took us further north in the notorious Atlantic Ocean in the middle of winter, so that when we met the not unexpected westerly gales, the ship had to proceed at a much reduced speed and rolled un-mercilessly for days on end making it very difficult to move around or even sleep.We had lost one of our Quartermasters through illness in Antwerp and they worked watch and watch, four hours on and four hours off. It was decided that two of us apprentices would alternately cover the steering and lookout duties of this one man with us working 4 hours on and 12 off and with the spare time designated to get on with our correspondence course studies, weather and lack of a desk permitting. On the bridge this meant hand steering as there was no such thing as an Auto-Pilot on standard liberty ships and in fact there was little or no navigational equipment of any kind - that worked. There was no gyro compass, only a steering compass in the wheelhouse and a standard compass above on the ‘monkey island’ – and they were both magnetic and had to be constantly checked for error. There was a depth sounder that, when working, was unreliable and a radio direction finder that was also very difficult to get an accurate result from. There was of course no radar, so it was all down to sun and star sights with a sextant, when the sky was clear enough to see them and daily time signals to ensure the chronometer error was known accurately, from which, in concert with sextant observations, our longitude could be calculated.Eventually we got into calmer weather off Miami and as we were steaming past the Florida Keys, the 4th Engineer caught his thumb in a fan belt and chopped it off. We closed in to Key West and a boat came out to take him off. He was lowered on a suspended hatch-board into the boat and taken to hospital. He was later paid off in the USA and repatriated to the UK and the Chinese fitter we carried was temporarily promoted to take his place. US Gulf New Zealand Line (February 1956)After a 22 day-passage we arrived at Galveston and went straight into the dry dock for 2 days of sandblasting and then painting the underside of the ship followed by a further twelve days for repairs and survey work. Thence over to the other side of the waterway to load bulk sulphur into four of the lower holds. This is done by cranes with grabs feeding into a hopper down to a conveyor belt leading to a directional chute and into the holds in turn at about 1,000 tons per hour. There is a lot of sulphur dust floating about which dries up any spots you have and tarnishes your uniform buttons and braid if exposed. It can also ignite if a spark is caused by metal contacting metal. The worse thing though is that the dust gets into your eyes and when you turn in, it stings until you are able to cry it out – we later found face down with a towel is best. We then proceeded to Beaumont, St Rose and New Orleans to load case-oil and general cargo for New Zealand . Our passage through the Panama Canal was as always very interesting and an opportunity for a good washdown of the ship using the fresh water from the Gatun Lake as we passed through.After Panama, with the weather becoming increasingly hot and sticky, we were given permission to move from the ‘iron lung’ to a larger, spare 2-berth cabin on the bridge deck, with the Captain and the Radio Officer as near neighbours. This cabin was cooler with a side porthole and also a proper desk. Our voyage across the Pacific was fairly uneventful – water rationing was necessary and the crew had to pump their allowance of 2 buckets per person under the control of one of us apprentices. As their buckets were old 5-gallon paint drums in the main, it is arguable that water might have been saved by not rationing it as they would not laboriously hand pump more than their immediate needs . Once again, the Captain chose a great circle route - this time down into the southern-ocean – which, although technically shorter in distance, meant meeting heavier weather and consequently less speed. Passages to Australia usually took a course through the tropical south-sea islands to keep in the generally good weather for as long as possibleSome 37 days after leaving New Orleans and 30 days out from Panama we arrived at Port Chalmers which is some 16 miles from Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand. There was a large rock face overlooking the harbour with a multitude of ship’s names painted- on, some quite elaborately necessitating a number of men and special staging and equipment. There were no Bank Line ship’s names and so, with the Chief Officer’s blessing, I took a brush and a pot of paint to rectify matters in 3-foot high letters which, sadly, proved to be hardly visible from a distance.Our next port of call was Lyttleton and by this time the orders had been received that we were to load a full cargo grain of in Australia for India and so no short trip this time. A new 4th Engineer, called Fred, joined the ship to replace the man we lost in New Orleans. He is originally from Tyneside and his parents emigrated to New Zealand some years earlier. We crossed the Cook Strait and arrived in Wellington to find that as a result of the large number of ships in port, that there was no dock labour available and the officers and crew were thus permitted to discharge the cargo, as long as they were paid shore wages. We apprentices were given the tip to volunteer to be in the receiving gang on the dock-side as the wages were then paid out ashore, whereas those working on board had their money paid through the Master or Chief Officer, where it was, perhaps mischievously, suggested that ‘shrinkage’ could occur. The result of all this, we were told, was a port unloading record for case oil, an occurrence which was rather frowned on by the wharf delegates when known. As my 1st year wages (pocket money?) were only just over ?7 per month, the ?12 shore wages earned in a week allowed me to buy some much needed items. While on the New Zealand coast we have seen the Ericbank (Sam boat), Levernbank (1925 vintage) and Fleetbank new in 1953).In both New Zealand and Australia at this time, public houses could open at 6am and had to close at six in the evening, resulting in what was known as ‘the 6 o-clock swill’, with only one hours drinking time possible for the average working man. Petrol pump type hoses and large jugs were necessary to cope with the demand. However, it was I believe possible to be served alcohol in a hotel with a meal during the evening. The large passenger/cargo vessel Rangitoto (21,809 gross tons) of NZ shipping Co. was also berthed in Wellington and on board was another of our London Nautical form-mates who after taking Navigation and Seamanship along with his other GCE’s had had the misfortune to fail his eyesight test and on the rebound, having been too late to apply for an assistant purser’s position, was working as a junior steward and sharing an 8-berth inside cabin with a bunch of larrikins. Not an ideal situation for advancement we thought.Having completed discharge in the fine city of Auckland we steamed across the Tasman Sea, and the engineers were told to open her up on the last part of the passage and the ship was reportedly doing 13.5 knots. We docked initially in Melbourne to fit wooden shifting boards and feeders to all the hatches, a necessary precaution with grain cargos to prevent movement, and then moved down the River Yarra to Geelong to load through chutes, similar to those used to load sulphur, which can direct the grain into all the corners.Charter Repositioning Voyage to India (May 1956)Our Captain, who comes from Ulster, runs a ‘dry ship’ and sells no beer or spirits to the officers who then have tended to go ‘off the rails’ in port. In addition, the Captain and the three Deck Officers had a ‘clash of personalities’ which has now resulted in a number of personnel changes, as agreed with the company’s Australian Superintendent. The Chief Officer has been exchanged with his opposite number on the Shielbank. The 2nd Officer has been dismissed and will be sent home as a DBS (distressed British seaman) and the 3rd Officer, who went missing for four days in Melbourne, has had his future prospects seriously discussed, but is still with us. The new Chief Officer (Mr. Hanson) is an older Yorkshireman and seems a decent type and we also have a new 2nd Officer whose name I cannot recall. Many years later I was delighted to find out that the 2nd Officer who was dismissed, subsequently rose to the highest position in a most prestigious shipping organisation.The Chief Officer has decided that he needs the senior apprentice on watch with him as his ‘eyes’ and each of the other three in turn will do the Quartermaster’s duties for a week about on a 4-hours on and 4 hours off routine, as the Indian QM’s do - which I have to say we found excessively tiring. The two apprentices not steering were on daywork. The Captain also decided that two bunks from the ‘iron lung’ cabin should be installed in the large apprentices cabin on the main deck so that there were now four of us in the one cabin which made it difficult to avoid disturbing watchkeepers trying to sleep during the day with day workers changing for meals and sleeping at night when the watchkeeper was called. Fully loaded, we bumped our way slowly through the rough winter weather of the Australian Bight round to Fremantle in Western Australia to take on bunkers, water and stores and then off again through the much more pleasant Indian Ocean to Vishakhapatnam (AKA Vizag for short) which is about half way up the eastern half of India; where we shall lighten ship enough to be able to proceed up the River Hooghli to Calcutta. We arrived at Vizag. at sunset and were required to anchor-off overnight. Soon after it got dark, a gentle land breeze had sprung up and began wafting the mysterious, perfumed scents of the orient in our direction and so, it was a big disappointment next morning to find a sun-baked, unpleasant and smelly place in the reality. Like everyone, seeing India for the first time, I was initially appalled at the poverty of so many people and what an awful life they have to endure. The ship was a week discharging her part cargo of grain with frequent monsoon rain delays. Indian - African Line 1 (July 1956) The news we were dreading has come through that after discharging in Calcutta, removing our shifting boards and feeders and getting repairs carried out, we were to take over the Forresbank’s place on the Indian African line and so a long trip has become very much more on the cards. On arrival at Calcutta we went from the river into Kidderpore Dock and was a week there discharging the grain. To load for East Africa we have to go out into the river and tie up to special mooring buoys and, as it is a time when a tidal bore may be expected, all sorts of extra provisions have to be made using sections of the anchor cables to secure to the buoys fore and aft , and huge ‘bore tackles’ with sacrificial 3.5 inch rope attached to the down-stream cables to absorb the snatch of the bore as it arrived - and which you never actually saw - although it generally broke the rope of the tackles.We loaded jute, gunnies (sackcloth in bales) and general cargo there from barges, and, in our time off in the day, we went to the very pleasant Calcutta swimming club on the bank of the river. not far away and a cool oasis to go to. We were granted a Cadet Temporary Membership’ and there was an indoor and a very large outdoor pool. In summertime the indoor pool had a cool temperature of 80 degrees F and the outdoor pool a very comfortable 96 degrees F. From Calcutta we went to Chalna in the Ganges delta and in what is now Bangladesh to load more gunnies. Then on to the very scenic Rangoon with its golden Pagodas to load more general cargo before crossing the Bay of Bengal to Colombo to load cases of tea and desiccated coconut (dc nuts)The general buzz and expectations were that we would return from Africa to Calcutta and load gunnies and jute for South America followed by a bulk cargo back to Europe and then home. The crossing of the Indian Ocean to East Africa took 10-12 days and we apprentices spent some of it down in the tween decks restowing and ‘tomming-off ‘cases of tea and dc nuts that had fallen over in choppy seas. We gathered up any small amounts of spilled tea in our handkerchiefs as it was the very best ‘broken orange pekoe’ and rather tastier than the normal tea on board.We discharged at Mombasa and then Zanzibar, where the Isipingo, one of our white-hulled cargo/passenger ships was also in port and where I was fortunate enough to go on board and be invited to dinner. The passenger areas are really very attractive and nicely furnished. Our Chief Officer has managed to get Ivybank looking very much smarter lately and his efforts are really paying dividends in that we are beginning to take a pride in how the ship is looking.Then on to Dar es Salaam (Haven of Peace) and one of my favourite ports for the most wonderful tropical scenery as you enter the harbour which, on this occasion, was only partly marred by my having to unlash some cargo on the foredeck at the same time. In one of the ports I remember bumping into a large packing case which appeared to be very light. On closer inspection it turned out have contained men’s shoes – all left ones – and only a couple of shoes still remained. The practice was to send right footed shoes on the following ship but the dock labour had obviously sussed this out and could wait to match up a pair. Next port of call was the smart and attractive city of Laurenco Marques (L.M. & now called Maputo) where I remembered my father’s advice to always ask “what is the wine of the country” . The answer from the Portuguese stevedore on this occasion was that the beer was good but I pressed him for what he drank normally and he said Vinho Verde. It was a very good tip and I have in later years enjoyed a cool glass of this slightly astringent wine on any number of occasions. Our stay in LM was longer than expected because the ship had to be fumigated (infestation of cockroaches) and so all the ship’s company had to be accommodated in hotels ashore for the night while the fumigation process was carried out. The story going about was that this was as a result of the Captain’s refusal to give the Port Health people the usual bottle of whisky. It wasn’t so pleasant for the 3rd Officer and the Senior Apprentice who had to spend the night on the quay guarding the ship – They found shelter eventually inside a dockside crane opposite the gangway.We left the port in a rising gale and had a nightmarish trip down to Durban which in those days was one of my favourite ports of call in the whole world. The shops and cinemas were excellent and the swimming and surfing at South Beach was second to none. Our certificated 3rd Officer has now been transferred to the Ettrickbank as 2nd Officer and we received the Senior Apprentice of the Inchanga (named Louis from Glasgow) as his replacement. We loaded general cargo up the east coast again and were diverted around Dar es Salaam because of an accumulation of shipping coinciding with the visit there by Princess Margaret. In Mombasa we loaded soda ash and general cargo and were delighted to see the Royal Yacht Britannia, accompanying the Princess, was alongside the quay with us. All the senior officers of the (British?) ships in port were invited by the Admiral to a cocktail party on board. Our Captain said he wouldn’t go because he does not drink (and, I suspected , have a suitable uniform), the Chief Engineer and 2nd Engineer, I think, were scared to go and in the same lack of suitable uniform predicament, and the Chief Officer, who said he had the gear but wasn’t going to go on his own. What a shame – the opportunity of a lifetime - in their place I’d have gone like a shot. Also, alongside us was HMS Diana a sleek daring class warship that was to accompany Britannia on her voyage over to Ceylon for the visit there by the Duke of Edinburgh. On a lighter note, the 2nd Engineer has a caged pet Mynah bird and the Radio Officer made a tape recording of its screeching or whistling and then played it back to the bird who nearly went mad. They are supposed to be the best mimics in the bird world of the human voice but so far it has remained dumb in this respect although given every possible encouragement.We made another 12-day crossing of the Indian Ocean to Colombo and it was my turn to be on watch with the Chief Officer. This is very good in way of keeping up with the various navigational and watch keeping tasks such as taking compass errors or helping the C/O to find the stars he wants to shoot but the downside is the getting up at 0345 in the morning when your body is still crying out for sleep. We arrived at Colombo only to find at least a dozen other ships anchored ahead of us and waiting for a berth. We are carrying a certain number of foodstuffs and so we ought to get some sort of priority.After a five-day delay, we entered Colombo only to find that following the seizure of the Suez Canal by Colonel Nasser, the British and French had contrived together with Israel to get it back by force and the Agent advised that a mob had burned a British flag outside the Embassy and that it was inadvisable for Brits to go ashore. It was interesting to see that nobody actually did go ashore initially but normal good relations were soon restored after the withdrawal of troops from Egypt and, in off-duty time during the day, we were soon able to go swimming at the splendid Mount Lavinia Beach a few miles south of Colombo. Rumours abound all the time about where the ship is going next and the latest one was that the ship would load coal in Calcutta for Japan , thence to Nauru to load phosphate for New Zealand. These rumours gain credence because we don’t know where we are going after Calcutta. Our next port of call was Madras (Chennai) where to our great surprise we met the same cadets from a Clan Line ship that we had seen last time in Calcutta. Since then, they have been back to the UK and had some home leave, which left us feeling pretty envious. But the time flies by, we are always kept busy and the food is pretty good and the portions are adequate for growing lads.After a slow passage at only 9 knots we arrived at Sandheads, the pilot station for the Hooghli River, and unusual in that it is out of sight of land. We had to anchor once again – this time for five days. Eventually we picked up the Pilot, and his retinue, and proceeded in through the hidden sandbanks until eventually entering a discernible river. It was now the 14th December and there was the prospect of spending Christmas in Calcutta. Being winter time in the northern hemisphere the weather is cooling off a little now, especially at night, and it is possible to sleep more comfortably when not on night work.Soon after our arrival the news came on board that we were to continue on the Indian African service and are to load at Chalna, Chittagong, Rangoon and then back again to Calcutta. Also, in port at this time are the Inchanga and Fleetbank. Our 2nd Officer is leaving to go home as his time is up and we have a new one arrived called Brian who did his pre-sea schooling at the London Nautical Boarding School.Bank Line’s other white-hulled cargo/passenger ship Inchanga, was also in port They have only two apprentices and we have four and so we were all called up to the wheelhouse and asked if there was a volunteer to go there. I would have loved to go apart from the fact that the ship is permanently on the Indian African Line and never goes back to the UK and so any volunteer would be away for at least two years - if not for the whole four years of one’s apprenticeship. Consequently, nobody volunteered and so the 2nd Apprentice John was ‘selected’ to go – which puts me up to 2nd Apprentice. Another rumour is that we are going home after Durban as the ship’s original war time radio equipment has to be replaced. Christmas Day passed off quite pleasantly in Kidderpore Dock with an excellent, multiple choice dinner menu, to please the taste buds.At one point we were moored up side-by-side with a number of other vessels in the centre of Kidderpore docks, one of those being the aforementioned Inchanga. Our Chief Officer, who had himself recently served on the Inchanga together with their Master, Captain Jackson, sent me over there to collect a carpet runner that he had scrounged for his cabin. Captain Jackson, after a lot of shouting at the stewards, eventually decided on a runner from one of the little used passenger cabins which I duly carried back across to my ship.Liberty ships had many differences from British built ships of the same era. One of them was that all accommodation flooring was painted composition rather that linoleum. On the plus side was a welcome and efficient ice water supply tap on each deck level. Indian - African Line 2 (January 1957)On New Year’s Eve we were in Chittagong, loading gunnies and jute, when the 2nd Officer sent me over to the Clan (Houston) Line Empire type ship, Hesperides, with a message for their Chief Officer. He asked me what I was doing for Hogmanay and I had to tell him nothing much as we were on a dry-ship and so nothing in the way of a party could be organised. He kindly asked whether I would like to come to their party that evening - which I accepted gratefully. I scrubbed up and donned my best white uniform shirt and shorts with handed down cadet/apprentice epaulettes and went over at the suggested time. I was given a nice welcome and the spread laid out on the Dining Saloon table was truly breath-taking. Many of the officers including the Captain were Scottish and I had a truly wonderful time and I was very grateful for their kindness and generosity. We all went on the Bridge just before midnight and while the Agent’s wife was giving fearsome blasts on the ship’s-whistle we were singing Auld Lang Syne as loud as possible and quite disrupting cargo loading for about fifteen minutes. I was pleased to hear the Ivybank’s whistle also being blown , though for obvious reasons with less enthusiasm. The guests from ashore departed soon after and I carried on until 4am when I left. I later heard that their Captain ’flaked out’ at 5am and the party finally broke up at breakfast time.We were back again loading in Calcutta on the 18th January 1957 on the anniversary of our first year away from home and strangely it doesn’t seem that long at all. The ‘Old Man’ says that we are almost certain to return here again after South Africa. Shifting from the river moorings to Kidderpore Dock we were dragging an anchor to steady and slow the ship when suddenly it stuck fast on some obstruction and we were unable to free it. It was necessary to break the chain at the nearest joining shackle and attach it to a buoy nearby for recovery later.Rangoon was the next port and there we loaded what I took to be some sort of wax in bags and a considerable amount of sawn hardwood timber , mainly teak, for South Africa. Two of us apprentices were on the usual 12-hour cargo watches six until six, night or day and I was on nights and so able to go out in the afternoon. There was a Marine Club in Rangoon where we could go swimming and spectacular pagodas to visit. Some of the teak cargo was in the form of shortish pieces about 6 inches (15cm) in width and about half an inch thick, and so en route to Colombo, the C/O had us purloin a few choice pieces and pass them on to the Chinese Carpenter who has made them into the most attractive and useful set of shelves and pigeon holes for the C/O’s cabin desk. The Captain, spying this, at first enviously and then increasingly suspiciously, asked the C/O where got the timber and he replied was that it was a present from the stevedores and that didn’t he get his?In Colombo, the Captain had a letter from the Company confirming that we would be going back to India again so that will be another extension to the voyage. Letters from home kept you going, particularly on a long voyage, and it was a huge disappointment not to receive one when everyone else did. The latest news is that Terry, the Senior Apprentice, with a day’s notice has transferred over to the 12-passenger/cargo ship Luxmi as Acting Third Officer and so I am now the Senior Apprentice of two. We sailed from Colombo some days earlier than expected with only about 7,000 tons of cargo instead of the 10,000 we can carry. After a call at hot and sticky Mombasa we steamed straight down to Durban where the weather was ideal with the sea temperature reportedly at eighty degrees and ideal for swimming. at South Beach. We were lucky enough to stay in Durban for two weeks discharging and loading and also ripping out the original RCA Radio Room Equipment which could only transmit on medium wave and then installing new Marconi equipment with short wave capability. Our Irish Radio Officer, who had been acting rather strangely, managed to get himself sent home and a new R/O has arrived in his place. One morning during our stay in Durban, it was discovered that Brian the 2nd Officer, had disappeared leaving his gear all packed up neatly and ready to be put ashore. He didn’t get on well with the Captain, which was not at all unusual, and I knew he had a brother in the Rhodesian Police who he had always wanted to visit and so we assumed, correctly as it turned out, that that was his intention. I learned years afterwards that he had dressed smartly with a blazer, flannels, tie and a small grip and had no trouble in rapidly hitchhiking up to Salisbury (now Harare). It turned out that he eventually returned to Durban to ‘face the music’ and was put up in the Seamen’s’ Mission by our Superintendent prior to being sent home in disgrace. Embarrassingly for the Superintendent, he had to appoint Brian to another Bank Line ship, Irisbank, that was supposedly, desperately short of a certificated 2nd Officer. As far as the Ivybank was concerned we were now also in desperate need of a 2nd Officer, our 3rd Officer, Haggis, was an uncertificated Apprentice and so they persuaded Edouard, a French Mauritian guy living in South Africa, to take a break from his studies for Master and fill in until we get further up the coast.During our next call at Laurenco Marques, I was given a guided tour of their commercial Radio Station which performs for South Africa what Radio Luxemburg did for the UK. Then on to Beira where I learned, admiringly and enviously , that some Frenchmen (such as our temporary 2nd Officer) have a wonderful way with the ladies. It is quite obvious that the fine Portuguese cities in East Africa have had far greater investment put into them than the less developed and rather haphazard British port towns further north.In Dar es Salaam we discharged some 300 tons of general cargo we had for them. Our temporary 2nd Officer departed there and the new 2/O (promoted from 3/O) arrived, and he is South African born with a very Scottish surname (McTavish).Rumours were still flying about as to the ship’s future movements. One minute it’s South America and the latest is West Africa. It has now been confirmed that our 2nd Officer who ‘jumped ship’ in Durban was sent to the Luxmi, and not the Irisbank, so the 2/O there had to go back to 3/O and Terry our ex Senior Apprentice has had to go back down to Apprentice, which we thought was a rotten arrangement all round.An avoidable incident occurred shortly after dropping the Mombasa Pilot when the Captain instructed the 3rd Officer to go up to the standard compass above the wheelhouse and put the ship on the charted course for Colombo. The 3/O said something along the lines of “I thought we had to stay on the present course for another three miles”. The dinner bell had just rung and the Captain, no doubt hungry, told the 3/O to get up there and put her on the course for Colombo. This he did and a short while later there was a terrible noise and vibration as the ship bumped over a reef. It sounded and felt as though both anchors had been let go. The log book entry later read “vessel appeared to touch bottom”. Soundings were made and no leaks were found and so the ship carried on. A diver in an old-fashioned suit was sent down in Colombo and could detect no damage to the ship in the very murky waters of the harbour. After Colombo and Madras we had the usual wait at Sandheads before chugging up to Calcutta. It was now May and one of the hottest and stickiest times of the year, just before the monsoon breaks after which you get occasional cooling rain. At sea I have been on watch with C/O a lot lately but in port we have been painting the ship’s name, port of registry, and draught figures. Also, some small bits of chipping and painting around the decks, keeping the ship looking tiddly. The food on board at the time is very good most of the time with lots of choice and substance for growing boys. All Indian Chief Stewards and cooks who prepare food for the mainly British officers, no matter what the company, seem to have the same menu books and it can get a little ‘samey’. One pretentious sounding item, flattering to deceive, that was occasionally on the menu was ‘Kromeskies a la Russe, a sort of sausage shaped pancake with (we suspected) left-overs inside and commonly known as ‘sealed orders. One pleasant moment in the voyage occurred when we were undergoing repairs in Kidderpore Dock, Calcutta and moored in a row of ships alongside each other. Two ships away was the Isipingo, one of the Bank Line cargo/passenger ships and their duty Apprentice invited me over for tea one evening. What a difference – we were served the tea and delicate sandwiches on a silver tray in their spacious dining saloon by a turbaned waiter, on duty for such purpose. It was particularly galling that I had had the opportunity some six months before to transfer to the sister ship but, as they never came home, you were assured of a two-year trip and that frightened me off from volunteering. As it turned out, the guy that went there was home before us.We were a month each time in Calcutta, discharging, repairs, chipping and painting holds or the hull over-side, dry-docking on one occasion and then loading mainly jute and gunnies (sacking). Summertime there was particularly hot and humid and so with only a noisy and creaking fan in our steel box of a cabin on the main deck, and so a number of the more junior Europeans used to sleep on old kapok life jackets in the fresh air up on the monkey island under its permanent wooden awning. My fellow apprentice at the time, who didn’t want to go up top, was found to have tuberculosis on his return to the UK .Our Acting 3rd Officer, his 4-year indentures being nearly finished, went home to sit for his 2nd Mates Certificate and we received a very tall new certificated 3rd Officer, called Gerald, who comes from Holy Island in Northumbria.India - West Africa Line - Elder Dempster Charter (June 1957)It is now confirmed that we are to load the usual gunnies and jute products, but this time, encouragingly, for West Africa and only calling at Colombo for Bunkers. That was changed shortly afterwards and in addition to our 7,500 tons gunnies loaded in Calcutta for W. Africa we are to load 300 tons of tea and desiccated coconuts in wooden cases for Durban. Ports of call in West Africa are Lobito, Luanda,(both in Portuguese Angola), Lagos & Apapa (Nigeria), Lomé & Cotonue (Togo), Takoradi (Ghana), Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Dakar (Senegal). After that no one knows, or is letting on.One of the most dangerous jobs I ever had to do was to replace a faulty navigation light bulb off the coast of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) with the ship rolling heavily in the ocean swell. This was on the main mast just forward of the Bridge and climbing up the fore and aft steel ladder to the crosstrees was no problem but the topmast was wooden and the ladder was on one side and this ladder had wire rope sides and wooden rungs and looked in poor condition. It was necessary to climb up a few rungs when the ship rolled one way and then hook my feet in and hang on tightly when the ship rolled the other way. At the top, luckily, there was just space to straddle the bracket to which the light was mounted and change the bulb before the equally frightening retreat down again.It took the old ship sixteen days to cross the Indian Ocean from Colombo to Durban passing close to Mauritius and so to the south of Madagascar. Having discharged our Cargo, I was on the bridge for the 4 to 8 evening watch with the C/O, as we steamed south into a rolling black wall of cloud and within a very short while we were in a severe gale force 9 from the South. We endured this gale for many days as the ship had to be kept at reduced speed to avoid damage. One morning off Port Elizabeth we encountered one of those exceptional freak waves and I felt the ship dip down first into a huge trough and then an enormous wave broke over the bow and came rushing down the foredeck level with bulwarks. Very rapidly I closed down the deadlight (an extra steel cover) over the forward-facing porthole and waited for the enormous thump as all this water hit the superstructure of the accommodation block. Amazingly no damage was done as the ship was still on greatly reduced speed.We eventually enjoyed the magnificent view of Table Mountain with Cape Town nestling at its foot - from a very safe distance - and gradually steamed north into warmer weather and more comfortable sea conditions. We began discharging our cargo in Lobito, where I didn’t get ashore, and then Luanda where there was a swarm of large sharks at the pilot station outside. As it was pretty hot there, we later swam at the beach in a sort of inside bay but in view of what we had seen outside, didn’t venture more than a yard or two into the water.As a result of alleged skulduggery by the tally clerks in West Africa, we two Apprentices were put on tallying the cargo as it was discharged which was for up to 16 hours a day. This was an unpleasant combination of demanding yet boring work. In Lagos we were actually berthed opposite the city at the very modern Apapa wharf. One evening the other Apprentice, Tony, and I went over by a ferry launch to Lagos side for the evening. Returning to the launch jetty at about 10pm we were shocked to find the service had finished for the night and we eventually found out that the only way of getting back was by native dugout canoe. We had very little cash but we negotiated a price and got gingerly on board. I remember thinking half way across that it would have been very easy for them to have disposed of us overboard without anyone knowing anything. Perhaps fortunately we had nothing about us worth stealing.We made short calls at the ‘surf ports’ of Lomé and Cotonue where we had to anchor off and discharge into special lighters brought out by tugs. Next port was Takoradi in the newly independent country of Ghana, formerly the British colony of Gold Coast. The stevedores told me they were disappointed that no instant improvement in their status workload or wealth had come about with the country’s independence.The next morning, we were surprised to find the ship stopped off Abidjan (Ivory Coast) in thick fog, caused apparently by the cool current from the south meeting the hot tropical air mass. We were on the boat deck immediately below the bridge-wing waiting to go to docking stations when out of the mist came a native canoe with a fisherman paddling. The Captain hailed him from above us and asked “which way to Abidjan?” Hearing this the C/O, who was with us, fled inside, presumably, so as not to be in any way a party or witness to anything untoward. The fisherman pointed the way he had come and repeated “Abidjan, Abidjan” . The Captain ordered slow ahead on the engines and to our amazement we were very quickly able to see the harbour entrance lined up straight ahead, the Pilot boat coming out and the mist clearing. And all without radar!Abidjan, together with our last port of discharge, Dakar, were the largest , cleanest and nicest places we have visited in West Africa although we found them very expensive. We had now been away from the UK for some 19 months and most of us were pretty fed up by this time and the overwhelming expectation was for the orders to be to load a bulk cargo from somewhere in West Africa back to a northern European port. The officers had a sweep going for where our next port of call after Africa will be. Most of the names in the sweep were the usual ports in the UK and Northern Europe but, jokingly also included Galveston and a further ‘wild-card’ for anywhere not named. Interestingly I had drawn both Galveston and the wild-card. The day before finishing in Dakar the Captain received a telegram saying: “On completion of cargo – Proceed Galveston” So that was it – a definite two-year trip with onward passage to either Australia or New Zealand.Dakar to US Gulf - Light Ship Repositioning Voyage (August 1957) We had an excellent passage from Dakar to the Caribbean, most of the time doing about 12 knots with the help of the prevailing trade winds and current. The orders were changed in the Caribbean with the ship redirected to somewhere we had never heard of, Coatzacoalcos in the narrowest part of Mexico, at the western foot of the Yucatan peninsula. As I had also drawn the wild-card I luckily still kept the sweep money. It has also been confirmed that we are going to New Zealand again. US Gulf - New Zealand Line (September 1957)Alongside in Coatzacoalcos, we loaded sulphur in bulk in four of the lower holds. Going ashore was an eye opener in that there were still hitching posts in the street for horses and wooden sidewalks just as on a Sergio Leone film set. Then on to New Orleans to load general cargo where we were lucky enough to spend a whole week and get a little time off to enjoy ourselves. We couldn’t afford to visit the famous ‘honky-tonks’ in Bourbon Street, except from the outside. The Chief Officer did and spent over $200 in a couple of hours somehow or other. By way of contrast, we frequented milk bars where you could get a delicious hamburger with all the trimmings for 25 cents and wash it down with an icy cola. One Sunday afternoon we took the bus some six miles out to Lake Ponchartrain and spent an enjoyable afternoon swimming. We also saw our first colour television there, though we were not impressed with the picture quality.New Orleans was a good place to purchase jeans for working and khaki drill long trousers and shirts. One of the problems in the Bank Line at this time was that the wearing of uniform or not varied from ship to ship depending on the Captain preference. We also found that khaki uniform was more practical to wear on cargo watch than whites. All this meant that you had to carry more gear in many ways than in a strict uniform only company. For us on board who had been starved of sweet things during and after WW2, the richness of American milk and desserts was an eye opener. One day I bought a block of peach ice cream from a nearby corner shop with the intention of scoffing the lot. You can imagine my chagrin when on arriving at the cabin I found at least four persons with bowls and spoons at the ready. It was actually so overly rich that my slice was more than sufficient. In the States the richest and most expensive sweet treat on the menu in the milk bars was a ‘banana split’. We would offer to pay for anyone who could eat a second, but no one could.Our last call in the USA was Port Arthur in Texas to load case oil and then off through the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean to the Panama Canal, the passage of which was as always, a pleasurable and interesting experience. Some ships used to take the opportunity in the Panama Canal to top their fore and after peak fresh water tanks when in the fresh water of Gatun Lake, to avoid water rationing on long passages, but this could make the ship overloaded and the Canal authorities subsequently required draught marks to be painted on amidships and used to check that ships were not below their permitted load-line marks. Then off for another month-long voyage across the Pacific Ocean sighting nothing but the flying fish, the occasional pod of dolphins and, as we got further south, the sighing of the spectacular albatross skimming the waves and no doubt waiting for the cook to throw any leftovers overboard. One night as I made my way up to the bridge to go on watch, there was a huge bird at the head of the companionway, who must have landed and found his way into the accommodation at boat deck level. I tried to shoo him away but he wasn’t having any of it and so I went up the outside way, warning the man I was relieving. By now it was the beginning of November 1957 and the fine city of Auckland was our first port. From here we are to discharge our general cargo at Wellington, Lyttleton and Dunedin and the sulphur at Ravenbourne, a suburb of Dunedin. On a non-working Sunday in Auckland, some officers we had befriended from the Port Line ship, Port Melbourne, took some of us on a three-hour tour of the harbour in their motor lifeboat which included a close look at one of the latest British submarines moored alongside a NZ warship.Fred, our 4th Engineer and a really nice guy , who joined the ship the last time we were in New Zealand, has paid off and gone back to his home in Christchurch and we have a new 4th who is English but now lives in New Zealand. Unfortunately, on this occasion there was no shortage of labour in Wellington and so there was no extra pay to be earned. As Littleton is the port for Christchurch on the other side of a mountain, we were delighted to be invited by Fred, our ex 4th Engineer, to a party to celebrate his engagement on a Saturday and with no cargo work on Saturday afternoons and Sunday it was an ideal opportunity to enjoy ourselves. We thought a practical gift would be in order and so he was presented a pressurised keg of beer together with a dozen quart bottles beer (bought) plus two bottles of whisky and another dozen beers won at a raffle earlier in the day. Almost needless to say we enjoyed a wonderful party and were delighted with the kind and generous hospitality that we received from Fred and his entire family and friends. Because we at sea are ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ it is always difficult to make genuine friendships with ordinary people. After the party, we somehow got back to the ship at 4am and slept until 2pm.As the Officers had signed two-year Articles and the ship would not be getting back to the UK before the two years were up, the Shipping Master in Littleton came on board to request the Officers to sign an extension to the two-year articles as the ship would be on the way home via New Guinea. It was pointed out that it was not necessary to sign but it kept things tidier if they did. The 3rd Engineer, Fred from Hartlepool , said “if I don’t have to then I asterisking won’t”. But I think the remaining long-trippers did, though I don’t think it applied to the two of us Apprentices with four-year indentures.In Dunedin, we completed discharge of our general cargo and moved berth to nearby Ravenbourne to unload the bulk sulphur. A reporter from the ‘Otago City Times’ visited the ship and wondered how much of the cargo was being lost with great clouds of dust blowing everywhere in a gale of wind. Someone suggested that 2% was being lost in this way. Needless to say, all doors and ports were kept tightly closed. When the grabs used for discharging had nearly reached the bottom of the hold, bulldozers were craned on board and used down the hatch to push and pull the sulphur in the corners and overhangs into the centre of the hatch for the grabs to remove. My top bunk bed was level with the forward-facing porthole and almost overlooking the No. 3 hatch and in the middle of the night I heard footsteps running up the nearby shore gangway and became aware of choking fumes coming through the part open porthole. It turned out that a sulphur fire had started down in the hold. By the time we were kitted up in fire-fighting equipment the Fire Brigade had arrived and they dealt with the fire very quickly. The machinery that had been left down the hatch overnight was thought by the Harbourmaster to be to blame for the fire and so they had to be lifted off the ship each night thereafter. Dunedin to Kavieng New Ireland Light Ship Repositioning Voyage (December 1957)Our orders were to take a cargo of copra (sun or air-dried coconut flesh) loaded at ports in and around New Guinea to Liverpool. After completing the discharge of the sulphur we set off on the long light-ship north westerly run through the Cook Strait, between the North and South Islands, up through the western Pacific , then the Coral Sea, and finally the Solomon Sea to Kavieng, a very small port on the northern tip of the island of New Ireland in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of the far larger island of New Guinea. For most of the trip, the deck crew were cleaning out the holds to a very high standard as demanded by the fact that much of following cargo went into foodstuffs. We the Apprentices were usually employed ensuring the bilges in each hold in turn were clean and pumped dry. We were told that one chunk of sulphur left in the hold could render the copra in it unfit for making into margarine. Later when the copra loading had reached a convenient distance from the top of the lower hold, tarpaulins were laid down and the huge U-shaped box beams, framing the hatches, were carefully brushed and wiped out and then painted. To ensure that there was no possibility of contamination, this work had to be inspected, approved and signed for personally by both the Captain and C/O.Papua New Guinea to UK Continent Line (January 1958) Kavieng was rather special in as much as the jetty was small and built only for intercoastal vessels so that some of the ships mooring lines had to be looped around palm trees. There was no Pilot and so the Captain had to manoeuvre the ship into position off the berth where a small launch would tow the mooring lines ashore in turn so that the ship could be hauled in to position. Our load was mainly copra in bulk plus small amounts of highly valuable cocoa and coffee in bags. At all the copra ports, the ship’s gear at each hatch lifted about ten sacks full at a time, in a rope sling, on to the wooden hatch covers. The bags were then cut open at the stitching and ‘bled’ loosely into the hold through gaps left in the hatch-boards. As you loaded, some of the Melanesian dock workers had to shovel the copra into all the corners and under any overhangs and it was the job of the ship’s officers, and ourselves if on cargo watch, to check occasionally that this was being done properly. We were told of a swimming enclosure in the sea just along from the ship and, as it was extremely hot, some of us went along with our swimming costumes. The enclosure was a small swimming pool size in the sea with access from the beach and a boarded catwalk all around. Protection from sharks and the very dangerous saltwater crocodiles was provided by a steel cage structure underwater all around. The second time we swam there I brought along a snorkel and face mask to see if there was anything of interest and the first thing, I saw was a great big hole in the cage through which any shark or croc could enter. We also went for a walk along the beach and passed a few native houses, raised high up on stilts, until we came to a large waterway stopping us from going any further. Later I enquired of the stevedore what the waterway was and he said it was known a Puk-Puk Creek. I asked what was Puk-Puk stood for and he said it was the local word for crocodile which, as you can imagine, discouraged any further interest in walking in that direction or using the swimming cage.We had rather disappointing Christmas meals on board in Kavieng but that was made up for by the welcome and hospitality shown by the Manager of the Club ashore. A very pleasant party with singing and dancing was enjoyed by all. The following Sunday we hired a jeep and went for a spin down the one and only road, stopping here and there on inclination. We visited a grotto where the Japanese invaders in WW2 used to get their fresh water from. At one village where we stopped, a boy shinned up a palm tree and cut down some coconuts for us to drink from. A few days later, one of the planters we knew by then, invited me out to his plantation to pick up some cocoa sacks . His place is 55 miles out from Kavieng and we did it easily in under an hour in his Jaguar saloon. We carried four sacks of the cocoa back in the car worth about ?40 each.From Kavieng we went straight across the Bismarck Sea to the small, parklike town and port of Madang on the north coast of Papua New Guinea, arriving at 6pm on New Year’s Eve. The Pilot was kind enough to come out and bring the ship into the harbour anchorage so that shore leave was possible. The C/O had given me a ?5 ‘backhander’ and so we two Apprentices had an excellent dinner in the Hotel and were then made very welcome in the nearby Club, as was nearly always the case in small places. Most of the members were Australian and enormous fun and it was yet another celebration to remember. We got away at 3am and, after offering sufficient inducement to the launch boys to take us back to the ship, the 3rd Engineer stepped on to the boat when it wasn’t there and disappeared into the sea. He was a large and heavy man and in quite a state of relaxation and so it took us some fifteen minutes to get him back in the launch. We were having to shift backwards and forward from the loading berth to the anchorage, as and when a Burns Philp mail boat came in, as they had priority. This suited the agents and stevedores as they were having difficulty filling the ship with copra. In addition to the copra we had some 2,500 sacks cocoa in our No 5 hatch and a considerable amount of Coffee beans in the tween decks, both of which were a rather valuable cargo.One evening the other Apprentice and I were invited by our Australian stevedore friend to supper at his house not too far away. He had the only house on a small island not far from shore in the sheltered bay and so we had to go over by boat. He and his cook-boy had prepared an ox-tail for us, which on the ship we usually avoided, but cooked properly it turned out to be delicious and I have liked it ever since. Ox tongue, ox tail and ox heart were known on the ship as licker, flicker and ticker and were not normally very popular.Eventually it was decided to sail the ship some 250 tons short of being full and we departed the day before the second anniversary of joining the ship Our route took north of the Indonesian islands to Tarakan, on the east coast of Borneo, for bunkers Then south via the Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra, into the Indian Ocean and on to Colombo in Ceylon to change our Calcutta crew whose time on their articles was also up. An Apprentice who is nine months senior to me also joined us from another Bank Line ship to go home. The Captain received a letter here in Colombo instructing him to transfer the South African 2nd Officer to a ship going back to South Africa but no information about a replacement. Then at last the Old Man read through an older letter, that had been forwarded on from Tarakan, and that instructed him to promote our certificated 3rd Officer to 2nd Officer and promote me to Acting 3rd Officer. Why me? Well apparently, the new Apprentice’s eyesight had been giving him trouble and he had failed an eyesight test, so very unfortunately this means the end to his future career as a navigator. At some point much earlier in the voyage the Captain, possibly because he didn’t understand and therefore distrusted the air- navigation tables the C/O used for his star sights, decided he would take sun sights morning and noon in addition to the second and third Officers. Having done so the first morning he went to the chart room and couldn’t understand the almanack tables which had changed somewhat since he last worked out a sight. The C/O said not to worry, the Apprentices could work them out for him, which we did from then on. It was not a lot of change therefore for me to carry out the 3rd Officer’s duties, with the Captain taking the sights and me working them up, and I had had the advantage of a lot of bridge experience on watch with the C/O. The best part was that I now had my own single-berth cabin on the Boat Deck and the much more agreeable eight to twelve watch.The ship ploughed effortlessly across the calm seas of the Indian Ocean to Aden where we filled up our bunkers. The weather was lovely and warm during the day and nicely cool at night for sleeping. The passage through the Red Sea, often excessively hot, was similarly pleasant and so it was a bit of a shock while going through the Suez Canal one evening to find a distinct chill in the air. The Eastern European Pilot wasn’t happy to con the ship from the wheelhouse and so the bridge team had to take position in the open on the ‘monkey island’ above the wheelhouse where our minimal controls of steering wheel and engine room telegraph were duplicated. Because of the cold as we passed through the desert, I was of necessity dressed in full blue uniform and duffle coat, and needed it.Having arrived back in cooler weather we were aware that our cargo, having been loaded in the tropics, contained a lot of residual heat and unless the holds were thoroughly ventilated, serious sweating and mould damage could occur, so at every opportunity, the side hatch-boards were wedged open and the hold ventilators turned into the wind to provide a good through draft. On our eventual return to the UK and Bromborough Dock, near Liverpool, we finally paid off on the 10th March 1958, after being away for almost two years and two months, having been around the world twice and made two round-trips on the Indian African Line in between. Fortunately, we never knew at any time how long we were going to be away and so were always hopeful of an earlier return to the UK. When it finally came to it, I was really quite nervous about going home and meeting my family again.In ConclusionI later heard, that after discharging, the ship went into dry-dock and there it was found that the ship’s double-bottoms had been set-up some two feet from bumping over the reef off Mombasa, resulting in the Captain’s dismissal from the Company. A year later the Ivybank was sold for what was considered a very good price of ?67,500, allowing for a valuation deduction of ?30.000 - ?40,000 for the bottom damage she had sustained. Subsequently, two owners later in 1965, she broke her back in heavy weather in the North Pacific and sank.RPB May 2020 ................
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