Merchant Navy Memories

Merchant Navy Memories - Gravesend Sea School Remembered

CLASS OF NOVEMBER 1951
I'm third from left in the back row. Conditions were bleak and more than a few lads legged it for home within days (and sometimes hours)of arrival. Catering Trainees received a Proficiency Certificate at the end of the course but I doubt if anyone was brave enough to produce it when they joined their first ship.

Our pride and joy was the brand new Seaman's Discharge Book and the accompanying Seaman's Identity Card containing our photo, details of distinguishing marks, fingerprints and a section where food coupon entitlements were entered at the end of each voyage.

War rationing was still in effect in the UK seven years after the end of hostilities. A voyage to Aussie enabled seamen to bring home delicacies such as tinned fruit and cream for the family. Calling in at Columbo (Sri Lanka) on the way home you could stock up on 1lb packets of choice Ceylon tea.

AN "OLD BOY" REMEMBERS The fresh “peanut”

It was July 1974. I wanted to join the army when at school, but due to the troubles in northern Ireland I pleased my mum and joined the merchant navy (the best thing I ever did).

Having passed the entrance test at 83 Markindale street (Salford), I was issued with documentation and dispatched to a place called “Gravesend”, I had always wanted to travel, whilst my family took us to the seaside going abroad was for “posh” folk. Having rarely travelled outside Yorkshire even Kent seemed like a New World!

I was lucky I travelled with a school pal (Graham Paley) who I still see today. I arrived at Gravesend station and quickly became aware of other nervous looking boys. A man in a uniform with gold stripes (Mr Plumb I think) herded us into a blue van with words “national sea training school” emblazoned across it. After a short journey an ominous looking building loomed up at the end of a long road.

My first impression was one of terror and fear, “why wasn’t I at school learning how to be a plumber or brickie?” Driving through that entrance was the day I no longer saw life as an immature young boy, but was thrust into a life of “davits” “lifeboats” and compass points (and I was a catering boy!) all around were boys dressed in black battle dress staring at us new trainees.

Having collected our “kit”and bedding (my mum had always made my bed) it was time to visit “the sweeeney”, my god that man could cut hair quicker than an apache Indian! (even these days I have a morbid fear of barbers!).

We quickly settled into the daily routines and followed rules and regulations (no smoking above the red line if only they knew!). soon we were proud to become just another “peanut” the days passed into weeks and life became easier (even the Ł1-00 a week seemed to stretch further), new boys arrived each week and we soon became “old hands”.

My memories of N.S.T.S are happy ones and I often reminisce about the old bosun who taught us lifeboat skills “mighty mouse” the boys called him, whose Second World War stories had more effect on me than watching the film “the cruel sea”.

Life at Gravesend was hard but eventually I became a leading hand and finished the training. It was back to the “pool” and my first ship the bulk carrier M.V London Bridge, but that’s were the story begins…
Mick Thistlethwaite UK016630

Mick continues his story in The Ditty Box. Read on and recapture the feelings we all experienced on that First Trip. . .

Ray Murray recalls:

FIRST TRIP & “FOGWATCH” Sixteen years and 2 months old, fresh from NSTS Gravesend proudly clutching a discharge book stamped Catering Trainee “ badge of merit awarded’. What a feeling, after standing on the ‘ f’castle’ at the Sea School on so many foggy mornings watching magnificent liners, a wall of lights easing out of the Lock at Tilbury, at last the prospect of actually being on one loomed closer. To this day that wonderful sound of a ship’s foghorn makes the hairs at the back of the neck stand up. More about fog horns later… The officer at the Shipping Federation said “P&O passenger ships for you son”, go round and join the union, then go home and wait for a telegram. Telegram! Blimey! only important people who had either won the pools or whose Uncle in Scotland had died and left them a few bob, got telegrams! Home for four or five days, a proud Mum telling anyone who’ll listen, that her son was a Merchant Seaman and furthermore was waiting for a Telegram! Almost too much sophistication for the East End. They say you could almost sense the arrival of the telegram boy on those red BSA bantams, maybe it was the distinctive sound they made or perhaps the ‘bush telegraph’ even existed in Leytonstone in those days. Anyway that morning I sensed that this might be “The Day” and found many excuses to walk the ten paces to the front gate. Well that certainly sounded like a bantam; it looks like a bantam, yes its stopping at our gate and then, THE question Mr. Murray? The rest is a blur of excitement. Talk of Travel Warrants. Working By? (Whatever that meant) Tilbury Docks, reporting to the Second Steward. Slops Locker? Etc.etc. There’s a smell on a ship when it’s empty and tied up alongside for a long period of time. The s.s. Orcades was no exception. Fresh paint. stale bunker fuel, penetrating oil, various stuff used in maintenance basic cooking smells, all added to the overall atmosphere. What seemed to me, to be miles and miles of corridors leading to God knows where. Steel doors leading down to the bowels of the ship, (some of which remained a mystery even after five years.) all contributed to the feeling that no matter how long you would be on this ‘thing’ you’d never ever find you way with much confidence. Let alone master all the nautical terms that seemed to roll of the tongues with such ease of some of the older crew. How we must have looked with our striped ‘piss-jackets’ as yet un-ironed straight from the suppliers shed in the docks. (The name escapes me). Four or five new bellboys all trying to look confident about what we were doing but feeling anything but. Then the call to the Chiefs Stewards office, those who were to sail were called out, those not required went home to await yet another telegram! I was selected to sail and so my five ‘formative’ years were to begin on my new ‘home’. We sailed out of Tilbury after embarking 1800 passengers on the 30th September 1963. The stamp in my discharge book read “Nth America and AUST Mails” Captain Riddelsdel commanding. The ship now had a different smell. Midships bellboys cabin, eight “ first trippers” all trying to look as confident as possible in non-starched new slops. Two older hands telling tales of wondrous ports, unbelievably large dropsy’s from American ‘bloods’ and possibly even erotic experiences to come. An hour after sailing one new bellboy who had been assigned to the bureau was given an envelope marked “Urgent Sailing Orders” and was told to deliver it with “all speed to the bosun, who could be found in his cabin next to the billiard room on B Deck.” Naturally the lad was both thrilled and proud to be given such an important task on his first ‘real’ hour at sea and so took off with great enthusiasm. He’d been told that if he should get lost, he was to ask any member of the crew in uniform and they would direct him. It transpired that he had worked up quite a sweat. So many of the crew he had asked directions to the billiard room had said, that he had “come the wrong way” and was to go back down two decks and head for’ard up one deck and then ask again etc. You can picture his thoughts. ” This bloody message is urgent and all the people I ask directions from seem to think its funny” “ I hope I don’t get in trouble over this”. The thought of that lad getting more and more tense as his apparent failure to deliver such an important message was looming still brings back laughter after all these years. Some kindly soul eventually let him off the hook and pointed out the futility of searching for the ‘billiard room’ on a ship. “Bastards” he said after it was revealed as a wind-up. Other old hands might be able to tell me, was this a standard ‘first tripper” wind up on P&O boats? No doubt all of us who spent our early days at sea will remember that unique thrill, which sadly can only occur once, of the very first foreign port. Mine was Le-Havre the next morning. How can a country smell different? Well this one did! Of course we all know now, that they do anyway, but back then the sights and sounds and smells of a new country were a totally unique experience. I remember standing on deck looking down at things that were so unfamiliar: - Peugeot vans, Renault lorries, foreign writing on everything. Dockers actually wearing berets and smoking those terrible fags they smoke… such great memories. Of course a few really exotic ports later and you start to get a bit blasé but there is nothing to compare to that ‘first foreign port’ feeling. This brings me to the point of the story: - We left Le-Havre at about 1600: and it was characteristically damp and foggy. One of the older Bellboys who worked in the chief steward’s office had typed up a ‘dodgy ‘ roster for ‘Fog Watch’. This gave instructions that the boy rostered-on had to go to the f’castle at the appointed time wearing a life jacket. (Bricks of cork in canvas bags designed to break the neck in case of emergency. I’m sure we all remember) and his P&O issue boat hat and white stewards jacket. The reason given was that the English Channel was the busiest sea-lane in the world and the more eyes the ship had on lookout the better? The instructions further went on to say, that upon seeing any other ships or lights the lad was to turn and face the bridge (obviously too far away to be heard), call out in a loud voice. “Ship on the port side” or “Light on the starboard side”. Etc. I still, thirty odd years later, have tears of laughter well up as I recall being huddled together just outside The Pig on the Well Deck that night with another twelve ‘Spotty Herbert’s’ hearing the plaintiff cry of that lad.”Ship on the port bow.” “Oh shit no, sorry I mean starboard bow, no I mean side”. “Oh shit” etc. One of those funny harmless memories that’ll live with you forever. Ray Murray Adelaide 4 08 2003