[Pat Kennedy]

One particular memory has stuck in my mind for over fifty years, and thinking about it now still brings a lump to my throat.
I was coasting Blue Funnel's Ascanius as JOS in 1960. We joined her in Rotterdam and there were a few of the deep sea crowd who wanted to stay in her for the coastwise trip. One of them had bought a little baby monkey in Java, and he kept it in his cabin most of the time but allowed it out on deck when the ship was at sea.
It was a lovely little thing, named Jacko, and it quickly became a pet of all hands. It would often get into your room and cause some havoc, it particularly liked eating cigarette papers and boxes of matches, and scattering your baccy all over the place.
Out on deck, he would often scamper aloft and chatter away from the crosstrees or the top of sampson posts,(called Columns in Blue Flue) and thought nothing of running down topping lifts and stays and then racing away at smoko to take command of the messroom and share the tabnabs,.
We sailed from Rotterdam to all the usual European range ports, and then, unusually for BF, transited the Kiel canal and went to Gdynia in Poland. After a few days there we set off for Copenhagen. A couple of days there and we sailed for the next port, Aarhus.
It was when leaving Copenhagen that it happened. Jacko had climbed up the foremast as we went to stations and sat on the rim of the crow's nest.
As we finished stowing the mooring ropes and began to leave the focsle head, Jacko leaped onto the forestay and scuttled down at speed. To everyone's horror he lost his grip and went over the side. We caught a glimpse of him frantically waving his little arms as he was swept along the stbd side to oblivion.
Grown men were openly sobbing as we proceeded aft, it was one of the most gut wrenching things I ever saw.
Pat