Thread: The War Years
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Old 19th June 2018, 19:41
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Part 3.

William Ashburner, so before the Hannah sailed for home the good captain arranged for me to meet my possible new boss at the Shipping Pool. I went to meet Captain Sinnott as planned and as I entered the Pool Office where all seamen went to stand for a ship there stood this big man with a sailor’s jacket, a small peak cap on his head and looking every bit the old mariner, the type you expect to see on an old sailing ship. That was my first surprise, the second was when he signed me on his ship and I was issued with my first discharge book
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As we walked from the Shipping Pool back to the William Ashburner he told me what my duties would be and that there would be a crew of five, all from Ireland accept me. We didn’t have to walk very far in the dock as the vessel was moored at a nearby berth where she loaded grain and maize. When we turned the corner to the dockside low and behold I got yet another surprise, there was this little ship with three wooden sticks sticking up from her belly, it was a sailing ship, a wooden one at that, at least the Hannah had been made of steel.
The William Ashburner was a three masted schooner, she had been built in 1876, and her gross tonnage was 205 tons, her length 115 feet and with a beam of 25 feet. She flew the Red Ensign but was owned by Captain Sinnott from Limerick and was crewed by an all-Irish crew consisting of a Mate from Sligo, two Able Bodied seaman (AB’s) from Waterford, and one junior deckhand, (Me).
The captain took me to his cabin to give me instructions as to what my pay would be and what my duties on board would consist of, and these included the task of lighting the fire in the small galley at 6:30 every morning ready for the first mate to cook the crew’s breakfast. Apparently the mate liked to cook but the problem was that his repertoire was limited to about three dishes with his favorite being “Schooner on the Rocks” and this name turned out to be the fate of this grand old sailing ship a few years later.
The galley was a small box, six feet by six feet, with a small coal burning stove on the aft end with a coal bunker alongside, on the other end was a small work bench with the potato locker alongside which was also the seat. The washing up was done in a small wooden bucket outside on the hatch cover. The bucket was similar to the ones issued to each member of the crew for their own use, washing, bathing and laundry. Rather like a personal portable bathroom
The only washbasins on board were aft in the Captain and Mate’s cabins.
During heavy weather or rainstorms the galley was the warmest place on the ship so we would close the sliding door and use our buckets to do our laundry, (we didn’t have many clothes,) and take our baths in this tiny snug space
The year previously to me joining, the ship had been re rigged by removing the mast top extensions that carried the square rigged spars and the top sails to make her a cut down version of a schooner. She then had what they called a Foremast, Main and Mizzen to carry the three main sails and with a jib and stay sail, a rig that was perhaps easier to handle than the original, especially when sailing relatively short coastal passages.
They had also installed a small diesel engine, which was used mostly for maneuvering when entering and leaving port and I think she had a top speed of about 5 knots under power. Captain Sinnott would usually order the sails hoisted as soon as we cleared port and the congested areas so that the ship could show her paces under canvas. In her original fully rigged heyday she had once covered 240 miles during a 24 hour run with a full cargo of coal so she was not a slow ship in the right weather. We sailed around the Bristol Channel ports, mostly Welsh, plus up the river Severn to Sharpness, with grain or maize and on one trip we sailed to Dublin and returned with a cargo of large wooden barrels of Guinness.

One of the less enjoyable duties on-board was when we were loading grain. The hatches openings were very small and when the grain was being shot into the holds we were sent below with a very large shovel, there we would constantly shovel the grain (Trimming) towards the sides of the hold to keep the vessel on an even keel as the cargo constantly spewed into the ship. This backbreaking work was done while lying on your back or side while the grain kept pouring in until it reached the top of the hatches. The dust was stifling and the hold black as pitch as we shoveled and prayed that we had not been forgotten in the dusty darkness.
Back in those days there was no such a thing as Health and Safety Board regulations or any dust masks and goggles, just a large bandanna around our faces and that large shovel. We did get extra money for this work, called a cargo bonus, thirty shillings, on top of my eight pounds a month pay. There was one other thing the older members of the crew received that I didn’t and that was a nice tot of rum from the captain as we crawled out of the hold, I was under 18 years of age and he would not allow me to drink.
My duties shipboard while at sea included learning how to hoist the sails, all done manually, and taking them down which was the hardest job especially on your hands and fingers when the canvas was wet from rain or salt spray. When the canvas was dry you folded each sail in the correct way before stowing it.
We used the Holy stone on the wooden decks which required you to get down on your knees and with a large brick block of sand stone and sand away at the decks until they were smooth and clean, sometimes the seams would require re-caulking to maintain water tightness and this was done the old fashion way using oakum which is hemp rope fiber and placed between the deck planks using a special caulking iron and mallet before sealing with pitch or hot tar.
There was no electricity so I was taught how to trim and re-fill with oil all the lamps and navigation lights each day. I also learned how to sew and mend canvas sails with a palm and needle under the watchful eye of the captain. I was scared of the Captain for some reason, but it was an unfounded fear because he turned out to be a fine gentleman and always had nothing but the best of interest in making a sailor out of me.
While I did my spell at the wheel he would be standing behind me barking at me if she yawed off course and for me to keep her steady until I was able to hold as good a line as the more experienced hands. There were many other daily duties including keeping all the brass work polished and as on most ships of the day there was a lot of brass to clean.
To the rear of the captains quarters the small hatch (Lazarette) had been modified to except the small engine and fuel tank. The Captain always manned the engine, he would fire it up by placing a big iron rod in the flywheel and turn it until the engine fired then it would give off a puff of smoke and would go putt-putt-putt as the exhaust came out of the exhaust pipe. I’m glad it wasn’t used very often, as it was so nice sailing under the canvas, no noise, just ships gentle motion, the breeze and the sound of the waves.
Anchoring was always a special nightmare as the very heavy chain had to be hoisted out of the chain locker by hand and laid out on the deck before dropping the anchor over the side. To hoist the anchor we had a windlass that was motor driven but that was unreliable so most the time we used the hand windlass. Thank goodness we did not anchor very often.
Our navigation was very basic, a compass stood in front of the large wheel and the captain had a small domestic radio that allowed him to listen to the weather forecasts. No doubt he had a sextant and some additional aids when crossing the Irish Sea.
For the crew’s entertainment there was just a deck of cards and checkers, but Barney, one of the AB’s played the Irish fiddle, and Mick the other AB played a little squeezebox. Of course all the songs ever played were Irish songs or Anti-British ballads but never with any malice against me, I learned many an Irish song and remember them even now. We never felt deprived and were generally a quite content crew, some of my fondest memories are of when we would sit on the hatch under the stars playing the old time Irish music and singing songs, no beer was ever allowed on board, only the rum for those special occasions and that was locked up in the Captains cabin.

We were never in port any length of time as the loading and unloading of a small ship was very fast, the captain and the mate would always do the shopping for food, just plain eating on that ship, lots of pork and sandwich meat, hamburgers were not thought of in those days, and as I have mentioned, the favorite dish the mate cooked was Schooner on the Rock. This consisted of a large joint of pork or beef, mostly pork, and he would place the meat in the middle of the roasting dish surrounded by as many vegetables, Carrots, Potatoes, Onions, Swedes etc that would fit in the pan then slow roast it all in the oven.
It was a good hot and filling meal.
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I sailed on the William Ashburner for almost six months and although Avonmouth was my home port and we were there quite often I never had the chance to go home because of the quick turn around. The rest of the crew had been away from their home port for almost a year so about mid December Captain Sinnott decided he was going to lay up the old girl until after the New Year (1948) and the whole crew return to the old sod for Christmas.
I paid off with a nice wad of bank notes; the old captain had kept good records of the money I earned plus all the bonus times for trimming in the hold.
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