[lakercapt]

The post by John Rogers brought back memories for me. I was a slim lad of 16 years old when I joined my first ship which was a coal burner.
I soon built up some muscle and sinew heaving hatch boards and beams every couple of days and a dab hand with a shovel. The shovelling with a number 8 Sydney shovel dumping the huge piles of ash after we cleared port each day. Swinging a hammer to secure the wood wedges was a breeze after a while. These were skills which I never forgot as I carried on becoming a ships master.
A few years ago I was at a fair with my son who is a lot bigger than I, (having a black belt in Karate and into weight training and fitness addict with a muscle all gained in a gym and over six feet tall). One of the stall had that hammer swinging where the idea was to send a shuttle up a scale and ring a bell at the top. My son trying to show off to his girl friend swung the hammer a few times and did not ring the bell. The fellow running the stall said to me would you like to try looking at me a diminutive 5’6” and in my late 70’s.
First swing I rang the bell. Bet you could not do that again it was a flook! Three more time in succession I did it ringing the bell each time.!!! But back to the stoke hold. I was volunteered to work down there as some of the Arab firemen were sick. They were from South Shields.
I can say I AGREE with John as it is the most miserable job on board. The ship burned about 40 tons of coal each day and the three trimmers had to supply this amount to the firemen. Before the end of each watch one fire in each boiler was allowed to burn down so when you started your watch the job was to clean it out of clinker using a long steel rake and slice. And gradually bring it back up. This while attending to the other two fires. It’s not possible to maintain the boiler on the “Blood” so the ships speed dropped. Coal had to be shovelled in the right way and not just thrown in. One shovel to the left one o the right and ne to the middle at the back of the furnace and them again towards the front. This was allowed to flame up with the furnace door shut. The other two furnaces had to be attended to in between times. Then back to the first one and add a few more pitches. The trimmer in the mean time kept you supplied with coal and was dumping ashes in between time. After bunkering the trimmer had it fairly easy as the coal ran down into the stokehold but later ad to barrow it to each fireman on a steel wheeled barrow. The donkey man who was in charge of the back gang watch was in the engineroom and he and he engineer kept the boiler feed water monitored. A few days was all it took for me to be glad to be back on deck. THE WORST JOB ON BOARD.