[pompeyfan]

CANBERRA PART ONE


I have decided to compile a series about my time aboard Canberra taken from my diary. It was intended as a book. However, my writing skills are not very good, so decided to abandon my book idea compiling series of episodes similar to Arcadia.

I was fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate to witness that end of the ‘line voyage’ era, and the beginning of cruising. Canberra was still a liner when I joined her transporting passengers from the UK to Australsia stopping en-route to disembark or embark new passengers. We sometimes went out via South Africa, and back via the west coast of America and Panama Canal, or visa versa cruising from Sydney between 'line voyages', and Mediterranean cruises from Southampton during the British summer.

Being medical department, my diary is mainly about patients, but also other below deck stories on our outward voyage to Sydney, and cruising from Sydney before the homeward voyage.

It was my emotions as detailed in this series that led me to arrange the first ever Canberra Reunion in 2007 aboard Oriana where 289 paid for lunch aboard, although more turned up when we went back ashore ending up at the Wellington pub spilling out onto the street, just like the old days!. I arranged a second aboard Oriana on a two-night cruise to Belgium. Eastenders star June Brown who plays Dot Cotton(Branning) was in our party. Anyway, my story about Canberra is a true ‘Boys Own’, proof that miracles do happen because joining her was nothing short of a miracle. It could be said to be true soap opera, the only difference is that it was true.

When she made her maiden voyage in 1961, I failed to join the Merchant Navy having travelled to Southampton with my father from the Isle of Wight to join as a cadet. I failed not being able to pass a simple IQ test. We came home aboard the Red Funnel ferry Balmoral following Canberra down Southampton Water.

Tears were rolling down my face, my dream over. I had wanted to go to sea ever since I was five years old, it had become an obsession. We lived next door to Uffa Fox, sailing partner to Prince Philip. Uffa was both neighbour and family friend, but although he was primarily into yachts, we saw liners like Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth and many more of that era passing our home as they rounded St Catherines Point. Uffa built a ‘Lookout’, on to of his house like a ships bridge. When Canberra was built, she became my favourite ship, so I was even more upset when following her down Southampton Water knowing I would never work aboard her, but I was still daydreaming, and even dreaming I was steering her!



In 1968, I emigrated to New Zealand. All I knew was farm or building work going to sea was still as far away as ever. The closest I came was six wonderful weeks aboard the Shaw Savill liner Northern Star as passenger, giving me some idea of the life I so longed for. My father was worried about me going to sea. After his death is 1968, I decided to leave home, having no idea what awaited me in New Zealand. I paid my own way rather than going on the £10 Pom ticket. The idea was to work on farms, but I had no job lined up. My family and friends thought I was mad going so far alone, but I did not see it that way, only the thought of going to sea on a liner at last, albeit as passenger, and going to a new country and a new life. I was too excited to be worried. It was a true adventure enjoying every second of it. My voyage on Northern Star can be read in the Shaw Savill forum here on SH.


On arrival in New Zealand, the wife of the family I was staying with worked at a local hospital. Needing a job quickly to earn some money plus finding digs, I was taken on at the hospital. Unbeknown to me at the time, it was the start of a very successful medical career. When off duty, I went down to the docks in Auckland as often as I could seeing Canberra and others. I found out that P&O employed Hospital Attendants so I wondered if this could be my way into my beloved Merchant Navy by the back door having a trade by then that I did not have in 1961. So I came home on the P&O liner Iberia finding out as much as I could arriving home on Monday 9th August 1971. I wrote to P&O right away, receiving a telegram on Thursday 12th August 1971 to meeting the Medical Superintendant aboard Chusan at Southampton on Friday13th. It was lucky 13 because he took me on telling me to report to P&O's head office in London the following Monday for a medical. After passing that, I joined the Merchant Navy and Seaman's Union before returning to P&O to be given my ship. To my utter joy, it was Canberra.

Therefore, having failed to Join the Merchant Navy in 1961, when Canberra made her maiden voyage, ten years later, having travelled 12,000 miles to New Zealand, I was back on Southampton Water again, but this time aboard Canberra. Emigration had taught me a new trade in the medical profession, a trade P&O wanted. Ten years earlier tears were running down my cheeks, the dream over. Now, the tears were there again, but this time tears of joy standing on the open deck of my Crew & Isolation Hospital as Canberra made her way down Southampton Water on Sunday 22nd August 1971. My tears were also tears of sadness because my father passed away in 1968 so did not witness the greatest day of my life. And to make the story complete, the Red Funnel Ferry was behind us, just as it was ten years earlier. Not the Balmoral, she had gone, but it did not matter. I never thought I would see Southampton again let alone a Red Funnel ferry old or new.