When Are You Going Back?

[Harry Nicholson]

'When Are You Going Back' is the title of a memoir I've placed on Amazon today: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...t_bibl_vppi_i0

It's taken two years - at 84 I don't rush uphill. But it's been a pleasure, and as it follows the other two: 'The Best of Days', and 'You'll See Wonders' it may be that my writing skills have come on. I end the book still at sea - so will there be another?

[Harry Nicholson]

To mark the publication anniversary of "When Are You Going Back?" Here's part of the first chapter (in which I hope to remind us of the atmosphere of those days):

From “When Are You Going Back?”
A memoir of the Sea
By Harry Nicholson

Chapter 1
The Bus to Port Clarence

Monday, 23 February 1959.


Morning throats are cleared on the top deck and windows shoved open amid billows of pipe smoke — strong stuff, that Battleaxe Bar and Walnut Plug. I'm seated half-way down the shuddering rows of seats, surrounded by shipyard workers. Mates are comparing notes about their weekend:
'Do any good at the dog track, Henry?'
The speakers are in the pair of seats in front. They've got muscular necks. 'Nah! Had five bob on a black bugger from Horden, a hot certainty, name o' Flash Harry, but he left the trap like the most constipated greyhound you ever set eyes on. Fly the birds, did you?'
'Just a short one. Pedalled a basket of pigeons up to Hart. Watched them take one turn about the windmill, then head straight home. At least they knew the way and all I had to do was freewheel downhill.'
'You keep them on Yankee corn; I've telt thee afore, birds never fly for the joy of it if they're out of condition. Dad allus reckoned to feed the best carlin peas he could afford. On top o' that he would tip a drop o' cider vinegar into their watter. He was never without a trophy on the mantlepiece.'
I give up listening to the pigeon men, there's rabbit talk in the seat behind me. I've an interest; along with my dad, I used to keep and show Blue Beverens and Flemish Giants.
The rabbit man has a gargly voice. 'At the Liberal Hall up Park Road, a tortoiseshell English went best Fancy. You don't see many torts. Breeder by the name of Wilks from Blackhall Rocks. A big man with Dutch'.
His mate has a similar rattle. 'Oh, aye? And what did thee think on it? That Cuddy Wilks is a right dab hand with the tweezers. Yon's a well-known plucker. Should be cautioned by the British Rabbit Council.'
'She was a bonny enough doe. I was stewarding and had hold of her. A balanced pattern and never a white hair in any of the spots, nor down the spine. Judge looked at the definition and shoved her straight to top o' table, and she stayed there. Mind you, I did notice a tiny white hair on her nose — on her butterfly, that is.'
'There you are then, the tweezers missed that one. Cuddy's eyes must be knackered. I get fed up with all the plucking in the Fancy. I've a mind to give up the Tans and get into Fur. Been offered a mated Blue Beveren by a chap whose overstocked on Wynyard Road. She weighs fourteen pounds, lovely colour, dense coat that rolls back nice and slow. Good type — a bold Roman face and grand mandolin haunches. He asks fifteen bob.'
'Well, if the strain turns out not to be a winner, at least you'll be able to put summat on the dinner table and at the same time make a pair o' mits for your lass. Tans make hardly enough for a sandwich, and they've nowt of a coat… That reminds me, after the show a little lass brought her Lilac Rex to judge Coulson, to ask why she didn't win a card. What she could do to make it a better exhibit and suchlike.'
'Oh, aye? And what did Clogger Coulson have to say?'
'Not much. He picked the Rex up, looked at its hocks — a bit bald they were — stretched out the forelegs — they were bowed like bananas — and said, "Now then, honey, you'd best get this'n under a pie crust". Poor bairn went off in tears.'
The double-decker bus leans at a disconcerting angle while she negotiates a bend in the road. She throbs to a stop at the tiny settlement of Graythorp, where a third of our cargo of shipyard workers dismount to hurry across the road to William Gray's drydock enterprise.
Two sea-fatigued ships: an anonymous little collier, and an eight-thousand ton vessel of the Hogarth line, stand high and dry. Cradled by huge timbers, their life support is delivered by cable and hose.
Among seafarers that company has a reputation for poor feeding. There's a ditty that goes:
You've heard of Hungry Hogarths?
The worst feeders on the sea
Their salt beef sailed with Nelson
Aboard the Victory.

A tall crane hovers nearby, waiting for the day to start.
At the bridge over Greatham Creek we sway and lurch as if aboard some vessel in mid-Atlantic. The morning has a nip to it, so passengers are snug inside heavy coats — tired army surplus for the main part, but some will have returned with their owners in 1945. Their flat caps, once bought for Sunday best, are black with engine grease or red with shipyard rust. The young fellow crammed next to me wears a cap impregnated with white powder.
He points. 'Plenty of fat geese on the flats.' A host of heads lift through skeins of evaporating mist. 'Any one of 'em would go down a treat with sage and onion stuffing. Be right canny for Sunday dinner.'
I nod. 'And with roast spuds in crispy skins, peas out of the garden, and a dollop of buttered swede.'
'My missus won't touch swede. Gives her bellyache. Me, I'm partial to frosted snagger.'
In one motion, black fronts and pale bellies take to the air. Wintering Brents from Spitzbergen. Honking, they form into groups that head for the estuary margins to feast on eel grass. They sense the tide is on the ebb.
He glances at my navy-blue bridge coat. 'Merchant Navy?'
'Yes. Been on leave for a month after the best part of seven months away. She's alongside in the Tees. I'm to sign on today.'
'I've not had a proper morning tab yet. Late up.' He opens a worn tobacco tin. Most of the blue paint has gone but it remains embossed with the head of an Indian chief in full war bonnet. He fishes among the Rizla papers to lift out half a hand-rolled cigarette, then lights the nipped end with a Swan Vesta match. The tab looks to have enough length to give him a few draws. 'What's your job?'
'I'm second radio officer on the Mawana — she carries two. Last trip was her maiden voyage, so she's in good nick. A steam turbine.'
'That sounds grand. Meself, I'm a pipe lagger at Smith's yard. Just about finished the engine room of the Galway. She's diesel powered. A Doxford engine by Hawthorns up at Hebburn. She's out on sea trials any day now. We've done her nice and tidy. It sometimes gets on the chest, does lagging with asbestos.'
I nod. 'My dad worked at Smith's. Rivetter by trade but ended up helping the ship platers when welding took over.'
'Not there now, then?'
'He'd have been on this bus, but we lost him a twelve-month gone. Should have reached his pension come November.'
'That's a shame. It's hard graft in the yards. A lot don't see their pension.'
'The war didn't help. The Great one, that is. Wounded on the Somme, baked to a frazzle in Salonika, then malaria. That generation don't make old bones — so Mam reckons.'
The bus slows for Port Clarence junction. My smart Felca wristwatch with luminous dial, bought in Aden, says we are running late. There's the clatter of nailed boots hitting the pavement as men jump off before she comes to a halt.
'My stop. You have a good trip. Enjoyed the bit blather.' My neighbour gets up, hitches his army haversack (tea can poking from the top) over his shoulder and joins the file of workmen that press towards the stairs. He blends with eighty others who hurry across the road towards the slipways and yards of Haverton Hill, anxious to clock on. The shipyard hooter is sounding for the start of the day.
The lightened bus manoeuvers less heavily as she turns left, then dips beneath the railway bridge, takes a sharp right and a left into the final stop. The last score of passengers leap off and run for the Transporter. The suspended gondola fills with cyclists, mostly workmen with cans of tea hung from handlebars. There's a matron or two in headscarves and a sprinkle of office girls. The man who attends the gondola and collects fares shouts in my direction, 'Come on, lad! Let's be havin' yer'. But my seagoing kit is cumbersome and I'm the last to squeeze aboard as the gates clang shut.
The deck is a sea of cyclists, with one Cameron's brewery lorry a silent hot island in the centre. The Bedford is loaded with wooden barrels of strong beer brewed in Stranton, West Hartlepool, for the parched throats of steelworkers. The covered areas to either side are full, so I lug my two bags up the stairs to the top deck from where the view is worth the trouble.
The gondola clanks into motion and we begin our 300 yard journey across the river Tees, suspended by cables from a bogey that travels along a lattice of steel girders fifty yards above us. The ingenious contraption is hauled back and forth by an engine in the motor house on the Middlesbrough bank. A fellow can climb to the top by a winding metal staircase and walk across the draughty upper bridge if he wants a thrill. I've done so in the past, mostly for a lark. The Tees Transporter is the most majestic of three such crossings in Britain.
My ship, SS Mawana, is moored to the wharf just a couple of hundred yards downriver. Despite her recent six-month maiden voyage east, she looks smart in the morning sun. Cranes already lower slingloads of steel into her holds. It's a dry day. I'll walk.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Are-Yo...ast_author_mpb

[Hawkey01]

Harry,

thoroughly enjoyed - When are you back? - and not long finished Vol1 of - Memoir of the Sea.
Will fire up my Kindle and get 2/3.

Neville

[Makko]

Harry,

I enjoyed reading your post. However, just one small correction, "two of fat and one of lean" is the funnel on T & J Harrison of Liverpool. Hungry Hogarth's was black with a big white H.

Best Regards,
Dave

[Harry Nicholson]

Thanks, Dave. I appreciate the correction and will put it right whenever I do a reissue. I take pains to check such details, but errors slip through. Age doth take the edge off a fellow.

[Makko]

It does, indeed! And I am just a 61 yo Whippersnapper. Best regards, Harry.

[randcmackenzie]

Originally Posted by Makko

Harry,

I enjoyed reading your post. However, just one small correction, "two of fat and one of lean" is the funnel on T & J Harrison of Liverpool. Hungry Hogarth's was black with a big white H.



Best Regards,
Dave

Hello Dave.

Sorry - oh, Hogarth's funnel was buff with a black top. They weren't that hungry either, from what I have read.

Black with a big white H was Harrisons of London, typically named Harmattan, Harpalyce etc.

Best Regards,

R.

[Harry Nicholson]

I'm still tapping away at this keyboard. The latest chapter of unpublished book4 is a 'creative' recall of a few hours at the Eritrean port of Assab. I've posted it here, just in case any of you chaps know this port at about that year. My wife was allowed to sail as supernumerary on this trip to Calcutta.

I feel the piece needs some filling out. Any comments? Observations? I'll be 86 in three weeks, and enjoy a bit of feedback.


29th June 1960
The little port of Assab is hardly eighty miles from the Danakil Depression, said to be the hottest place on Earth, and today feels like it. To escape the heat, a stroll ashore seems a good plan. We are the only ship in the harbour, and are tied up beneath a clanking crane that lifts cases of Carreras Craven 'A' cigarettes out of one of Marwarri's holds, followed by crated wireless sets.
The police have departed. As soon as we came alongside, many thousands of heavy coins, in stout boxes, were hauled by hand from our bullion room. Under armed guard, the currency was rushed away to Addis Ababa by military transport. These Maria Theresa thalers (dollars) are brand new, from the Royal Mint in London. Each silver coin is dated 1780 and inscribed with a string of abbreviations which decode as Maria Theresa, by the grace of God, Empress of the Romans, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria, Duchess of Burgundy, Countess of Tyrol. It bears the profile of a corpulent Maria Theresa, hence the most trusted coin in East Africa is fondly termed The Fat Lady. If I were to be paid in Fat Ladies, I reckon I'd be handed four a day.
The ship seems to pant. There's no escape. To touch a steel surface is to invite burnt flesh. The cabins are uninhabitable, so those free of duty wander ashore in search of shade. We sail as soon as discharge is done, so we must watch the time.
The dusty little town, carpeted with blown sand, has a Mediterranean character with touches of Italy here and there. Not to be left out of Europe's 'Scramble for Africa', in 1869 an Italian missionary in the pay of his government bought Assab from two Danakil chieftains for 6,000 Maria Theresa thalers. So began Italy's empire south of the Sahara. Mussolini ran this port, and the rest of Eritrea, until defeated by British troops in 1941. The province is now federated with Haile Selassie's landlocked kingdom of Ethiopia, which is where our cargo is destined.
Defined streets are rare. Our group of four wanders among haphazard houses with pierced white walls. We dive into the first cafe. The owner is a sad little Italian who has yet to go home. There are few windows, but the walls are pieced like a lattice to aid air flow. In the dim coolness, beneath the whispering blades of two ceiling fans, we find the bottled beer is chilled, but far too sweet. The yellow and red label shows a mounted Saint George in the act of shoving his lance into the throat of a green dragon. St George is the patron saint of Ethiopia, and a few other places apart from England. Ethiopia gave up a version of Judaism to become Christian in 330AD, three-hundred years before the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons got underway. The emperor Haile Selassie descends from Menelek, the first emperor of Ethiopia and son out of a union of King Solomon of Israel with the Queen of Sheba. He glories in the title, The Lion of Judah. All this we discover from a local schoolteacher who sips coffee at the next table. He urges us to visit the Church of Saint Michael on the edge of town. It proves to be a handsome building --- three green domes, a belfry, and many narrow windows of stained glass. Shoes have been left by the door. Within will be coolness, but on trying to enter, a barefooted sexton on the door bars our way. 'Haile Selassie church,' he shouts. 'Not for you.'
By now, we droop with the heat. I'm anxious. Beryl is not walking in a straight line, and keeps taking a rest in any morsel of shade. A single blast from Marwarri's whistle warns she'll be sailing soon. Good! We need to get out of this place.
*
After the shimmering furnace of today's shore, the motion of a ship is sweet. As soon as we cast off, Beryl took to her bed while Marwarri took the channel that sweeps around the thirty islands in the Bay of Assab and made for the open sea. It was disconcerting to open the wireless room door. Sealed on the orders of the port authority, even though for just a few hours, the heat within was tremendous. Bob and I stood back and waited for the oven to cool a little. I touched the surface of the cabin door. My finger came away tacky. On all varnished surfaces, doors, cupboards, the ancient coats, layered one on top of another over the years, had become semi-molten. It has slumped downwards in glowing ripples.
I turn to Bob. 'See that? Years of gleaming care gone to wrinkles like a prune.'
'Aye,' he says. 'Right enough. The place is like Ayesha's two-thousand-year-old skin after she lost the elixir of youth.'
I give him a quizzical glance. 'What have you been reading?'
'Rider Haggard's She. It's in the library box. She who must be obeyed.' He points to the orange mountains that march along the burning coast off our starboard side. 'The story happens somewhere amongst that lot. The land of Prester John, according to some.'
I nod. 'Your brother Scot, John Buchan, puts the mythical Prester a good bit south of here. Right-oh, let's see if the gear works. Whatever else's gone on, the cockroaches will be nicely done to a turn.'
We open both portholes and switch on the nodding electric fan. In a few minutes, with the door wide open, the temperature collapses below 100 Fahrenheit, and we start the gear. Bob calls up the primitive Assab telegraphy station and tells them of our departure bound for Djibouti. The bridge has fired up the radar. I must check all is well with that mass of valves, resonant cavities, wave guides, and gas cells. It will be needed tonight when we pass through the straits of Bab el Mandeb, the southern end of the Red Sea, and a place of islands, reefs, and a major shipping lane.










**

[Varley]

A good read Harry - Thank heaven's someone else's still alive here.

Can't comment on Ethiopia although know the red sea well enough not to want to be there. Three years taking the Shah's oil to Eilat. I am surprised by the shoeless grave-digger I thought we were in good odour with the Lion of Judah.

As GYXD did 'control' a distress. Mohamedia in 1975 (I read 15.20N 47.07,5E). Barely that. A French warship was already picking up survivors but for whatever reason she did not communicate directly on MF. She conversed with Djibouti and Djiboiuti with me on 8 MHz. I relayed as appropriate on 500 (also to Aquabaradio who kept telling me how many cows there were on board when we were asking about SOB). We left the site just as the water was overtopping a hatchcoming. Livestock all about. The crew were getting into the water from lifeboat in threes or fours and he warship was sailing passed with a scramble net rigged which they caught on the way passed. At the time we were told that all had been saved but later reports (much later) say I soul lost.

84. Well done. And still thinking of fat ladies (or would that be Fat Ladies). I have no intention of doing that well.