Transcription of an MP3 Audio Diary, kept between Friday January 11th

and Saturday March 15th 2008. Part One.

Friday, 11th January 2008

Leave-taking happened last night, as each of the kids came up to the office to
say good-bye and wish me 'bon voyage' – each in their own personal way !
Manoel's 17yr-old menefregismo, Hannah's warmth struggling to get out from
behind an aggressive 'flu and David confident enough in his machismo to give
his old man a healthy hug. Then I went through my travel check list for the nth
time.

After WWII, my parents, like many families in similar situations, decided to

emigrate and make a fresh start. Some went to Canada and the States, others
to Australia and New Zealand. My parents opted for South Africa. My mother's
family, the Hortons, had concentrated on infiltrating Greater Britain, but the
Worrod family's connection to Southern Africa goes back to the Boer War with
my grandfather, Charles Harris Worrod. My father, Charles Hector, went out in
1947 to prepare the way for my mother and myself, where 9yr-old Roger would
spearhead the 3rd generation of African Worrods. But my parents divorced soon
after my mother and I arrived in Cape Town in early 1948. She was given
custody, as was usual at the time, although my father did ask me tentatively if
I wanted to stay with him and his new wife... but before the year was out my
mother and I were on the Llangibby Castle returning to England.
In the intervening 60 years, my father and I have met three times and spent
less than a week together in total. This trip from my home in Switzerland to his
home in South Africa, using the same means of transport as before, will
hopefully give us appreciably longer together and a mutual chance to find out
what we have missed and the results of the decision each of us took all those
years ago...
Now living in the centre of Europe, I shan't be taking a “migrants' express”
from Southampton, UK, but a cargo ship from Antwerp in Belgium.

My wife, Rahel, drove me to Renens (VD) station at about 6:30 am this morning
and I took the local train into Lausanne where I caught the 7:03 TGV. We
arrived 2 minutes early in Paris at the Gare de Lyon and 11 minutes later I was
already on the platform at Gare du Nord, in time to have caught the previous
Thalys to Brussels and Antwerp – a far cry from a few years ago when you had
to change at Chatelet-Les Halles and go up and down at least a dozen
escalators or sets of steep steps; loaded down with the necessary
paraphernalia for 2 or 3 kids, one in a push-chair, made a family trip via Paris
something of a nightmare. On the occasions when I travelled alone, I always
walked from one station to the other, finding time to have a Pakistani or
baguette-and-Beaujolais lunch.
It's a bit soon to digress, but that's the way my mind works...
When I first moved to Italy in 1968, I went on the Rome Express from Victoria
Station, which arrived at Paris Nord, offloaded passengers, then went round the
city to Paris Lyon to pick up more passengers heading for Italy. A kind lady in
my compartment agreed to 'watch my luggage' and I set off across town on
foot with only a hazy idea of how long it would take me, but confident that my
Sunday afternoon 11-mile hikes across London from Fulham to what became
the Screen-on-the-Green in Islington would ensure my safe arrival;
nevertheless, I decided not to dawdle too much. As a result, when I arrived at
Paris Lyon, I still had time for lunch. And a final nostalgic good-bye to my way
of life in London, when I found a Pakistani restaurant 5 minutes walk away. It
was a good choice because when I arrived in Rome, I found there were no
Pakistani restaurants (perhaps to be expected), but no Indian restaurants
either, which my 1968 self found unbelievable!
But back to today...
I caught the Thalys at 12:25 which brought me, via Bruxelles Midi, to
Antwerpen Centraal. I'd received an SMS from the Swiss agency 'Globoship'
asking me to phone the Antwerp agency as soon as I arrived, as there might be
some delay. I already knew that I would either embark today or find a hotel for
the night and embark tomorrow. So I called the Belgian agency. Who said they
knew nothing about me, but that the ship was in port and, if I really was their
next passenger and all my papers were in order, then I could, by all means, go
to the ship, but to make sure that I had enough cash for the taxi, because the
ship was docked about 25Kms away... Remembering that 'cargo was king' and
that passengers were secondary, I decided to check back with Globoship before
wasting money on an unnecessary taxi ride. The Swiss Globoship office SMSed
me the new Pier number (rather closer to the centre, according to the dockyard
layout that I'd printed from a website) and I set off for the taxi rank in the
pouring rain.
The taxi driver spoke English, as he and his brother had come from Karachi 13
years ago; his brother is a diamond-polisher, but the driver from '3 Sterren Taxi'
prefers to work with people...
We arrived at Pier 332 where I went to present myself at the gate... and
promptly slipped on some oil, falling up the steps, landing on my hold-all. The
3 people grinning at me through the office window obviously thought that I had
been sent to enliven their afternoon. Luckily, my computer was in my back-
pack and that was where it should have been, on my back. And I'd fallen on
my face, so no problem there. I picked myself and my baggage up and made
for the gangplank. There were a dozen or so stevedores dealing with cargo,
but I could see no-one on the poop deck, and I knew that I had to request
permission to go aboard.
Brain-wave! I dumped my suitcase and hold-all beside the gangplank, then
backed off some way in order to take some photographs. Sure enough, several
of the would-be-film-star stevedores waved and looked extra-busy and soon
someone appeared from the aft superstructure who was not wearing
fluorescent orange or yellow. He waved to me as well, then walked down the
gangplank.
This was Darek (not sure of the spelling) the steward. He took me inside, out of
the rain, and said: “Please, ten minute”. And sure enough, ten minutes later he
took me up to my chambers (cabin) on D deck. Labelled 'OWNERS DAY RM
604'.

Just about time to unpack, change out of my wet clothes and check for
breakages from my fall, when Darek knocked on the door with a note and the
legend: Breakfast – 7:30, Lunch – 12:00, Dinner – 17:30.
Legend. I remember reading somewhere, with unfortunate punctuation, that
Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader was a leg-end in his own lifetime* (*For the
younger generation, Douglas Bader was a WWII pilot who had both of his legs
amputated after a needless flying accident. When he was a prisoner of war in
Colditz Castle, the Germans took his tin legs away from him because he kept
trying to escape).
I had about an hour to turn '604' into 'WORROD'S DAY RM', then to meet the
captain for dinner. I must find out why '604 Squadron' sounds familiar...

Captain Böckmann has been sailing for 50 years and has captained the 'Grey
Fox' for the last 3. He and the 'deck cadet' (cabin boy?) are German, while
Darek and the rest of the crew are Polish. We hear from the chief stevedore
that we will sail some time on Sunday afternoon, as the storms coming across
from Scotland and the already strong winds are making loading extra
dangerous. So that means, one way or another, that I should be able to visit
Antwerp tomorrow. If I want to make an early start, I'd better get to bed: it's
been a long first day, today.
But first, another digression: my Racton Rd (Fulham) landlady's boyfriend, Terry
Mahoney, was a chief stevedore at the London Docks. The Chief Stevedore is
the equivalent of the Captain when the ship is in harbour and he's the one who
makes all the decisions, including loading & unloading sequences, ready-to-sail
times, booking the pilot etc.. Terry was also a professional boxing trainer; one
of his charges, Sammy McSpadden from Paisley, rented the room next to mine.
That was in 1960.

Saturday, 12th January

So much for the early start!
Yesterday was long and, although I set my alarm for 6:15am, I switched it off
and went back to sleep until 8:25. It would have been longer, but Darek the
steward knocked on my door to make sure that I didn't want any breakfast.
Not a very pleasant day to get up to, anyway. Steady drizzle that showed no
signs of letting up. So I did a bit of housekeeping, checked out the videos that
were on offer and took some photographs of the space that will be my home
for 6 of the next 9 weeks.
Eventually the drizzle eased up and I decided to find my way into Antwerp. I
went across to the gatehouse of Pier 332, but yesterday's grinners were
obviously on another shift. I asked the guy monitoring the CCTV cameras
where to catch a bus, but it turned out that today was his first day in the docks;
he usually works in the offices in town and is replacing someone who's gone
down with 'flu. But he pointed out the general direction to take and I started
walking. 250m further on, there was an arrow indicating 'City Bus No. 31', and,
as I saw a bus approaching and then turning away again, I ran after it to the
bus stop, which turned out to be the terminus.
Yesterday's taxi cost €28, today's bus was €1.50 each way. A strange feeling of
déjà vu - not the prices, but the bus itself. It was a 'van Hool', the same make
and exactly the same interior design and furnishings as the local bus that I
catch from home which takes me to Renens where I pick up the trolley bus to
Lausanne. A very odd feeling, but a much kinder bus driver than I usually find
at home.
With limited time, I decided to concentrate on the obvious. Rubens and
Rubens' House. This is neither the time nor the place for an in-depth study of
Pietro Pauolo Rubens, but personal observations are in order:
I had never realised how young he was when he became well-known AND well
off ! Even when his style was limited by that of his first master, Otto van Veen,
he became a guild master at the age of 21. He's a court painter in Italy and
Spain through his 20s and after his return to Antwerp is rich enough at the age
of 32 to buy the house on the Wapper and build on extensions to accommodate
his workshop. He was obviously very important to Antwerpen. In order to
ensure that he remained in the city of his mother's birth, he was exempt from
most taxes, while receiving lavish gifts from patrons from all over Europe.
Maria de' Medici was a house guest on the Wapper.
It's a beautiful house and well worth a trip to the city. I spent 2½ hours inside
and enjoyed the garden as well. I had no idea that he wrote as well as painted
and I make a promise to myself to read whatever is available after I come back
to Europe. His diplomatic career produced results in the real sense of the term,
having prepared the peace treaty between England and Spain. He was made a
Spanish Lord by Philip IV and an English Knight by Charles I. He also married
his 16yr-old second wife, Helena, at the age of 53, producing 4 more children,
before popping his clogs on 30th May 1640.
I can also correct one of my (many) 'certainties' that I have passed on to others
without any real knowledge of the facts. To those that I have put down or
conned with my (in too many cases, baseless) superior knowledge, I heartily
apologise. 'Gold Leather' is actually leather coated with a very fine SILVER
layer, then varnished. The natural colour of the leather and the effect of the
elements on the varnish create the gilding. While there may have been a
technique of attaching gold leaf to leather, it was more likely something that I
misinterpreted or invented in order to impress others...
I didn't visit the Cathedral of Our Lady to see the 'Raising of the Cross' and
'Descent from the Cross' (I can only take in a limited number of paintings in any
one day), but I did pop into the Rubens Chapel in St. Jakobskerk (St James'
Church) where the Rubens family is buried... and the Carolus Borromeus church
which he designed, which kind of completes the set for me, having stood
outside on the roof of the Borromeus Church in Vienna and looked down on the
Isole Borromei on Lago Maggiore from above Stresa, in northern Italy, when
Rahel and I were 'courting'.
Being a bit peckish, I walked up and down Chinatown, without finding what I
was looking for. Only one Indonesian take-away, a sushi restaurant that was
closed for renovation and not one single Vietnamese restaurant.
As I didn't fancy Chinese (Chinees in Dutch), I ended up in Kelly's Irish Pub,
where I had a very nice Irish stew washed down with a pint or four of Magners
Cider (I pity those who have to put up with the 'other' Bulmers). I also watched
Leinster beat Toulouse and left when Middlesborough were leading Liverpool 1-
0 just before half time. Because I had to catch the bus back to the Grey Fox in
time for 17:30 dinner. After that, I watched 'American Beauty' on my iBook G4,
then had a lovely warm shower and an earlyish night.

Sunday, 13th January

The Chief Stevedore suggested it would not be a good idea to go back into
Antwerp today, as they might get clearance to leave as early as lunchtime. So
I spent most of the time wandering around with my laptop under my arm,
trying to find an 'open' network with a signal that was strong enough to surf.
No luck, but I did find a tiny restaurant tucked away behind a petrol station and
an upstairs bar in a sailors' club: something to pass on to the captain, as this is
the first time Grey Fox has docked at Pier 332 or in this part of the docks.
I told Captain Böckmann about it at lunchtime and he made a note on the
bulletin board for the crew. Our soup was very tasty, but both Germans
(captain and deck cadet or apprentice) made sarcastic remarks about it. Later
the steward explained that it was 'cowy stomach': tripe. It seems our Germans
think that liver is OK, but any other offal is only to be fed to dogs! I asked the
captain if he'd eaten dog on his travels and he was quite shocked. I must
watch my tongue (does that go with the liver or the kidneys?), as we'll be living
together for the next couple of months. Latest news from the Chief Stevedore:
we have booked the pilot and can start to move an hour before one of the two
locks is free. Time to go to my chambers and make my final phone calls and
send SMS. But the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) Lisbon slips from 15th
January to 16th...
However, the afternoon dragged on and we eventually sailed at 3:45pm; the
captain phoned me and invited me onto the bridge, so I experienced the
departure at first hand.
With the pilot calling out speeds and directions, the cadet was at the wheel. An
18yr-old driving this 192.27m container ship-cum-pantechnicon up the canal,
through the gates and up as far as the locks. We were supposed to go into the
lock before 17:00hrs, but two ships coming the other way are blocking us.
On the starboard (RHS) there are wetlands, then there's a village steeple...
then a whole village unwinds complete with village football pitch about 500m
away, a crossroads and... suddenly there's a bus coming towards us between
two fields. Everything gives the impression of being below the present water
level, but it's a real surprise to come across this greenery keeping the oiling
bunkers apart – I suppose it's where the people lived who used to coal the
steamships... Now there are 2 pot-bellied nuclear power station chimneys to
port, between us and the open sea...
We eventually got into the lock about 17:40. Tied up, waiting for water levels to
equate... By then, it was like fairyland outside, with hundreds of twinkling
lights; magically quite quite different from the banalities of daylight.
The three of us (captain, cadet and passenger) went down for a quick dinner...
then up onto the bridge again. We had 3 pilots in all: one to take us from our
berth up to and into the lock (the captain said he'd screwed up by taking us too
far up the canal, leading to complicated manoeuvres with 3 tugs to get us into
position to enter the lock); another pilot to take us from the lock up the estuary
and a third from Flushing out to the open sea. The last one went down to his
pilot boat at 12:45am – 2 minutes ago. It's been a long evening in the wheel-
house (on the bridge), trying to keep out of everyone's way, at the same time
being available when the captain or the pilot or the chief engineer or the 18yr-
old cadet wanted to pass on information, or simply receive a verbal pat on the
back. But we are finally at sea !

Monday, 14th January

It was an odd feeling to wake up this morning with the lights of southern
England to starboard. So near and yet so far. I've only been back there once in
the past 12 years since my mother died...
At breakfast, the cook came into the dining room and hung a '1H -' sign on the
clock: one hour less is UK time, but also Portuguese time. The captain says
they'll only change the ship's time (put the clocks back) during the night, so we
can lie in for an extra hour tomorrow morning. We passed Dover at 5am and
are doing a steady (but he says 'unfortunate') 13 Knots into a Force 8
headwind. Depending on the swell as we turn for Biscay later, it might slow us
down even more. Landfall in Lisbon is now likely to be early on the 17th.
During breakfast, the captain gave me his opinion of the 'real' political and
health situations in South Africa: depressing that it seems to correspond so
closely to that of so many people that I've listened to, including my father and
his wife.
My father. We've seen each other on 3 occasions in the past 60 years. During
the war years, very often he was also conspicuous by his absence and I missed
him very much. War work took him to aerodromes all over England and
Scotland; sometimes my mother and I were with him and I have hazy memories
of Hunstanton (Hunston), Evesham (where I endured a horror movie of
tonsillectomy), evacuation to Kenilworth, and living with a wonderful woman
called Jeannie Maine in Burghead on the Findhorn (where I went to the one-
classroom village school), when my father was working on the Whitley bombers
at Elgin and Lossiemouth. But by the time I started English school at Folly
Lane, Coventry, we were back in our own house in St Christian's Road
Cheylesmore, Coventry, round the back of the cemetery.
The future couldn't have looked very bright, so in 1947, my father went ahead
to set up a home for us in South Africa, my mother and I following on later. But
when we arrived, it was to find that Charles had found someone else called
Wynne... He and my mother were divorced and she and I went back to
Coventry before the end of the year.
Our next meeting was in 1964 when I was in the 'Shakespeare 400' season at
the Mermaid Theatre, down in Puddle Dock. That's when I first met my half-
brother Alaric who was 14 and my half-sister Jenetta who was uninhibitedly
celebrating her 6th birthday. The family had moved to Nairobi in Kenya, where
Charles ran 'Equator Sound Studios'.
In 1972 Charles and Wynne came to Rome (where I had been living since 1968)
and I recorded a travelogue with him for East African Airways.
The last time we met was in September 2001. Alaric was now living in London
and Charles & Wynne paid him a visit. Alaric and I had arranged that they
would pay us a surprise visit in Switzerland via EasyJet and they spent a few
days in Bussigny. Charles suffers with emphysema and has 'slept' sitting
upright for many years. I'd arranged an orthopaedic chair and placed it
strategically in front of the telly. And so it was that Charles woke us on the
morning of September 11th wanting to know if there was anything significant
about the disaster movie that appeared to be on every channel...
We have kept in touch by Email and phone for many years now. In early
(European) summer 2007, he was ill and was sure that he was about to die...
Then he recovered. So... on his 95th birthday, I called him and told him that if
he could hang on, I'd do my best to visit him as soon as possible. I had a
contract to fulfil until the end of 2007, so 'as soon as possible' meant early
2008. Which is why I'm on 'Grey Fox', going south.

After lunch, Darek came to hoover my chambers and bring the Bacardi, mineral
water and Pepsi that I'd ordered. Then he took me down to the pantry/galley to
show me which fridge I could raid if I got peckish during the night, “or any
times when you have hungered”.
I was up on the bridge for most of this afternoon – for one memorable quarter
of an hour, completely alone ! The ship-to-ship, ship-to shore and shore-to-ship
conversations were surprisingly interesting, some of them even cryptic, when
we could only hear one side of the arguments ! Each hour, on the hour, we
heard: “Say-cure-eatay, say-cure-eatay ! The abandoned ship at oh 500 is
listing badly. She is drifting at about 3 Knots. Take care if you are in the
vicinity”. The drifting speed varied from 2 to 6 knots.
Dinner solved no culinary problems. Opinions were divided on tongue... the
captain ate his, but the cadet said it was disgusting.
After the cadet and the Chief Engineer had finished their meal and departed,
the captain and I had an extended grumpy old men conversation. We're the
same generation, he was a child in Lübeck, I was a child in Coventry...

Then he talked about his daughter.

She's 6½ and swims like a fish and is already a member of a swimming club.
He met his wife, who is from the Philippines, at a Holiday Inn in Hunan in China
where she was working in 1996. They married in 1999 and Kristin was born in
May 2001. The family had accompanied him on trips several times, but there
was an unexpected problem on the last trip that they made together at
Christmas 2006... Kristin complained bitterly that she didn't have any
presents. When her parents pointed out that she'd had this from mummy, that
from daddy and this from the first mate etc., she said that she knew that, but it
wasn't the same as for other children in her kindergarten: she had received
nothing from Father Christmas ! However, it's likely to be several years before
one of the ship's crew dresses up in red robes and cotton wool. Alas, the law
has put the kibosh on that. Kristin has reached obligatory school-age.

We passed Cherbourg just after dinnertime, with our speed down to 11 knots.
We should turn into Biscay in the middle of the night. Must remember to
change the alarm, otherwise I'll be up at 5:15am ! A litre of Bacardi and 6
Pepsis, €11.70...
Sitting here at my desk, a Bacardi & Pepsi to hand, perhaps it's time I gave
some other facts and figures:
we've established that the cadet was learning to 'left-hand-down-a-bit' this
192.27m monster. Grey Fox is 26.70m wide and the overall height up to G
Deck is 51.70m. As we're sitting in the water to 11.02m (draught), our mini
high-rise is still over 40m above the water.
At a more personal level, my desk and swivel high-backed chair is in one half of
my day room, while the fridge, TV, table, two mini sofas and two chairs occupy
the other half. In total, 7m x 3m. My bedroom (stateroom with twin beds) is
6m x 2½ m, while the toilet, shower and wash basin are set on an arc in one
corner, 1.40m radius. The coffee machine, CD Hi-Fi and VCR are on top of a
solid wooden cupboard underneath 2 of the 6 windows in the day room – I can't
call them portholes, as they really are windows, and there are 2 more in the
bedroom. The prints on the walls are Chinese, which correspond nicely to the
lattice-work that separates the two halves of the day room (and the fact that
the ship was built in Shanghai 10 years ago), although the prints in outside
corridors and the galley & dining room are all early 20th century German ships
and sailors. There are 22 members of our crew, with the wife of one of the
sailors and me bringing the ship's complement to 24.
A bowl of fruit has appeared on the table in my 'lounge'. Quite a home from
home...

Tuesday, 15th January

We're down to 3 knots ! After rounding Ouessant/Ushant, the swell has been
constant and impressive. Although we have 11m draught, it feels as if there is
a very good chance that the propeller will come out of the water. At breakfast,
the captain said that the headwinds will be Force 8 to 10 all the way down to
the Iberian peninsular. The time has come to take some cinnarizine as a
prophylactic, as he suggested that things might get rougher (which I enjoy) and
the swell even more pronounced (which is far less pleasant). The good news,
as he said was that “we are still moving... and more or less going in the right
direction”.
There are crew members out on the open deck securing a truck (named 'South
Wales') that had shaken loose. 'Batten down the hatches' has no sense on a
container or mixed cargo freighter, but looking down from my window as these
men anchor each other, allowing the 3rd man at the end of the chain to have a
hand free to work, I was drawn to the Emergency Instructions and now know
what to expect if there is a 'Man Overboard'.

At lunch, the captain couldn't wait to tell me that he'd been talking to his wife
and explained how you face the trials and tribulations of solving family
problems at a distance. His daughter is a member of a swimming club in
Lübeck and has been invited to a weekend camp on 8th, 9th & 10th February. It
will be Kristin's first time away from home for 2 nights and the captain's wife
had obviously read him the list of what to take and especially what NOT to take
with her: “very few sweets, NO electronic games...”. The 1½ hours each
morning in the water plus afternoon sessions using flippers and a board are
essential, because she has 5 competitions between March and May. The other
girls in her group of 14 or 15 are at least two years older than she is. Kristin
will be 7 at the beginning of May...

I spoke too soon ! We hadn't rounded Ushant, we had simply carried on out
into the Atlantic, bearing just slightly south of west. The big shake-up only
started around 3:30 this afternoon. Although our speed had increased to about
7 knots, that did little to counter the new experience of rolling from side to
side. I had already put my laptop and my mobile phones in my bed under the
duvet, but I spent a happy moment of carefree exercise chasing anything and
everything that could and would roll around my cabin, including the kiwis,
apples and oranges from my fruit bowl, the bowl itself and 2 x 1½ litre bottles
of water that rolled under the desk to the far reaches of my domain and which
could only be reached flat on my belly. A word to the wise: always put your
lavatory seat and cover down before opening your bathroom cabinet to extract
your toothbrush and toothpaste ! Probably a good rule for life on dry land as
well, as one gets older.

Dinner this evening was macaroni cheese. There was also a series of small
pots with: herring in dill sauce, herring in tomato sauce and herring in beetroot
salad. Perhaps tomorrow...
I mentioned bellies a moment ago. Aboard the Grey Fox, pot bellies seem to
be the order of the day, as far as the crew is concerned; If I squint a bit, I could
convince myself that I look positively slim beside them. The steward and a
couple of A/Bs (Able-Bodied Seamen) are slim-ish, while 18yr-old Kristian, the
deck cadet, is like a rather short stick insect. But everyone else is competing in
a pot-belly competition. I would think the butter they eat might have
something to do with it. Several of them have bread with their butter ! I'd
never seen anyone put 50gms on one thin slice of bread before, but three of
them have done it so far. I eat in the officers' mess, so have no way of knowing
what goes on in the other mess on the far side of the galley. The captain
sprinkles knobs of butter with sugar before popping them, while the chief mixes
sugar and butter in a soup spoon, adding a teaspoonful of raspberry or
strawberry jam. The closest experience I can relate to is when I woke up with a
sore throat as a small child: my grandmother would mix butter, sugar and
vinegar in a cup. Then, after granddad had put a sheet of brown paper on my
chest and dripped warm malt vinegar onto it and re-buttoned my pyjama top, I
was allowed to suck teaspoonfuls of the mixture, while my grandmother sat
beside me waiting for me to go back to sleep.

Wednesday, 16th January

Rock And Roll Throughout The Night And Most Of The Day !
Before we left Antwerp, our Lisbon ETA was early afternoon on 15th. We left
a day late, so... 16th ?
But, in practice, it doesn't work out according to theory. We have been rolling
quite badly with the Atlantic swell and I was up two or three times during the
night, re-locking doors & cupboards, pushing in solid wooden drawers that had
shot out of place like match boxes blown apart by small boys. A blue 'hard hat'
suddenly appeared from nowhere and, no matter where I tried to stow it, it
always ended up back on the floor, rolling around like a soccer ball. All my
valuables are under the duvet on the other bed and by 5am the only surfaces
that were not utterly naked were the ones that were home to the TV and the
Hi-Fi, both of these units being locked in with straps and metal bolts.

I think the young cadet, Kristian, is trying to wind me up. We were the first
ones down for breakfast and he greeted me with: “a container ship has sunk in
Dover”. Then he rushed back up 6 flights of stairs to the bridge. The captain
and the 1st Officer came for their scrambled eggs and I asked them what had
happened. They both presumed that it must have been something that
Kristian had heard on the radio immediately prior to breakfast, so we all puffed
up the stairs, hanging on for dear life as we wallowed in glorious Biscay. On the
way up to the wheel-house, the captain popped into the radio room, before
charging up the remaining stairs behind us to burst onto the bridge. There
followed a short, pithy exchange in German, after which the 1st Officer and I
learnt that the sinking was something that had taken place long ago... ! The
captain went below and Kristian and I were left avoiding each other's gaze.
After a long half hour of silence: “There are many who have died in this ship.
Ferry Many.”
“On the Grey Fox ?”
“Yes. Before I came on board.” My pinch of salt was by now well prepared. “A
deck officer was caught by a cable that snapp-ed... and then there was the
incident of the helicopter...”
“A helicopter here on the Grey Fox ?”
“Yes. No. It was for the pilot...”
“?”
“The ship's pilot. He was to leave. By the winch. A crewsman moved away
from the helicopter's tail rotor and fell over the side.” A long pause. “Would
you like me to take a photo off you in the captain's chair ?”
I accepted with an enigmatic smile.
Then I went down to my cabin.
But I couldn't get in.
The steward and I managed to push the door open 2 or 3 inches and could see
that the bottom of the door was hard on top of the headrest of the high-backed
swivel chair that was now lying on the floor. Nothing would shift it backwards
or forwards and I was becoming a little desperate, as I needed to go to the loo.
We called Kristian, but, skinny as he is, he was not thin enough to squeeze
through. So the only thing to do was to close the door again and wait for
another big roll to starboard... Trial and error took another quarter of an hour,
until finally this heavy black 5-footed monster crashed against the panelling
under the desk on the other side of the day room. Holding the door open, I
thanked the two of them as they righted the chair, then shooed them out and
rushed to the loo. But during my struggle to 'stay in the saddle', there was a
crash from my stateroom, as the chair toppled over again. In the end, I left it
where it lay.
Lunch was something of a farce, with poor Darek giving a good impression of
Freddy Frinton in the later stages of his “Same procedure as last year ?” sketch.
Glasses slid off both tables to smash on the floor, Darek's caricature of a drunk
served oxtail soup half in/half out of a soup plate. In the end, we all took two
halves of a baked roll onto which Darek served half of our steaks. Like
schoolboys, we all went back for second helpings.
The chief then had a quiet word with Darek in Polish and this evening all the
place-mats had been replaced with cut rectangles of non-slip material. Darek
also gave me a couple of rectangles to put on my desk so that the computer
would stay put and I could finally type...
...because, before and after lunch, I lay down on my bed. Not because I was
seasick, but because there was nowhere else to be and very little else to do. I
couldn't use any of my chairs because they wouldn't stay close to any workable
surface; surfaces which were not, anyway, 'workable', because nothing would
stay on them. Up on the bridge, the crew had anchored themselves to the
railings and when they needed to consult charts, screens or tables, or had to
pick up a ringing phone, they each needed all the space available, so it was no
place for an unnecessary hanger-on. I couldn't work on my laptop or even
watch a video; I tried reading, but that was no pleasure; I (unwisely) risked a
quick, hang-onto-the-washbasin shave, but in the end, the only place to be was
bed.
A quick visit to the bridge before dinner informed me that our ETA Lisbon was
any time between the evening of the 20th and the afternoon of the 22nd, but the
captain said at dinner that that was nothing to go by; He'd decided to go much
further out into the Atlantic in order to head into the swell and cut down the
roll, then we would go south.

Each trip, he has to make the calculation of time v speed v damaged cargo v
fuel consumption. Too many breakages and the customer will go elsewhere;
playing too safe and adding extra days to to the delivery and the customer
might not come again. It's a very competitive business, with emerging nations
and also emerging carriers at very competitive prices pushing risk-taking past
limits that were hard-fought-for and won in the 1980s. Anyone who's
interested in what used to go on aboard ships flying flags of convenience
should see the film I did in the early 80s: 'Scenes From A Ship', or perhaps
listen to a couple of audio sequences on my website. Walter Curini was 2nd
Deck Officer aboard several merchantmen at the time when the Liberian flag-
of-convenience was notorious. He and Bablake Old Boy (BOB) Allan Hailstone
might find they have a lot in common in the hidden camera stakes. Walter had
a good still-camera, a movie camera and a Nagra tape recorder with him and
did several interviews on board with members of different crews. One of the
main focuses was the deliberate sinking of (usually, but not always) old cargo
boats in order to claim on the insurance. Walter was 'put ashore' when he was
discovered, but the film that we wrote and which I narrated carried some
weight when the laws governing ships of convenience were changed. Liberia
subsequently became THE flag to sail under par excellence. The Grey Fox is
registered in Majuro, in the Marshall Islands.

Thursday, 17th January

Kristian: “Aren't you not feeling seasick yet ?”
RJW: “No, I'm OK. I think the swell is calming down. And the wind is certainly
less than yesterday's Force 9 and 10”
Kristian: “It is in the head. If you are sick it is in your head. What do you
believe” (this was not a question...) “You do must believe not to be sick, then
you will not be.”
We are still in the traffic 'roads' in the western Bay of Biscay, the various
articles in my chambers are in a position where they cannot fall any further (i.e.
on the floor) and the rolling has cut back to the occasional hefty jolt and judder.
But the captain's strategy seems to have paid off. We are on bearing 180
degrees i.e. due south and we're bouncing along at a healthy 14 knots. Our
Lisbon ETA has bottomed out at around 18:00hrs tomorrow 18th January: if the
sea is not too rough for the pilot to come aboard.
Of course I shall now never know if I would have been seasick without the
cinnarizine capsules, but I can't imagine that I would have escaped without at
least a moment of queasiness... and yet, for-armed, I have not had a single
one...

The last time I made this journey, it was about the same time of the year in
1948 on the 'Winchester Castle'. The ship was full. Families like ours
emigrating to South Africa and Australia, other people returning home to St
Helena and Ascension Island after spending the the war years in the UK... and
the first flush of English black-marketeers heading for their new homes in Las
Palmas and Tenerife.
Us kids had spent the first day or so 'learning' the ship, but after the first blush
of excitement had worn off and the first secrets of exploration exchanged, my
memory is of the darker-skinned people from the Atlantic islands. In the Bay of
Biscay, their skin colour had turned to a papier mâché grey and very quickly
they, as most of the other passengers, had taken to their cabins. But to a man,
woman and child, they had been utterly warm and charming on the first day at
sea and now there was something intrinsically kind & good that was missing.

The Rowbotham family was also emigrating. Bill Rowbotham, Charles, my

father, and the third musketeer, Eric Hartwell had gone off together to start a
New Life in the Old Empire while Europe still tightened its belt and made the
best of rationing. Bill & Doris Rowbotham had been neighbours from St
Christian's Rd, in Cheylesmore, and the families had planned their futures
together; now my mother and I, Doris and her three kids Peter, Jennifer & Kim,
were all sharing an inside cabin. With everyone being sick, the stench must
have been pretty awful, but the smell that still comes back to me today was
quite different...
All of the passengers who were ill -and that was virtually all of them- were
given beef tea to drink. It smelled wonderful, but I soon found I was an
outsider. I was told in no uncertain terms by the medical orderlies, supported
by my mother's groans from her bunk, that the beef tea was only for those who
were ill, as they were unable to keep up with demand and were continually
preparing fresh batches in all the galleys.
My beef tea-less day stretched on and on. I seemed to be the only healthy
person on board, as some of the stewards and cabin crew were also busy
throwing up in their pantries. What to do ?
In the end I worked out a simple plan. I went into the only bar that was still
open and used up my pocket money on a large bottle of orange pop. I sat
quietly and politely beside a window overlooking the rain-swept deck and bided
my time. All the photos I have of that period show a serious little boy in whose
mouth butter would certainly not have melted and I know I was particularly well
mannered and polite... I waited until the barman had gone off to do something
elsewhere, then I started to drink my orangeade. But first I shook it violently
and drank the fizz straight from the bottle. The first mouthful came back down
my nose, which wasn't what I wanted, but the second one I took was huge and
I could feel it bubbling in my stomach. With a little help from a finger tickling
my uvula, the jet of orangeade and breakfast cereals was everything that one
could hope for ! Full of burping apologies, this brave little man was taken
below decks to savour his well-earned beef tea.

I am starting to learn the captain's pet hates, likes and foibles; he is a man of
very strong opinions... but at least his daughter Kristin will have something
solid to rebel against, unlike many of her 6yr-old generation, whose parents
come to school to complain to Rahel in bewilderment that their little Jack/Jill
simply refuses to: switch the telly off/stop eating sweets or MacDonald's
between meals/pay any attention when his/her mother/father asks her/him to
go to bed... but, if the truth were known, we grumpy old men are probably just
as malleable and ineffectual with our own daughters...
The main dish at lunchtime was a pork chop, salsify & string beans with boiled
potatoes. We got into a mild argument when the captain proclaimed who could
cook what, who couldn't cook at all and (amazingly) that mass-produced
pizzas, bread etc were ALWAYS far superior to those produced by local bakers,
pizzerias etc.
I went up to the bridge a couple of times during the afternoon, but our paths
did not cross. Then dinner. Deep-fried trout in batter (which was excellent)
and french fries (which weren't !). And then he touched a nerve. Or half a
dozen nerves... as he gave me half a dozen reasons why English chips were
inferior to those made by the French, Belgians, Germans or Greeks. I
remembered the old Bob Hope joke about U.S. German scientists being
superior to U.S.S.R. German scientists and tried to draw the parallel between
our Greek/Turkish Cypriot chip-shop owners and Turkish chip-makers in
Hamburg, but he wasn't having any. It was because “your potatoes are too
floury and inferior”, while I assured him that it depended absolutely on relative
thickness and frying temperature. A stand-off, then? Well, not exactly... We're
having a Bar-B-Q around the 26th and I propose to use the potatoes that the
cook uses for mash (rather than the others that keep their shape when they are
boiled) to convince him that English/British chips are 'at least as good as'
€uropean fries. So round about the 27th, watch this space !

Late night on the bridge...

The Chief Officer/First Mate has been at sea for 46 years and bemoans the
advent of the container ship, mostly because of the knock-on effects. 30 years
ago (apparently), ships were not loaded or unloaded on Saturday afternoon or
Sundays and British dockyards knocked off at 5pm during the week. Which
meant that sailors were able to see a little of the places where they found
themselves. Nowadays, as in so many other fields, it's 24/7 and turn-round
time is of the essence. It's not uncommon nowadays for sailors to stay on
board for months at a time, months that could soon become years, where the
only incentive to disembark is when their ship is close to their families and
loved ones. The Chief says that the job does not attract men 'with romance in
their soul' any more. It's also why crews tend to be of the same nationality
rather than multinational and multicultural: they create their own village and
take it with them. There are two kinds of Chief Mate/1st Officer: those who hope
to take their master's ticket and become captains, and those who have reached
their apogee. Those who are content with their position are accepted by the
crew as one of their own, but the mates who are aiming to rise higher have a
difficult task in being accepted by the crew, who view the ambitious officer as
already 'part of the management'. I experienced something very similar when I
was responsible for training and testing the other teachers at the Shenker
Institutes in Italy, where Mr Shenker used me as his 'hatchet man', evaluating
the teachers AND directors of the satellite Shenker Institutes around the
country. If you're not careful, you become everybody's whipping boy...