| Page1Dos Cervezas ( or Dairy of a
First Tripper)
I had finished my course at the Mercantile Marine Training School plus two weeks home leave and this was to be my very first sea trip aboard a real Merchant Navy ship, and as for being wet behind the ears it wasn't the word for it as I had never even seen a proper ship before. I thought I was gods gift to the world as I sat on the train heading for London and being at the ripe old age of seventeen years ( October 1956 )I assumed I was going to be street wise enough to look after myself, as Id never been very far from my mothers apron strings and knew nothing about the world I soon found out I was in for a very big shock. And I quickly came to realised that the world is was a very big and different place to I what I had been used to back in my home town. I couldn't wait to get signed on as a cabin boy on the SS Cortona, it was registered in Glasgow at 4919 tons but always docked at the King George V1 Dock London and I was told it was its regular port of call and where I should return in three months time. This was my first big shock when I saw this small very old rust bucket of a cargo steam ship which had been left over from the 1930s and how the old girl ever survived the Second World War we will never know, but it did and was still just about making those regular trips back and forth from England. There were only two jobs a young lad like myself could sign up for in the early days, one was a Deck Boy outside in the wet or the other was Cabin Boy which was inside in the heat, as I had trained in the catering side signed as a cabin boy, well we were fed and paid with a chance to see the world. We were told by the training officers that the Merchant Navy had just as much spit and polish as the Royal Navy, it was not until after we sailed from England that I found out the truth and what a big surprise that was for my first trip to sea, the truth was most of them were the biggest load of gangsters and cut throats I had ever seen in my life, two thirds were from every part of Scotland and beyond and I couldn't understand one word they spoke, the others were officers or mixed bunch of weirdo’s like myself. Why they called it the Merchant Service it was more like the Pirate Service, every second person was covered from head to toe in tattoos or wore big gold earrings and there was so much thieving going on if you didn't lock up your personals you would lose them in the first week, and I even lost my underwear from the drying room. The year was 1956 and the ship had just entered the Rio de la Plata "River Plate" the largest river in Argentina and the widest in South America, I was out on the deck leaning against one of the hatches covers having a quick ten minute break for a smoke. I was soon joined by my ship mate called "Whistle" why they called him that I never did find out, he was a few years older than myself and being that we came from the same part of England and I was what they call a "first tripper" he must have taken pity on me and sort of taken me under his wing, . Whistle nudged me in the ribs and pointed down towards the sea "look at that boy its changing colour already that how you can tell we've enter the river and the further we go up the more sandy it gets" he said looking over the ships rails. I leaned over the side side looking down at the muddy looking water and agreed with him but not really understanding what I was looking at anyway, I then glanced up the horizon hoping to see the coast of South America, "where's the land then Whistle I thought we were almost there" I said. "No, you won't see that for another couple of hours yet its twenty miles wide at this point, anyway Buddy our break time is over we have got to get back work, you haven't even finished your cigarette yet and if we don't hurry we'll get told off again" Whistle said pulling at my arm and then heading towards the doorway. I wasn't looking forward to going back below as the heat was unbearable down there and with little to no fresh air being circulated, we might in October and getting colder in England but it was still up in the 90s here and I dreaded to think what its going be like when we get further inland without those sea breezes. It was later that afternoon just after we finished work when we felt the ship slowing down nearly to a stop, Whistle shouted over to me as I was about to climb up into my bunk "that will be the Argentine Pilot coming aboard so we must be getting close to land by now" so I quickly looked out of the nearest port hole to see the small boat racing towards us and I could also just make out the coast line of Argentine through the late afternoon sea mist. Our ship was a refrigerated vessel and should loading up with frozen beef and tinned corned beef straight from the factories plus a small amount of a mixed cargo, our first port of call should be Buenos Aires and then La Plata and then back to England. ....... next ( If you have just found this page and want more stories, go to Stories ) |
"Dos Cervezas" can be downloaded
as a zip file and read off-line at your own convenience