HALIFAX AT LAST
We arrived in Halifax on the eleventh of February. It was very cold,
but quite calm. The Franklin took us to a berth to our
starboard side in a place called
Dartmouth, which is right across the river
from the Dry Dock, which we would now have to wait to enter. We
all knew by now that the “tail end of the shaft” - the last part of the
propeller shaft – had been damaged, and would have to be replaced
as well as a new propeller. Having these items sent from England
was going to take some time – probably weeks – so we settled in
for a long stay.
No sooner had we tied up than the local press came aboard. Not
only had we survived the fiery North Atlantic storms sans propeller,
but the Captain had also died, thereby adding to the melodrama.
We listened to a couple of the crewmembers “laying it on” to the
visiting reporter. “Worst storms I’ve experienced in all my twenty
years at sea” said one seaman, and so it went on. The local paper
the next day reflected this with headlines which read
“Captain of
Vessel Dies on Way to Port.
Foundation Franklin Brings Battered Ship to Halifax”.
It
was followed by a column about us losing the propeller, and the
subsequent death of the Captain.
Within a couple of days, we all attended the funeral of the Captain.
Although the Undertaker had “done him up”, the wound on his
head was still visible as he lay in his coffin. We completed the
service and left.
Lying alongside in Dartmouth, the ship high out of the water, and in
anticipation of several weeks doing just lying there, gave us time to
have a look around. We soon discovered that being on the “other “
side of the river had its distinct disadvantages; the main one being
that not only did we have to get the rather large car ferry over to
Halifax, but more importantly, the last ferry returned to Dartmouth
at about eleven PM. To add to these woes, from where the ship
was tied up to the ferry terminal was a considerable walk. Not bad
on a balmy summers’ evening, but pretty drastic with a freezing
wind blowing all around us as we walked. Learning to walk on the
frozen surface of the roads and footpaths became an art form in
itself. We could not keep our hands in our pockets, as we needed
them to keep our balance; consequently we would arrive back
aboard the ship with our hands freezing. Rubbing snow into them
would help to get the circulation going again. We were not really
equipped - clothes wise – for such weather. All we had to wear
was our ordinary suits and raincoats. The locals all dressed up much
heavier clothing, and also most of them wore those tartan style hats
with earmuffs attached to the sides. I’m sure these (ear muffs) made
life much more bearable. It wasn’t long before we had bought
ourselves such hats, but we couldn’t afford to completely re equip
ourselves for the (to us) extremely cold Canadian Winter.
With the weather so cold, work on the ship was fairly limited. We
did quite a lot of maintenance to the running gear on the derricks.
We did this because the cargo blocks could be removed from the
derricks and taken into one of the mast houses, out from the worst
of the cold, to be serviced. The firemen soon discovered that the
bottled beer that we could buy for about nine pence per bottle
aboard ship could be sold to the locals for the equivalent of more
than twice that amount.
It seemed that
Nova Scotia was a “dry” Province of
Canada. There were no “Pubs” as we knew them, and no hotels
where one could go for a drink. However, the populace was not
denied alcohol altogether. There was a system of “rationing”
whereby each resident was allowed a certain amount of liquor and
beer each month. I really have no idea just what these amounts
were, but through various contacts, we were introduced to the
monthly “booze up” parties which were quite popular there.
Visiting seamen were accommodated in this respect at the
Seamen’s Club on the other side of the
river. Here, we could buy beer at the rate of three large bottles per
day. On production of Seamen’s Identification (Ships Pass) we
were issued with a Membership ticket to the Merchant Seamen’s
Club. Each ticket had a date of issue stamped on it, and a “Good
until” date. The ticket expired on the “Good until” date. Each ticket
had three small squares printed on it for each day of the month.
Each line of three squares was numbered, representing the days of
the month. As each bottle was purchased, so one of the squares was
punched, thereby limiting us to three bottles per day. If you missed
a day, those bottles were lost for all time. Of course, we could not
take bottles out of the Club. It all had to be consumed on the
premises.
Between the various crewmembers, we found ourselves invited to
several of the monthly “booze parties”. For our “admission”, we
would take along a dozen or so bottles of
Whitbread Newcastle Ale
that we had saved up from our daily shipboard ration. The
Whitbread was liked very much by the locals. At the other end of
the “refreshment scale”, we often had to while away a bit of time in
a large Milk Bar near the Ferry Terminal whilst waiting for the next
ferry. It was in this place that I was introduced to the
Juke Box where you could make your selection, from the table where you sat.
Each table had a coin box which listed all the song titles available
on the main Juke Box. It was possible to insert your money and
make a selection from your table. Of course, you didn’t know how
many others had made a selection before you (or even if it was the
same selection) so it was a bit of a gamble, and often we had to
leave to catch the ferry before our selection was played. We soon
learned to “give it a miss”.
Local dances of course, were very popular with us, and it didn’t
take us long to find out where they were held. Mostly, they were in
local Church Halls. Like most other places, local dance halls were
good places for us to meet and mix with girls. On entering the hall,
we noticed that most of the girls gathered at a certain place near the
entrance door. On closer investigation we found that there were
large grids in the floor near the doors through which hot air was
pumped. This is where the girls used to gather in order to warm
themselves up just by standing over them. Most of us formed
relationships with particular girl friends, and those we either went
to other dances with, or sometimes to the “movies”.
Across the river, at the large passenger vessel terminal, there was
quite a bit of movement. We soon noticed the
Mauritania, the
Aquitania, and the
Franconia
were berthing there on a more or less regular two to three week
basis. Having finished most of their trooping duties for the
government, they were now engaged in bringing
War Brides
to Canada and the USA. Some of our crew members took a special
interest in the Mauritania, Aquitania and
Franconia. As Cunarders, they were registered in Liverpool,
and many of the crew were Liverpudlians. It didn’t take long for
some of our crewmembers to get aboard
Mauritania to meet old friends, and to have a drink in the
“Pig and Whistle”. The information soon filtered back that the ships
were on a regular run from Liverpool to Halifax with War Brides.
The crossing took about four days, there was a few days in
Liverpool, then the ships returned to Halifax with another load of
War Brides. The ship was berthing in Halifax in just about
something less than every two weeks. During our two month stay
in Halifax, several of the Firemen made the return trip to
Liverpool
and back courtesy of their friends on the Mauritania. On
such a large ship, sailing on a busy schedule, their presence would
hardly be noticed. Of course, on our much smaller ship, their
absence must have been more obvious, but as far as I can
remember, no one was hauled up over the business. In fact, several
of the Firemen had made the journey and returned before even we
in the Deck Department knew about it!
Delightful and romantic as the business of delivering War Brides
must have been, there was also a darker, and somewhat sadder side
to the business. As our blokes soon found out, as the ships docked,
and after the usual Customs and Immigration checks had taken
place, it didn’t take long for the wives to get ashore and into to the
arms of eager new relatives waiting for them. At least, that was for
the lucky one’s. After each disembarkation, there were often one or
two tearful and traumatised brides left waiting for someone who
just didn’t show up. I suppose there were all sorts of reasons that
these women would have been left stranded. From what we were
told, most of them went straight back on the ship they had come
over on. Some decided to come ashore to see if they could find
their husband. At least one young lady met up with one of our
AB’s. He was quite a good looking man, and they soon struck up a
relationship. I have no idea what her plans might have been, but he
brought her back to our ship, and placed her in the now disused,
but not dismantled,
D.E.M.S. Gunners
quarters. These were
cabins built in to the ‘tween decks of number six hatch. There was
sufficient room to house something like ten or twelve DEMS
Gunners. The cabins were all empty, and there was access to them
from our (seamen’s) quarters. Food was no problem; the “Abbey”
was an excellent feeder, and it didn’t take long to rustle up some
bedding for her. They used to go ashore and return just like any
other crewmen. We saw her now and then, and it seems that she
was really interested in him, and thought that she would be
returning to England on the “Abbey” as a stowaway. None of us
had any problem with that, and in the normal run of things they
would probably have got away with it. Unfortunately, our shipmate
(who shall remain nameless) was married, and had no intentions of
taking her. There were extremely tearful scenes when, in April, we
finally departed, and she had to be left (yet again!) in the lurch,
and
on the quayside.
I imagine that within such a large programme of transporting the
many War Brides both to Canada and America, there would have
been a tiny percentage of women left waiting. One hopes there
were even less who suffered the fate of the lady on our ship.
After several weeks spent alongside in Dartmouth, our new “tail
end shaft” and propeller had arrived from England, and a berth was
found for us in the
dry dock. By this time, the weather had
improved. We had almost become used to walking to the ferry
terminal to catch the ferry, and then returning by the same route
each night. At least by us docking on “the other side” of the river,
we would now be able to come and go ashore without the
restrictions of the ferry time table! We didn’t go straight into dry
dock, but tied up alongside an old tramp steamer. It was one of
Chapmans of Newcastle.
To my surprise (and pleasure,) the person to whom I threw our
mooring rope as we approached the tramp steamer, turned out to
have been in school with me. I went aboard when we had tied up
and had a good talk with him about old times.
Now that we were alongside the dry dock, the ship’s generators
and galley were closed down, and we had to go ashore to the
Merchant Navy Pool for our meals. The food there was very good, and
there was quite a
choice. The actual job of dry docking the ship is always of great
interest. I have only done it on two or three occasions, and each
time, I have wondered at the precision needed to centre the ship on
the chocks on the floor of the dock, and in at least one instance, we
had to “prop” the ship up with large baulks of timber to keep her
upright in the dock. The ship was finally put “in place” and the
business of raising the dry dock began. As the ship rose out of the
water, the full extent of the damage to the propeller and the
propeller shaft became apparent. The damage to the propeller was
quite visible, the damage to the shaft was a little more subtle, and
not really visible from outside the ship to the naked eye. All that
was left of the propeller were four rather jagged stumps where once
four finely machined blades had protruded. Since we were not
going to be doing any of the work, we only took an interest in
looking each time we went ashore to see what progress had been
made.
Since propellers are made and machined to suit a particular ship’s
hull, many ships carry a spare propeller for an emergency such as
this. I can’t remember whether we had a spare, or not. It is possible
that the “Abbey”, being a “standard” type ship and built during the
war, there may have been a “standard” propeller for her available in
many places. The actual work of replacement took about three or
four days. It was most reassuring to finally see a fully operational,
four bladed propeller mounted between the rudder and the
sternpost. When the last of the shipwright’s tools and platforms had
been cleared from around the stern, we were ordered to docking
stations, and the dock was flooded, returning “Abbey” once more
to her rightful place, the sea. To perform the “undocking”, we had
two “positioning” ropes, one on each quarter. These were held on
the bits with “dry” turns, ready to be paid out by hand as the ship
rose in relation to the dock. Thankfully, the shore crew took care of
the large baulks of timber as they floated free of the ship. Once the
ship was clear of the dock, the tugs took over, and to a berth
alongside – but still, thankfully, on the Halifax side of the river. We
lay there for a day or two whilst the boilers, the generators, and the
galley were fired up once more, and presumably whilst tests were
made on the engine, and all the new propeller fittings tested. Also at
this time, and now that we were once more functional, the ship
would have received it’s sailing orders.
Indeed, having been in port for about two months, we were
beginning to feel almost like residents! As I said, many of us had
struck up relationships ashore, (some of a more romantic nature
than others,) and these had to be severed in the kindest possible
way – for both parties. Some had to be severed permanently, and
some “until our next trip”. On our final departure, there were the
quite distressing scenes as the young ex War Bride who had struck
up a relationship with one of our crewmembers had to be restrained
on the quayside as she saw him leaving for good.
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