Port Said

 

First Really foreign port – Port Said

Now, said Colin, watch out after the gangway was lowered in Port Said!

The first thing that happened was that we were surrounded by people in colourful clothes trying to sell us stuff.

The problem was we did not know what they were saying as they spoke a sort of pidgin English with words that had no meaning like “gulli gulli man” and those that were more explicit “feelthy pictures”!

They crowded around us, so it was difficult to get away. One guy cornered me with his gulli gulli shout. He squatted on the deck and produced 3 coloured balls. Rapidly hiding and showing the balls as he moved them around, he covered them all and asked us where the red ball was. Piece of cake, I thought, but no it was not and then began the betting. £5 if you can guess where the red ball is. £5 lost and I realised that I was been duped and on a salary of £10 per month I had just lost 2 weeks’ pay!

Enough. I told you so said Colin with a big grin. But it was too late. Ralph had bought a “Rolex” watch for a bargain price and when he got it back to his cabin, he found it ran in an anti-clockwise direction and after a couple of hours stopped all together!

Of course, we could not resist looking at these “feelthy pictures”. We gathered round and he produced some well-worn prints. There is one with a donkey he said. Our eyes widened and our sexual education took a whole new direction!

However, our attention was diverted by a shout from Colin. Mail has arrived and we dashed up to him

to collect the airmail letters from home, the first of the trip. There was one from Mum hoping I was being a good boy and drinking my lime juice! As the daughter of a Captain, she knew far more than me of life aboard ship, especially in the tropics and was lucky enough in the 1920’s to get ashore in Port Said and see the pyramids. That is her on a camel.

If you have letters to go, then hurry as the port agent will not be long on-board shouted Colin. I had written a short letter so put it in an airmail envelope and then what I shouted. Take it down to the purser’s office said Colin.

The purser’s office was full of Egyptians, all wanting to talk to Percy, the purser, at the same time. Put your letter on the table over there shouted Percy above the hubbub of sound.

Back in our mess for a little peace after all the chaos of arriving I asked Colin on the whole business of port agent and letters.

Boyo, said the slim senior apprentice from Wales through a cloud of smoke from his pipe, that is a bit of a challenge, and you will learn a little more when you start your correspondence course! But here is some background.

There are different types of shipping services in the world. For conventional cargoes such as tractors and beer and camels and jute there are 2 distinct services. One is called tramp shipping where a ship is hired to take cargo from one port to another and then must seek further cargoes. This might mean that a tramp ship must go empty or in ballast to a third port to find a cargo. Such a service can take these ships all over the world.

The other type of service is the liner service where a shipping company places its ships on a scheduled service between areas of the world. We are in the liner trades offering cargo services between Western European ports and Indian ports calling at ports between. We also offer a service from India to the east coast of the USA and then back to Western European ports. Such liner services are highly organised with dedicated docks and cargo handling equipment allowing shippers of goods to assemble their goods in warehouses before loading on the next available ship. The schedule is fixed and enables a shipping company to offer secure regular services unlike the tramp trades.

Many liner shipping companies join into what is called “liner conferences” to stabilise freight rates and avoid competition within a conference. The counter argument is that conferences bar other countries and shipping companies to offer services on the same routes. This has been especially true for developing countries because most shipping lines are from the European countries, and they carry cargo from developing countries denying competition from developing countries who must pay freight to the liner companies to export their own goods. Partly because of this the United Nations formed a new agency called UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) to control the liner trades and regulate the share of liner services between nations.

Operationally shipping companies hire agents in all the ports they call. Their job is to arrange for cargo to be loaded and discharged and the ship to receive stores, fuel and water as well as handling our mail.

A liner service generally has a home port at each end of the service and for us it is Liverpool and Calcutta. Here there are permanent Marine superintendents to control the port activity and arrange local labour to offset the work of the crew.

So, there you are, liner services in a nutshell!

Now we need to get back on our watch system as we join the southbound convoy through the Suez Canal in an hour.

The Suez Canal offered a convoy system both southbound and northbound and as it was not possible to pass ships in the Canal the southbound convoy must anchor halfway down in the Bitter Lakes to allow the northbound convoy to pass. (Authors note: the Suez Canal has been widened to accommodate larger vessels and enable ships to pass at certain places without anchoring today).

I do not remember much about the Suez Canal except the long straight canal passing through an immense desert. Sand everywhere. It reminded me of a joke I was told about two Irishmen who arrived in the desert to do a job of work. As they descended from the plane one of them commented,” Oi Paddy, I hope they have enough cement!”

However, the Bitter Lakes have a special place in my memory as my father was stationed there in the Second World War. In the photo he is on the left. On the backside of the photo are his notes stating he was running a navigation class. After been captured at sea by the Germans and released in Norway he was transferred to the RNR (the Royal Navy Reserve) and stationed at HMS Saunders in the south of the Great Bitter Lake. The station was part of a Combined Operations setup by Churchill to carry out offensive operations. In the case of HMS Saunders, it was primarily to train personnel

in the use of landing craft for assaults in the Mediterranean theatre of war. Later it also became a camp for Italian prisoners of war.

We anchored in the Bitter Lakes to allow the northbound convoy to pass and then we continued south to exit the canal at Suez to proceed south down the Red Sea. Now, said Colin, you will learn what it is like to be onboard ship in the tropics, a whole different existence, he said, with a broad smile. What are we in for now, I wondered?