The Captain's teeth

 

An event in the Indian Ocean

We were heading SE from Aden to the southern tip of Ceylon, right in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

There was a gentle NE’ly swell from the NE monsoon, and we rolled easily in a blue Indian ocean with hardly a cloud in the sky, the sort of day a seafarer dreams of. The flying fish were jumping and there was no traffic and a clear ocean horizon.

I was now a third officer proudly displaying my single gold bar on my epaulets having successfully passed my Second Officers certificate.

So I was the watchkeeping officer on the 8-12 morning watch on the bridge.

I had risen at 07:30, had a quick shower and a breakfast of fish kedgeree with that aromatic flavour of curry with hard boiled eggs and rice. Then, up to the bridge for 07:55 to relieve the chief officer of the watch. Handover was easy, no traffic and the C/O had fixed our position with the stars at dawn, so everything was in order.

Started checking bridge instruments and chart position before winding the two chronometers in the chartroom. The captain would be up shortly after his breakfast for his daily tour.

Uniform etiquette is clear. Full appropriate uniform for eating in the saloon and always in port. Deepsea was a little different, a more relaxed approach, shirt outside your shorts, long socks rolled down, that sort of thing. However Captains could be an exception to even these rules and our short rotund Liverpudlian Captain was likely to turn up in oversize “empire builder” shorts, flipflops and an aertex singlet and so he did.

Good morning third mate, all well was his morning greeting. Everything OK, I replied as he moved to the port wing of the bridge to catch the NE monsoon breeze in order to cool down.

Then it happened!

There was a gasp from the captain, he turned and ran down the portside ladder to his cabin. The only thing I saw was that his face seemed to have changed, sort of collapsed.

He returned to bridge shortly after looking quite normal. “Third Offither, thend for thippy”! What is this, his speech seemed odd. Has he had a stroke I wondered. “Third Offither, thend for thippy”, he repeated. OK, who is thippy? Then it dawned on me that he wanted Chippy, our carpenter. But what for? What could Chippy do for our captain’s speech impediment and why had it happened?

Of course, he had dentures and must have yawned over the side of the ship and his dentures fell into the Indian ocean. Now wearing a reserve set that seemed to affect his speech he wanted Chippy to make some adjustments to his dentures to improve his speech so he could at least communicate with us.

[1]Chippy arrived on the bridge in his usual style. A small muscular man around 50 years of age dressed

in a grubby T-shirt tucked into oversize blue shorts supported by a broad leather belt into which was stuck a hammer, his constant companion. This was topped off with a pair of cut-off wellington boots.

He also had dentures which he rarely wore and as a result his bulbous nose and his chin nearly met! A more Popeye type of person is difficult to imagine.

He came from Newcastle and had a broad Geordie accent slurred by his alcoholism so that he was very difficult to understand.

So here we have the scenario, a Liverpudlian rotund captain with a sibilant lisp and a Geordie carpenter trying to communicate around the problem of the captains dentures. Chippy disappeared to his workshop to reappear with saws, knives and an assortment of rasps and files.

Whilst I was banned from the port wing of the bridge, I could hear everything.

Repeated work on the dentures was followed by a fitting and an attempt to speak.

“Thally thelth thea thhelth on the thea thhore”

This was repeated numerous times and it took some time before I could decipher it.

“Sally sells seashells on the seashore”. A tongues twister we all knew from childhood but being used here to test the status of the Captains speech defect.

Slowly things improved but what if they did not and the captain had the conn, controlling the ship. What would “starboard ten degrees” sound like or even worse “full astern”.

Well, after a couple of hours of work the captain was satisfied and Chippy was dismissed.

The captain came through bridge smiling on his way to his cabin.

“Thank you third offither Douglath!

OK, much better.

 

---

[1] ‘Popeye - Google Search’, Texas State Historical Association, accessed 27 March 2023, https://www.google.com/search?q=popeye&sxsrf=APwXEddlvRAdJnwHRIvecdfbJUeVVq9-CQ:1679909946717&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHsoOd6Pv9AhUlYPEDHblNAW4Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1542&bih=696&dpr=0.8#imgrc=xuw9h-bcUWpN3M.

The Doctor's surgery waiting room

In the old days when you were unwell or sick you rang the doctor, and he came to your home. He was called the family doctor and everyone in the family used the same doctor. There was close bond between the family and this single doctor. He might prescribe medication or recommend specialist examination or a trip to the hospital. Medication required a prescription that he wrote out on the spot in handwriting. A trip to the chemist was required to get the medicine or pills.

Today that has all changed. If you feel unwell you must make a journey to the doctor’s surgery unless it is an emergency and then an ambulance will come and take charge.

A doctor’s surgery today is more like a small treatment centre with nurses, laboratories, and a host of specialist doctors. You have your own personal doctor that you choose and who remains your doctor over time.

To see the doctor you must first book online through the national health service. This requires passwords and security checks before you come your doctor’s calendar where you choose a free fifteen-minute slot. Yes, a fifteen-minute slot is the initial planned contact time that can change on circumstances. This is important as the schedule slips throughout the day. It is therefore wise to book a slot early in the day unless you are prepared to wait up until one hour after the planned time and pay extra parking fees for your car. So today, the responsibility is yours to get into the doctor’s surgery at your own costs. After that your national health plan should cover your requirements.

You enter the reception area where a notice informs you that if you already have an appointment, you can go directly and sit outside your doctor’s office. The problem is with reduced seating because of covid this is not as easy as it seems.

Once seated and your mobile is in vibration mode it is time t look around. After all a doctor’s waiting room is a window on humanity.

There is an anxious elderly couple opposite holding hands. Hope they get some good news. Next to me is a young mother with a sick baby who cries and cries and cries. We all smile and make gurgling sounds in an attempt to be friendly and perhaps a little helpful.

Down the waiting room is a worker with his hand covered in a bandage talking to a colleague in a foreign language, possibly Polish.

There is a quite different atmosphere here, it is palpable, people are anxious over concern for their wellbeing.

Suddenly a door opens a nurse shouts a name and waits for a response. No response so the door closes, and we subside into a state of anticipation, what next. The same door opens again, and another name is shouted down the corridor. Here, shouts a young women dressed in very fashionable clothes with a Gucci bag over her shoulder, and she disappears into the room and the door marked “laboratory” closes. What happens in the laboratory, I wonder? Five minutes later I have an answer. A man comes out in shirtsleeves clutching a plaster in his elbow crook. Blood tests is what happens in the laboratory.

It constantly amazes me what is learnt from an analysis of our blood. A few days after a blood test an email arrives with a cryptic comment from the doctor. ”All OK for your age”! This accompanied with a technical sheet with values for undecipherable symbols and the normal expected range for that condition. After a search on the Internet you learn what the symbols mean!

Technology is at the heart of our health system. You can login and check the status of medication and even renew it online. Messages from the doctor are there and expiry dates of current medication.

A trip to the chemists to pick up what the doctor has prescribed only needs you to show you ID foe the chemist to check what is available for you.

So much has changed but the doctor’s surgery remains that place you might fear most, perhaps after the dentist!