Blue Eyes

 

My mothers early years - written by my brother Peter Douglas

We were in my Father’s Day cabin.  He wanted me to meet the officers prior to the ship sailing across the Atlantic.  Mother had died 3 years before and I had already travelled on a couple of voyages with my shipmaster father.  This promised to be as exciting as the others. No doubt Dad hoped that somewhere I would find someone who was prepared to put up with what he called my feisty nature and marry me before my 30th birthday.  There wasn’t long to go.  Maybe there would be someone in Savannah our first stop, someone like Rhett Butler the hero in the new book I was reading.

 

The Chief Engineer was like so many other engineers I had met, a dour Scotsman, the First Mate a Geordie, and the Wireless Operator from Hull.  The second mate was on watch, but my father called the Third Mate up from supervising the last of the cargo loading.  

Mum is in the middle and Dad sitting to the right

He was a slim young man of medium height but tall to me.  He had dark wavy hair and a pair of the bluest of blue twinkly eyes.  Eyes that I had seen before, but where?  He was called George, and he was born in Whitby, a local lad then as far as I was concerned.  And then I knew where and when I had seen those eyes many years before.

 

 

My grandfather William had been a shipmaster.  He had retired just as the Armistice was declared 6 years before.  I was living with him and my grandmother at the time as Mother was away visiting my father, whose ship was docked in Amsterdam.  Granddad did his rent collecting alone, till he hurt his hand, and this Saturday I had gone with him.  I felt very important.  I had finished grammar school a few weeks ago, and hoped I could make a career in music.  My job today though was to record the money Grandad received into the rent books.  Grandmama had made sure I was smartly dressed, not like my preferred tomboyish style.  I had on a navy-blue skirt and a white blouse; my long brown hair was plaited neatly and each plait was tied with a white ribbon.  My polished black shoes had a neat strap across white ankle socks.

 Leaving the house I struggled to keep up with my grandad’s tall rangy stride as we climbed the bank towards the station. We caught the 10:30 train and arrived in Whitby after half an hour.  I never tired of the ride along the cliff edge, watching the sea breaking against the rocks below.  Today though the sea was calm below a clear blue sky.  Soon the train crossed over the viaduct high above the river Esk before reversing and dropped down into the valley and Whitby Town station.  As I stepped down onto the platform, I noticed a speck of soot on my white blouse.  Without thinking I brushed it off leaving a dark smear across the cotton.  Somehow, I seemed to attract dirt.

 ‘Never mind,’ chuckled my grandfather, ‘I’ve got some on my sling, so we are a right pair.’  He gestured to the triangular cotton bandage supporting his right arm.  ‘Let’s be off and get the job done, then we’ll see what treat we can find for ourselves.’

 There were only four houses to visit, but they were well scattered. We visited both sides of the river, never going very far before my Granddad stopped to chat with someone he knew.  When he was at sea a lot of the ships had been built in Whitby and owned by local people who would band together to buy a 64^th share.  They knew and appreciated him as someone who had kept their investment afloat. 

 It was almost 12:00 before we had visited the last house and I had made the last, almost neat, entry into the rent books.  Returning across the bridge Granddad said that he always met the Chief Pilot and shared a drink with him before returning home.  He would still do this, but before then he would buy me a soft drink and an iced bun.  I felt quite grown up as we sat in the smart café and a waitress in a black dress, white pinny and a white laced headband served us.  Grandad just had a cup of tea.  He chatted mostly about his greatest passion, his garden, which I loved to help him with.  His dad had been a farm labourer and he had learned the joy of growing things at an early age.

 After Grandad had settled the bill and received a big smile for the generous tip he left for the waitress, we walked to the harbour.  As ever the port was full of herring drifters, moored three and four deep against the harbour wall.  The smell of fish was everywhere, but one with which I was familiar.  We met the Chief Pilot outside his house along the quayside.  I was told to take a little walk along the pier and meet them back at the Pilot’s House in half an hour. 

 I watched the work of the fishermen for a while as they slung ashore the boxes of fish and tidied the nets.  Beyond the herring drifters a small rowing boat was being handled by a bunch of young boys.  They were jumping in and out of the boat, swimming around and splashing in the harbour.  It looked as though they were enjoying themselves.

 The sound of a band attracted me to the bandstand at the entrance to the West Pier.  I didn’t mind brass bands although I much preferred the piano and church organ.  One of the cornet players was funny, every time he blew really hard his cheeks bulged out like two rosy apples.  The band, dressed in black and gold uniforms, was quite good.  Their instruments twinkled in the sunlight as they played a few Gilbert & Sullivan tunes.  I lost track of the time and had to scurry back along the quayside.

 They were waiting for me near the pilot’s house and as I joined them from one side a group of young boys walked along the quayside from behind them.  I think they were the group who had been splashing about in the harbour. As they drew level the Chief Pilot gestured to one of the boys.

 ‘Come here, boy, I want you to meet Captain Emmerson.’

 Turning to Grandad he said, ‘This is one of my grandsons, he says he wants to go to sea when he is old enough’.

 Grandad shook his rather grubby hand and told him to work hard at his schooling and he may be lucky enough to see all the wonders of the world that he had seen.  He then introduced me, saying, ‘This young lady is my granddaughter Rachel’.

 He looked at me. His blue eyes twinkled under a shock of wavy hair and sat amidst a decidedly dirty face.

 ‘Hello Miss’, he offered his hand to shake.

 My face must have shown my disgust at the state of it, but I took it.  He grinned and then said, ‘You’ve got some soot on your blouse.’

 I think I must have blushed because he grinned even more, and my Granddad looked away.

 ‘Must be off for lunch, Grampa, good morning to you all’ the urchin said, and striding past me gave a little tug on one of my plaits.

 ‘I’ll get you for that someday,’ I vowed to myself.

 

 

Now here he was again, no longer an urchin, but a good-looking young man in his early twenties.  I realised that my desire, for revenge for that hair pull, had changed.