Page 150 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

found a bit more time to brush up on chart-work, celestial navigation (I was
not a mathematician, but fortunately enjoyed spherical trigonometry) and ship
construction. The atmosphere on board was really quite congenial; the Captain’s
wife was accompanying him (usually a good factor to calm what could be the
savage breast of the man in command) the mate seemed to enjoy life, and we even
had an officers’ quiz night, which I, with the R/O as partner, was happy to win.
(This, I found out, was not much to do with me; on the second such occasion I
was paired with the Captain’s wife, and the R/O again walked off with the prize.
He was a walking encyclopaedia; a bit of a bore, but a thoughtful companion.)

Without incident, we reached Colombo in mid-October, and I was mightily
pleased to learn that a letter from Heidi had arrived at home (again, it is difficult
to over-emphasise the importance of mail in a mariner’s life) because I had my
21st birthday coming up almost simultaneously with our scheduled return to
UK, and I ardently wished her to figure in those plans. Colombo, of course, was
Colombo, completely unchanged from two years ago (even the derelict ship at
anchor in the harbour was still there, only more rusted) but now, I am pleased to
say, no longer in semi-famine (the Colombo Plan, originally a Commonwealth
creation in 1950, had successfully brought many poorer parts of its components
up to current developmental standards, agriculture included).

Simultaneously I was pleased to learn that one of the perks available to
seagoing staff had worked out very well. Occasionally there were voyages that
were under-subscribed and made available to the families of those at sea. The
information provided to us some months ago was that a trip to Trinidad and
back had become available for $100 per person for the voyage outwards from
Southampton on Oronsay and back from Port of Spain on Himalaya. I thought
that my parents would like to go, and Mother accepted with alacrity (Father had
a bit of an old-fashioned ‘work must come first’ ethic and decided that he would
stay at home to work … this meant that he had to buy and refrigerate twenty Fray
Bentos steak and kidney pies for the duration. This was totally unnecessary, for
our next-door neighbour was a French lady who was a Cordon Bleu cook, and
Mother had specifically asked her if she could occasionally help; the problem was
that the husband was a boring ‘old-colonel’ type who grunted his way through
life, and she was not so much garrulous as a motor-mouth with much to say
about absolutely nothing. Father chose to eat pies alone for those consecutive
evenings rather than put up with his gloom and her prattle; I couldn’t blame
him). I received a letter stating that Mother had had a wonderful trip, having met
interesting people, including officers.

The consequences of a converted freighter replacing a ship that carried 250
passengers and little freight were that the full Far East route could not now be
accomplished; we took six long days to discharge a small amount of cargo in
Penang, Swettenham, and Singapore, our passengers departed, and we made for

149