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visit when, as junior officer of the watch, I had to describe to the visitors how
the bridge mechanisms worked. Being tourist-class, the Chilly-Ho was Patricia,
and she brought to the bridge a wholly noisy group of five to eight-year olds.
These children’s bridge visits were always enjoyable, the small ones being very
inquisitive, in awe of the ‘dressed-up’ officers on watch, and especially entertained
by the ‘steering wheel’ (not very impressive a fixture on Canberra, but that didn’t
matter; we could put George on duty and then anyone could pretend that they
were steering the ship; of course, they all wanted to blow the whistle, but that
was one joy too far). Even I (Christey was actually conning the ship) realised that
the one thing that children love to do is to laugh (provided that one was not too
scatological in one’s humour, though that theme always resulted in uncontrolled
mirth … but I knew of an officer who was reprimanded for a joke about Kelvin’s
Balls – look it up!). One mother, who was carrying a toddler, said to Patricia on
leaving “He would make a good father, wouldn’t he?” to which she quietly replied,
but loudly enough for me to hear, “And he wouldn’t make a bad husband either.”
It was beyond me why young women were so keen; we were all so immature!

My main part-time pleasure (sic!) being my tape-recorder, of which I had
purchased a top-of-the-line Ampex, I always looked forward to visiting San
Francisco, where, on Market Street, there was what I considered the world’s
finest open-reel tape shop (it had literally thousands of selections that I had
never seen elsewhere, all the way from Bach to Xenakis). This technology
was actually the best type of music reproduction to have on a ship, as it was
disturbed neither by the ship’s rolling nor by vibration, and absent magnetic
problems, there was no degradation of sound such as occurred with vinyl. I had
also, by the chief R/O’s request, been asked to take over the afternoon broadcast
of a classical music programme that was piped, if listeners wished, through the
ship’s radio system, lamentable though the sound reproduction was. It was one
of those tasks that nobody seemed to want to undertake but which I enjoyed;
the ship’s record selection was quite good, if unduly conservative (evidently a
selection created by a committee).

During one of our usual breakfast discussions, an interesting concordance
came to light. I was talking to a 3rd R/O about his life and from where he derived,
and he said that he had gained his qualifications in a college in Ilford. “Oh,” said
I, “I know somebody who studies there, a very nice girl that I met on Chitral.”
He looked interested (he was a bit of a geek, but a very nice fellow). “Her name is
Susan,” I concluded.

I saw him blanche a bit as I described her (I even had a picture of her in my
cabin, so any uncertainty could easily be overcome) and he gasped, “So you’re
the guy!” He declared that he had had the hots for Susan, but she was apparently
holding firm with some officer in P&O and he and others could get nowhere. To
say that I felt awkward would understate the case, but I knew that at some time

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