Page 85 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

Himalaya in Columbo

3 Arcadia and Himalaya

aving spent some ten months on tankers with only fourteen days of
Hleave during that time, I was due for a good chunk of time ashore
(remember that the working week on a ship was eight or nine hours a day, seven
days a week, this routine occasionally interrupted by inactivity whilst awaiting
a berth or longshoremen being unavailable, situations that rarely occurred on
tankers). Needless to say, I sped home as quickly as possible. Again, nobody else
that I knew was off work at that time, and life being somewhat dull, and indeed
lonely, in a sleepy Sussex village, it was not long before I thought that maybe the
seagoing life was appropriately invigorating after all. It being summer, in fact,
David had time off from school, but he had found a job that would augment
his savings that would bring home to me that I was perhaps a bit too inured
to relative luxury; he had found a hop-picking job in Kent that required ‘camp’
living, simply because those seeking that sort of work wanted as many paid
hours as were available. He had, on the first day of work, been surprised that on a
stiflingly hot day how over-dressed were his more experienced co-workers, so out
he went in shorts and a T-shirt into the fields. Within minutes he found out how
much he was in error; hops are innocuous-looking buds, but actually hide an
abundance of savage little burrs. He spent two very uncomfortable days removing
the horrible little things but had to spend that time perspiring profusely. I realised
that my carping about long hours spent on boring bridge or engine-room watch
was not entirely reasonable.

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