|
Just think about it, Able Seaman Firth from Birkenshaw
took out a tug boat went alongside one of His Majesties
Aircraft Carriers, was piped aboard and asked to see one
of the cooks from the galley.
We later received some good news, we were to go to Cape
Town for a six week refit and then return home to the UK.
So the Colossus set sail for Africa, I was still getting
more than my fair share of what they now call harassment.
One night I went to the bog to have a wee, the temperature
was over 100f. I was stood wearing only a little vest when
some great big matelot came up behind me and inserted a
finger up you know where I gave a scream and ran for it,
my mates back in the mess rolled about laughing when I told
them and said I was lucky it was only his finger.
When we arrived at Cape Town there was great excitement,
Cape Town had a reputation for being one of the great cities
to visit with lots of bars and friendly girls. To sail in
and see the background of Table Mountain with the city spread
out before you was something else. The ship was soon settled
in the dry dock at Simonstown, and then it was shore leave
every other night, plus two weeks holiday at a local hotel.
The point of the holiday was to clear the crew off the ship
to let the dock workers free to get on with the refitting.
I was a bit surprised to discover the extent of segregation
of the black people, there was segregation on the trains,
in the bars, and worst of all on the beeches, one day me
and two of my mates were standing on a promenade over looking
a beech in which the black people were crowded in a small
section and the whites seemed to have miles of sands to
themselves. We were making a few choice remarks about what
we thought about it and were overheard by a gang of white
Africans who promptly set about us and gave us a good beating
up, they held one of my mates over the prom and threatened
to drop him if we did not buzz off. Well we were not able
to run very fast but did try to limp away with as much dignity
as we could muster. Our remarks on the subject of race relations
were subdued, at least in public for the rest of our stay.
You must be thinking that I spent most of my young life
having my bum pinched or being beaten up, you must bear
in mind that I am only giving you the highlights and that
there was lots of long boring periods in which I was completely
ignored.
The reputation of the city, in that it had some very friendly
young ladies was true, we had some very wild nights out
and one morning me and one of my mates decided to attend
the VD testing station held each morning at the sick bay.
We had to take off our pants and get in a queue, slowly
moving forward towards a curtain across the room, when I
got past the curtain I watched the man in front of me. A
sick bay attendant held in his hand a long needle with a
flat end, he held the end over a Bunsen burner and then
pushed it up this sailor's willie oh my god what am I doing
here I thought, as he slowly pulled it out, passing it over
a glass slide and placing it under a microscope, NEXT' he
said and held the needle over the burner.
On completion of the refit a grand open day was held on
the Colossus with brass bands playing, fighter planes lining
the flight deck, top brass and VIP's every where. There
were thousands of sailors and their guests, there was no
segregation on this day, every colour and creed were there.
The next day with invited guests Colossus put to sea and
gave a demonstration and fly past for the city to show our
thanks for the kindness of the people of Cape Town. The
local radio was broadcasting a live report and we were able
the hear it on the mess decks. To give a bit of spice to
the broadcast and no doubt distress to the Captain a few
planes on landing over ran the catch wires and did a spectacular
crash into the barrier. The pilots had then to be rescued
and as the war was over the damaged plains were pushed over
the bows into the sea, it made good dramatic radio.
When the day arrived for us to leave Cape Town, the town
turned out to see us off, bands were playing, and ships
and boats sounded their horns in farewell as we pulled away.
We left Cape Town with a great deal of sadness it had been
a very enjoyable visit in which most of us had worked very
hard at establishing close relations with the locals. on
the trip home we had a Sods Opera on the flight deck. A
sods opera on a ship as large as a aircraft carrier is a
pretty obscene affair, it is made up of songs and jokes
as filthy as possible, songs like Roll Out The Barrel, Bless
Them All were sung with lots of new words of the F and C
kind together with a few shits and shites thrown in. The
jokes were a bit sexist by today’s standards but the
jokes that went down best were the ones that took the micky
out of the officers, the cruder the better and to roars
of laughter the golden rivet jokes. The golden rivet is
part of the Royal Navies folk lore. a young sailor is told
how the golden rivet was the very first rivet used when
building the ship, when he shows an interest a more senior
friend offers to show him this treasured rivet and takes
him down into the very bowels of the ship, into it's darkest
corner, and points down saying there it is, and sadly the
young sailor bends down to see the rivet, his trousers fall
and he finds the rivet. Whether this ever happens I don't
know but the story has being repeated for generations. I
wonder what the story was like in Nelsons days of wooden
ships.
We made a call at Gibraltar on the way home and spent our
one night there trying to visit every bar in the main street.
We then made an uneventful trip back to our home port, slipping
in almost unseen and unnoticed which was a bit of an anti
climax. The Colossus had come to the end of it's service
for the Royal Navy, she was to be laid up and then sold
to the French and I never heard of her again.
On the 6th.January 1946 after a few weeks working in the
kitchens at Devonport I was demobilised with a gratuity
of £34, a new demob suit and a train ticket to Birkenshaw.
It was a strange journey home no more service men and women
filling the trains, and as darkness fell the lights went
on, the stations were lit up, but many of the passengers
were in new suits and were carrying little brown cases,
and not a flat cap in sight, it was as if they had all been
transformed into bank clerks, could they ever go back to
the grey lives the working class suffered before it all
started. Would all the talk of socialism and a new world
come true. It's really strange, when Britain had the greatest
empire the world had ever seen and was one of the worlds
richest countries the workers lived in poverty.
|
