Lost cause

It is crews who make ships.  I am sure that we all remember folk who – in our pasts – have determined their place in our memories for good (or even bad) reasons. I dedicate this memory, therefore, to someone I learned a lot from but who – for want of a better explanation – fell victim to the ‘demon’ drink. A true ‘victim of circumstance’, one of life’s inevitable, self-inflicted casualties.

He was an old style AB, frequently grizzled – some would say ‘rough’ – but he was an expert seaman and knew his job. I can still see him up to his waist in water on the afterdeck of the ‘Afon Las’ as we ship handled a bulker at the deep water jetty, laughing and making comments about better ways to make a living – but loving it, knowing that was what he was born to do – and did well.

Sober, he was a natural comedian – what locals refer to as ‘a hell of a man’. Drunk, he was content on getting as out of it as he could in a very quick period of time. He was never a ‘pain’ when he was drunk however. Never aggressive, never annoyingly emboldened by the drink talking – he just lurched back from ashore slurred a conversation in the messroom for a bit and then went to his bed. He also never missed work the next day.

Part of our role then was to work ‘wherever’ and ‘whenever’ and this included things like the salvage of a pontoon in the Welsh Mountains (Llyn Trawsfynydd) in the middle of winter. How we had managed to get a job so far inland was a mystery but we arrived with a workboat on a low loader, a crane, some pumps and hoses – and a diver. The barge had sunk just offshore – fresh water lakes are deep and bitterly cold so even though we worked in the biting wind and snow flurries and wondered what on earth we were doing working on the land,  we did feel for the contracted diver. We were wrapped up like Russians on the Eastern Front with access to coffee almost on tap – he was a man who seemed to be permanently blue. Little wonder he was quickly nicknamed ‘Smurf’…..

After that job the Marine General Manager announced that one of the smaller tugs would be getting lifted out of the water and, as of the Monday morning, we were to report to the boatyard to carry out cleaning jobs – such as power scraping her bottom, painting her and generally carrying out maintenance aboard. The company always kept you busy through lean times when there was no towage work to be had and whilst we may have moaned about it then, looking back, it was a Godsend.

Brian’s reaction to the news was to say he didn’t much fancy that and was told he didn’t have to fancy anything – he just had to do it!

On the Monday we reported to the boatyard and I was in a small squad which included one of the engineers, Brian and myself.  I was detailed off to work aboard the tug and paint her up inside while Brian and the engineer were to operate the shot blasting kit. This was a bobby’s job for me as it was inside, out of the cold, and not very demanding. Brian, meanwhile, set to with the engineer and began to work the shot blaster on the hull, clearing off the marine growths and old paint.

By Wednesday we were all bored witless with the monotony – and also because, being that the boatyard was also the head office, we were constantly under the eyes of the managers. At a break in the day – called smoke-oh aboard ships –  Brian vanished with the engineer ‘on an errand’ which took longer than expected. Alas, the boat was visited by the MGM and finding two men down, told me that when they got back they were to immediately report to him. When they did get back, they were both manfully sulking as he’d intercepted them and had chewed them both up. This left both men with a strong feeling of resentment as all they had done was nip ashore for some fags. They felt he was always on their case, always picking on them instead of doing the job he was paid to do. It escaped their resentment that he was actually doing just that.

The MGM now made a point of visiting twice a day to see how things were going on. During one of these visits he again rollocked both men for some misdemeanour – and in the pathological world of rough justice,  his fate was sealed…….

One afternoon, as he was shot blasting the hull with the gun, Brian noticed the tall figure of the MGM walking down to the slip. He didn’t say anything to the engineer who was working the compressor and grit hopper. Instead, as the MGM came within range, Brian lowered the shot blasting gun…..

Despite it being fairly low powered, it shredded the MGM’s trousers, as thousands of small plastic balls were directed at his legs whilst he was screaming at the top of his voice to ‘stop!’.  I looked out through the wheelhouse windows to see what the fuss was about, being rewarded by seeing the MGM doing a sort of madman’s hop scotch in a cloud of fine dust and water. As the dust settled and the compressor spluttered and coughed to a stop, I walked out on deck in time to see Brian walk around the hull and, apologising profusely, shout for someone to get a first aid kit. Without even breaking the look of concern on his face he asked the MGM if he was OK chastising him gently on how dangerous a place it was and how accidents could never be predicted…..

In the event the MGM was not hurt – apart from having his trousers shredded, his legs ‘primed’ a lovely pink and his suit soaked through – and Brian got away with the ‘accident’ as he swore blind he didn’t see the MGM walk down through the dust and anyway, as he continued to remind the MGM, it was shot blasting area – surely the MGM, as a Senior Manager, realised the dangers in that?

However, they were original employees and as the outfit always liked to keep its men, they got away with it……..

Now, the sobering bit. Years later – about ’81 – I was on a dive ship working out of Scotland, having left the tugs for a career offshore. I paid off the Dive Ship in Dundee a day before Christmas Eve after laying her up. Normally I got a flight to Manchester via Aberdeen but that year the weather was so bad that all I could get was a London flight. I ended up getting to Euston Station around 11pm that night, having missed my train home and as there were no trains until 6.30am the next day, settled down in the buffet for a long wait of fags and coffee.

As I sat there, a dishevelled man approached the table I was sprawled up against. As the place was frequented by rough sleepers I had an idea what he was after. I growled at him to ‘fuck Off’ and go find another punter but he sat opposite me and asked if I  remembered him.

‘I sailed with you’ he said and I raised an eyebrow and said ‘Oh, right’. I’d heard that one a few times before. It was only when he spoke in Welsh that I realised, with a start, that I was looking at Brian. He told me he had eventually been sacked off the tugs for his drinking and also because he liked to smoke in bed before turning in and that was no longer acceptable aboard ship. The company had changed – new people, new rules – and the old ways were no longer tolerated. He’d come to London to find work and had been working construction but – once again – the drink had taken over and he’d been sacked for his conduct. Having drunk all his severance money away, all he had were the streets.

I could not believe how rough he looked.

Gone was the happy-go-lucky man I’d learned so much from, had a good few laughs with. In his place was a broken, untidy man whom fate had dealt a rough card to. I bought him coffee and something to eat, 20 fags from the bar, some matches. I refused to give him a loan he asked for of £30 for a train ticket because, as I told him, he’d only spend it on drink. He didn’t get angry but said You know me, he grinned through bad teeth. You sailed with me long enough.

I sat with him until my train was due to leave. We spoke about the ‘old days’ and people we knew, times we once had. He missed the sea and when he was ‘straight’ planned to get back home and work on the trawlers. He had plans, not unrealistic plans. Not grandiose or drink fuelled plans – just a wish to get home, where the heart was. If I could only get straight, he said. Just get enough money together to get a train ticket home. That’s where I belong, he added. That’s where I want to end my days. Not here….

I wanted to give him that train ticket but I knew, if I did, he’d spend it on booze. Possibly one of the hardest decisions I had to make that morning was to say ‘no’.

I left him on the platform – with a tenner – and I wondered what would become of him. No one likes to see people they have known like that – but what do you do?

A few years later I was home and met one of the ex tug crowd and I asked him if he had heard about how Brian was faring, mentioning my meeting at Euston some years before. He told me that Brian had eventually got home – but was a broken man. He was drinking heavily, ill with it if anything – oh, and he added, he’s dead. I asked how and he gave me a sad grin and said that he had been smoking in bed…….he’d been drunk, fallen asleep and the fire had completely destroyed the house, killing him in the process.

I still think of him. I think of all the characters I sailed with and know them for the men they were and the lessons they passed on. As I said at the start, some people come into your life and just pass through, leaving no trace. Others come in and out but even when they have gone, they leave an essence of memory behind that always stays with you. I was proud to have known men like those – they made going to sea the unique experience it was. Lawless? Maybe – but better times than these and I, for one, am glad to have been a part of it.

Now and again, I will raise a glass to the memory of them all.

Old ghosts. It’s my way of saying thanks.