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The Recollections of a Ben Line Cadet
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Hobart, Tasmania, September 2004. – Email: thunderd@bigpond.net.au
My name is Derek Blair, I attended Leith Nautical College in1955/56, sailed as a cadet with Ben Line Steamers, and I write this document for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I want a record of my time in the Merchant Navy for my children and their children, even if it’s just to show them that their father is not the boring old fellow they sometimes think he is. I’m now 65 years old and time is getting short for me and I would hope I have a story to tell that will be of some interest to them.
Secondly, I have recently been researching the Internet for some recollections of my days in the Merchant Navy and my time spent on the T.S. Dolphin and Leith Nautical College and with Ben Line Steamers.
There are some very fine sites that cover these subjects and one of the best is the site called “the unofficial history of the Ben Line” www.ben-line.org.uk – well, I think it should be called “the official history of the Ben Line” because nobody else is doing it and as I understand it the Ben Line is now no longer in existence so who is going to tell the story if they don’t?
Another interesting site for me is Paul Wood’s site “British Merchant Navy Training Ships” www.rakia.co.uk Paul, as yet doesn’t mention Leith Nautical College which I was proud to attend, but hopes to get round to it sometime in the next year or so.
It should be recognised that all of these sites are probably maintained voluntarily by people with a genuine interest, sometimes an obsession, with the subject, and I can only feel admiration for them and congratulate them for their efforts. I also think that, it is time for people like me to support them and come forward to tell our stories, for what they are worth, before they are forgotten forever.
The old days of sailing ships and the life on board them is well documented and these “men of steel on wooden ships” deserve all the accolades they get, but so do all the great people I sailed with, it was a brotherhood like no other I’ve experienced in my life.
Going through the Ben Line site I was fascinated with some of the stories but got the feeling that behind these stories there were a lot more stories as yet untold and it would be a tragedy if they were never told. Throughout the entries there was an obvious pride in the occupation of seaman and it is with this pride in mind I write this document. All my reading did was give me a thirst for more and more details on our background, where we all came from and what our experiences were in our profession.
I guess, like me, we are afraid we might be boring our audience and they will say our stories are exaggerated or untrue and they may well be right.
I’ve tried throughout this document to stay as close to the truth as my memory allows.
Of course, after almost fifty years my memory is getting a bit rusty and I don’t have the resources or the inclination to spend my remaining few years getting every fact confirmed beyond doubt. I offer these tales as” is where is” and I freely admit I have lunched off them on many occasions, so what if they are embellished a bit, you, as my shipmates taught me never to stuff up a good story with the truth so you only have yourselves to blame.
To all the people I have mentioned I sincerely apologise for not remembering your names but I do remember your faces and many kindnesses with respect, gratitude and affection.
My life has been eventful and I’ve had my ups and downs, fate has not always treated me kindly, I survived any misfortunes not because I am a courageous person but because I have always fallen back on the lessons learned at sea, it tends to make you grow up pretty damn quickly, you go to sea as a boy and come back as a man.
To me it was an exciting time full of adventure and comradeship, how could I ever forget the happiest days of my life, and there are many people out there I have to thank for that, if you read this you know who you are and maybe one day we will meet again and I can thank you properly. So this is my story and I hope that someone will enjoy it perhaps enough to come forward and tell their story before it is all too late, I promise you I will read it and I’m sure many others will too because we have a proud history to hand on to future generations.
The Recollections of a Ben Line Cadet
Having reached the lofty age of fifteen in 1954 I still had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Over the years I’d imagined myself as an explorer in Africa, a war hero, a scientist who saves the world and many other things of a romantic nature.
But when it came down to school being over and the need to find an occupation of some sort I just didn’t have a clue. I was sure I didn’t want to be an accountant like my father or be like my brother who I saw sweating his heart out learning to become a quantity surveyor, or any other job that meant sitting in an office.
Unfortunately I had no advanced educational qualifications, I seem to recall that they were called “highers” in these days and to get them you had to stay at school until you were eighteen and Dalkeith High School was not where I wanted to be for another two years. For some vague reason I seemed to be attracted to the sea, I’m not sure why because my family had no ties whatsoever with the sea, in fact the closest I’d ever been to the sea was summer holidays on the beach with relatives in Wales, or swimming at Portobello baths.
So, what were the options, the then Fleet Air Arm sounded pretty good, fly planes and be on ships. Sorry, not enough educational qualifications for that? I forget who it was that suggested the Merchant Navy…….”the Merchant Navy what the heck is that”? I guess somebody must have explained it to me because next thing I know I was putting in an application form for Leith Nautical College.
On the thirtieth of August 1955 I packed my few possessions in a bag and caught the bus to Edinburgh and I think in these days a tramcar to Leith and took up residence on the Training Ship Dolphin to start my career at sea.
TRAINING SHIP DOLPHIN.
Credited to Leith Nautical College
M.M.S "Dolphin, was built by Messrs Dixon & Co, of Middlesbrough and was launched on 9 December 1882. By 1897 she was stripped of everything that made her a fighting strip and joined the sail training squadron at Portland. By 1907 the navy had thirty submarines. As the largest was under 140 feet they could not provide healthy accommodation for the sixteen men crew so Dolphin was requisitioned and taken to Gosport to become a submarine depot ship. In 1924 Dolphin was put on the list of ships of the Royal Navy for disposal and was purchased by two well known R.N.V.R officers, Sir Donald Pollock and Lieut. Commander J.M Robertson, a Glasgow ship owner. In 1925 she left Portsmouth under tow. During the latter part of the voyage to Leith, near the Firth of Forth, bad weather caused her to take in a lot of water and the crew decided to beach her at Fisherrow, where she lay for around eight months. Eventually she was pumped out and berthed at Leith in September 1925. From Leith Sir Donald Pollock had her removed to Rosyth and had her refitted at his metal industries yard with material from the Jutland Battleship "King George V". From Rosyth she was taken back to Leith in 1928 and was turned into a boys club. A pre training sea school for cadets and deck boys was needed and so, in 1944, the Dolphin became a training ship and it was agreed to operate a department of mining from on board the ship. The Dolphin was handed over to the Dolphin Training Ship Society and the ship rented to Leith Nautical College. By 1950 many courses were being offered including a class for ships' cooks. There were three main courses: one a course for cadets, open to boys between 15 and 17, which lasted 44 weeks, the other two for catering and deck boys and were of 14 weeks duration. Over 4000 boys were trained on the ship which had 6 staff and a captain.
Now the Dolphin was no sleek world war II destroyer, she was an old sailing ship, in fact I reckon it was lucky she was still afloat, I’m sure the only thing that kept her above water was the fact that she was permanently tied up to the dock. Having said that I look back on that old vessel with great affection and I was greatly distressed to read recently that she had been scrapped and the hulk burned for the copper sheathing on her hull. I just wonder how many young men started their sea going career on her and will always have a place in their heart for her.
Unfortunately I have been unable to find out much about the Dolphin’s history in spite of many weeks research on the internet (probably looking in all the wrong places) and I find that very strange because the Port of Leith has a very proud sea going history that has been well documented over the years and yet there are very few mentions, that I could find, of the Dolphin. Maybe it’s just that I’m getting old and maudlin but I really do wonder if there are others like me who will always talk of her with pride and reverence.
I have only been able to find two photos of her and neither of them are very good. I’d love to find her history and tales of her exploits even if she was only an old coal scow. This is unlike some of the other, higher profile training establishments like the Conway and Worcester etc., which are very well documented.
I’ve met and sailed with cadets/ midshipmen from these ships and I can assure you the training they got was no better than we got on the Dolphin and at Leith nautical College, we could hold our own with the best of them.
Anyway, there I was on the Dolphin to do my first sixteen weeks of seamanship training along with twelve other young cadet trainees and an intake of deck trainees. The tucker wasn’t real flash and the bunks were horrendous but we loved every minute of it and used to sit around for hours dreaming of our nautical futures. Whilst we were made to work long and hard we were treated very fairly and our instructors were a dedicated lot who put in a lot of effort and long hours to whip us into shape.
The training must have been good because I can still tie all the knots blindfolded and my rope splicing is still pretty good, in fact I haven’t done any canvas stitching since I left the Dolphin but I reckon I could still do a pretty good job. In my later years I have done a bit of recreational boating and I can still recognise a good hull when I see one and I still instinctively know how to handle adverse sea conditions all thanks to the training so many years ago.
I can still recognise a clinker or carvel built boat and I well remember the hours we spent every week launching and rowing clinker built lifeboats up and down that dock in Leith in races with other boats, it was back breaking work but it taught us a lifeboat discipline that has probably saved more then a few lives over the years. Occasionally if we sucked up to the instructor enough we got to be the coxswain and that was great because you got to sit in the stern with the tiller in your hand and shout and abuse all the other guys.
The cadet intake I was on was a mixed bunch and most of us came from Edinburgh and surrounds or the Shetland Isles. The Shetlanders were typical of the people from that island, they were wonderful people, quietly spoken, dry sense of humour, tough as nails and totally reliable, it is to my shame that I can remember none of their names. In later years I sailed on a ship with a crew of mainly Shetland Islanders and Aberdonians, if ever you were in trouble in a strange country it was good to know you had one of them standing by your side.
Of the the guys from Edinburgh two in particular stand out and they taught me how to drink beer and chase girls two pastimes I have enjoyed most of my life until advanced years have somewhat restricted these activities, so to George Kemp and Willie Forsythe my belated thanks for teaching me two of my favourite hobbies.
The other guy I remember, and I can only remember his nickname, was Ginger, he is in the picture below and I’m sure I sailed with Ginger in my first deep-sea trip on the Ben Vrackie, we were so young, I remember him with great affection.
So ended our first sixteen weeks of seamanship training on the Dolphin, it was a memorable time and I learned skills that will be with me to the day I die.
Leith Nautical College Cadet intake of August 1955 with the Dolphin in the background.
Back row extreme right - George Kemp
Front row extreme left - “Ginger”, Centre, with the ship’s cat - Willie Forsythe and third from the right myself - Derek Blair.
From the Dolphin we progressed to the college itself to learn all the things we would need to know to be a deck officer in the Merchant Navy.
Prior to restarting at the College we were encouraged to spend the Christmas holidays getting some hands on experience and use the seamanship skills we had learned on the Dolphin, the College organised for us to sign on with small coastal vessels to get that experience.
In my case I joined a small vessel called the Essex Coast, she traded around the northern coast of Scotland and round to the islands off the west coast. She was a beautiful little ship of about 1200 tons with the entire superstructure on the stern, a bit like a tanker. Now some of my memories of that trip are a bit vague but I have a sneaking suspicion that my Dolphin mate Ginger was also with me on that trip.
This was my first introduction to sea sickness and it amazes me to this day that it didn’t put me off ships forever, over the years I have always suffered sea sickness and usually spent the first week of each voyage trying to find the leeward side of the ship and hanging perilously over the rail, it was always a constant source of amusement to my ship mates. Anyone who has experienced severe seasickness will know how debilitating it can be, it used to flatten me and still does to this day on recreational boats, I’m ok when we are moving but the minute we stop to do some fishing, and there is a bit of a swell on, I am gone.
So what were we doing on a 1200 ton coastal vessel going round Cape Wrath, in my opinion one of the most treacherous waterways in the world?…..getting practical experience that’s what, and what an introduction it was, nothing could prepare us for that trip, the waters off Northern Scotland in the middle of winter were awesome.
When we eventually got into Stornaway, one of the magic places in this world in these days, the skipper God bless him, decided that it was even too rough for him to continue so we holed up there for a few days until the weather settled down a bit. I’ve talked about my respect for the people of the Shetland Islands and Aberdeen but to their ranks I must add the people of Stornaway, they were a special breed and I still remember their hospitality and warmth to a new young seaman who was really still a little boy a long way from home. I know she is probably long gone by now but wherever she is lying I sincerely wish the Essex Coast a long life, bon voyage and a safe passage she was my first experience of real seamanship and I will always remember her with pride.
So back to Leith nautical College and the next stage in preparing us for life at sea as a cadet and again, I’m afraid my memory fails me as to too much detail, again I remember the dedication of our instructor, I can’t remember his name but his face is as clear as a bell, the details on my certificate indicate the subjects we covered, and they were covered in great detail, and I guess the certificate proves that some of it, at least, sunk in.
It ain’t pretty and it’s rather tattered but it is one of my most treasured possessions.
The Benledi
And so finally off to sea I went full of enthusiasm to put to use all the skills I’d learned at Leith. Of course I soon learned that my opinion of these skills was a lot higher than the reality that life at sea taught me and I soon came down to earth with a bump.
According to my Seaman’s Record Book I entered the Merchant navy on 12th December 1956 and joined the Benledi in Leith on the 17th December 1956 and signed off in Leith on the 26th December 1956 so what I did on that vessel is a complete mystery to me.
She was a heavy lift ship with some much larger then normal derricks I think they could lift up to 100 tons. I believe she was also suitable for carrying bulk cargo and went to places like Australia to pick up cargos of sugar.
S.S. Benledi
The Benvrackie
I then signed on the Benvrackie on 3rd January 1957 after a few days at home.
The Benvrackie was a beautiful modern ship sleek and fast and was on the Far East run. In these days most Ben Line ships had two distinctly separate voyages. The foreign going run and the coastal run, with different crews for each type of voyage.
The coastal crew would pick her up in London or Liverpool whilst the foreign going crew would go on leave, and they’d take her over to places like Antwerp, Hamburg and Rotterdam and then bring her back to UK, this normally took about a month. Then the deep sea or foreign going crew would come back off leave and take her on the other trip. On the Benvrackie the foreign going trip was normally Singapore, Penang, Bangkok, Hong Kong and sometimes over to the Phillipines to Manilla, Legaspi or Zamboanga.
There were variations to that but the whole trip normally went like clockwork and took about 3–4 months and then it was back to UK and the cycle started all over again.
Outward bound she carried general cargo which varied from condensed milk to motor vehicles and all things in between and homeward bound she carried everything from copra to bales of rubber, we sometimes stopped off in Middle Eastern ports and picked up cargos of cotton bales and other raw materials. I can’t remember whether it was the first mate or the chief officer whose job it was to work out where everything went in the holds but it must have been a horrendous job. I seem to recall they had little models of the ship and could suspend weights on it to work out where everything went in the holds; I suppose it is now all computerised.
S.S. Benvrackie
Captain Copeman of the Benvrackie was an big, impressive and jovial man who had some firm ideas on how his ship was run, I don’t know whether he had a Royal Navy background sometime in the past but he ran a very tight ship and had some unusual ideas compared to other Ben Line ships. He always insisted the we dipped the ensign whenever we passed a warship and when we came into port we had to have one cadet on the ensign on the yard arm and another on the pole on the stern and the minute a rope was put ashore, or the last line was pulled in when leaving, these ensigns had to be changed over with military precision.
The first job for the day workers each morning was hosing down the wooden decks and every so often we had to use a holystone on them, for those of you who may not remember them a holystone was a big block of sandstone like rock that used to be mounted on a broom handle and it was used for keeping wooden decks in immaculate condition.
The whole ship was always beautifully maintained and always looked good, we even had a small contingent of Chinese painters on board who spent all their lives making the superstructures look like they were wood grained, looking back now it was a real work of art.
Another of his little idiosyncrasies was when we were in port there always had to be a cadet standing at the top of the gang plank in full uniform, cap and all, even though when we were in foreign ports they always employed a local watchman to man the gang plank 24 hours a day. To this day I have never worked out what we were supposed to be doing on that gang plank duty but he was the captain and they tell me that according to marine law he was responsible only to God so who was I to argue?
In spite of all the above Captain Copeman ran a very happy and efficient ship and we cadets were always treated with kindness by him and all others aboard, when you compare it to the tales we read of treatment on the old sailing ships I guess you could say we were spoiled rotten.
That damn gangway duty
Of course as young green cadets we were fair game and subjected to all sorts of pranks, like “go down to the engine room and get a bucket of steam”, or “go down and get the key to the keelson from the chief engineer” but they were all done with no offence meant or taken.
The three cadets on the Benvrackie,
myself on the left
Ben Line Cadet, Page Two