Southern Province Safari
The Port Department of the East African Railways and Harbours Administration is responsible for the navigational buoys, beacons and lights on the East African coast from the Kenyan port of Lamu in the north to the Tanzanian port of Mtwara in the south. The necessary maintenance and servicing being carried out by Mombasa for the northern section and by Dar-es-Salaam for the southern province.
In the pre-war days The Tanganyika Railways and Ports Services had it's own coastal steamer, the AZANIA, which had accommodation for passengers and before the advent of aircraft took the Governor or other Officials on safari up and down the coast. It also undertook the necessary maintenance and servicing of the navigational aids each year. The AZANIA was finally withdrawn from service in 1949.
During the 1950s the Port Department used the small port tug NGUVU (Swahili for strong) towing a lighter with the necessary replacement buoys and equipment to mount the Southern Province safari in the charge of one of the pilots.
Nguvu
©Richard Crow
Always a popular assignment for the chosen pilot and Dockyard Engineer, not only a three weeks break from the normal routine but three weeks of independent command on an interesting coastal safari on which they could, if they so wished, take their wives.
My turn came in 1950, I was able to take my wife and small dog, the Chief Engineer appointed was Bob Dewar from the dockyard but his wife could not come. Our houseboy Ali also came at his especial request as his parents were in Lindi and it would be an opportunity for him to see them. He said he would do all our washing etc. but in the event he was sea sick from the time he boarded in Dar to arrival in Lindi, where he made a miraculous recovery and went ashore. He was seasick again all the way back.
Before sailing my wife and I had dinner at the Dar Club and then boarded the Nguvu at 10 p.m. at which time I had arranged to depart Dar-es-Salaam so that we would arrive off the Mafia Archipelago at daybreak.
That first night at sea I, the professional seaman, was sea sick, my dog was sea sick but my wife, who didn't really like the sea, was not sick and enjoyed a good night’s sleep. There's no justice in this world!
I should not wish anyone to be fooled or mislead by my late dear wife's name or the fact that she was a nine stone, five foot nothing blue eyed blonde.
As a busy and energetic child, she was nicknamed 'Bonkie' and it stuck and she was so known to all her family and friends for the rest of her life.
Bonkie was quite a lady, she was in London for the worst of the blitz, she flew out to join me in Dar-es-Salaam when flying was very much the exception rather than the rule (in a York, the civilian version of the Lancaster bomber) and she looked after me and ran my household to my great contentment for the best part of fifty-three years of happy marriage.
The large inhabited island of Mafia and the many small islets and coral reefs lying between it and the mainland comprising the Mafia Archipelago are situated off the delta of the Rufiji River, The channels through the reefs are buoyed but unlit and provide a daylight route which avoids the strong northerly current on this part of the coast. The local coastal vessels such as the B.I.'s MOMBASA and TABORA and the Holland Afrika's line TAYARI regularly used it when conditions were suitable. I was told that Captain Cleeve had taken the MATIANA through it on one occasion.
We had several buoys to change here and all of them to check for position, which occupied us for several days.
MOMBASA.
P&O Collection.
In WW1, the German cruiser KONIGSBERG, after sinking H.M.S. PEGASUS at Zanzibar on the 20th. September 1914 took refuge from the pursuing British Naval forces in the delta of the Rufiji River where she was eventually trapped. The accompanying snapshots of the wreck of the Konigsberg and one of her attendant supply ships the SOMALI were taken after WW2 in the late 1940s.
HMS Pegasus
German Cruiser Konigsberg
The wreck of the Konigsberg on the Rufiji River circa 1948
©Richard Crow
Wreck of Somali
©Richard Crow
The Konigsberg had arrived in Dar-es-Salaam in June 1914 where she created quite a sensation. With three funnels she was known to the Africans as the "manowari wa tomba tatu" (the warship with three funnels) and was thought to be all powerful, a reputation that the fate of H.M.S. Pegasus (only two funnels) at her hands amply demonstrated, they were not to know that the simile would come full circle when she herself was eventually destroyed by a naval force which included H.M.S. Chatham with four funnels.
HMS Chatham
Kevin Patience in his book 'Konigsberg, A German East African Raider' gives a detailed account of the episode. The Konigsberg withdrew to a position some fifteen miles up stream, out of range of the guns of the blockading British ships until two monitors, the Mersey and the Severn arrived and were able to enter the delta to within range, where, with aircraft spotting their fall of shot, they were able to hit Konigsberg and put her out of action. Some of the Konigsbergs crew and heavy guns were landed and joined the German land forces in East Africa under the command of Lt. Col. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck who, after defeating a British force at Tanga in November 1914, succeeded in leading the Allied forces a wild goose chase around East Africa until after the Armistice was signed in 1918.
It seems to have been the fashion in the early 20th. Century for the indigenous travelling public to grade the importance of ships by the number of funnels they had. The great four funnelled North Atlantic liners such as the TITANIC and the Blue Riband holder MAURETANIA are examples as are the two and three funnelled "T" class vessels of the B.I's Apcar Line on the China run in the East.
Before leaving Dar I had had prepared a large sand box for the use of our small Dachshund dog, Velvet. In the event she simply refused to use it so every day when anchored for the evening you would see either myself, my wife or possibly the Chief Engineer rowing one small dog to the nearest sandbank to perform her business. At least we picked up some very fine ornamental seashells on the reefs on these occasions.
Bob Dewar, the Chief Engineer was a keen fisherman, how keen I had not realised until that safari. The first intimation that this was in part, a fishing trip, came that morning when the engines suddenly stopped, on enquiry it was no break down, merely that Bob, trolling a line, had hooked a large king fish and wished to bring it safely aboard. He fished at every opportunity and provided us with more than ample fish dinners to last us a lifetime. The refrigerator was full of fish, so much so that my wife grumbled that even the eggs began to taste of fish. On one occasion at least, however, he did not land his catch. Hauling a fish in, predator fish (piranha)? got there first and by the time it was inboard only the head remained, the body having been eaten as it struggled on the hook.
Those waters were full of fish, I believe that, some years later when tourists started to come to East Africa, a game fishing enterprise was mounted based on Mafia Island at the small township of Kidandoni.
The southern most island of the group is Fanjove, a typical coral island with sparkling white sandy beaches. The Germans built a lighthouse here in 1896. The light is now an automatic gas powered light controlled by a sunvalve and it was my task to service the light, replacing the gas cylinders with full ones capable of running for a full year and generally seeing that all was well.
©Fanjove Lighthouse, from original painting by Richard Crow.
Although the light was automatic there was an African lighthouse keeper whose job was to keep the windows clean and generally oversee the light, he had no technical knowledge, however and if the light should fail he had to report it immediately to the District Officer at the nearby mainland port of Kilwa.
While I was up the tower checking over the lighting apparatus my wife was chatting to the lighthouse keeper who told her a long tale of woe. There he was, a poor old man, all alone on the island, no friends and to crown it all he had a bad back. We had a bottle of Sloan's liniment on the tug, which my wife sent for, and it was applied to his back by one of the sailors much to his delight.
When I came down from the tower I was told all this and decided to question him further for my voyage report. No friends? But who were those women I had seen from the top of the lighthouse sitting round a cooking pot at the back? "Oh, those are not friends, they are my wives" he replied. His wage he told me was 10/- per month, his last increment, he had never had one? When had he last had leave? Leave; what was that, he had never had any as far as he knew.
All this was entered in my report with a great deal of scepticism but, believe it or not, when the personnel department back in Dar-es-Salaam investigated, it was all perfectly true. He was in fact a forgotten man.
When the Germans built the lighthouse in 1896 they had installed two German lighthouse keepers and employed an African boy as a helper.
When the British took over after WW1 in 1919 they installed two Chinese lighthouse keepers who were the responsibility of the District Officer Kilwa. The African boy was retained.
In about 1922 when the Port Dept. of the Railways and Ports Services had taken over responsibility for the buoys and lights on the coast the light was made automatic and the Chinese keepers dispensed with, but not the African boy, who seems to have been forgotten and still remained on the books of the District Officer Kilwa.
That same African boy, now an elderly man had, all the years between, been paid his original 10/- per month by the D. O. Kilwa, quite unknown to the Railways Administration.
Of course he was due quite a sum of back pay and leave not taken, all in all he was retired with a handsome bonus. Was he pleased? I'm not so sure, for there is a twist to the tale.
I had not been entirely happy that the light was working properly so decided that on our way back north bound we would night stop at Fanjove to check it again. On arrival in the evening I went ashore but could not find the lighthouse keeper and enquired about him from some fishermen whose boat was on the beach. "The Mzee? (Old man) oh, he has gone home" they said, "he was here last week, he had come for the Bwana's (that was me) annual inspection but now that's over for another year he has gone back home to Songa Songa, the large island to the northward, where he has a farm and lives."
Well, there you have it, I'm not so sure but that things were quite well organised before I interfered with my report. The Administration had a watcher, albeit a distant one, ready to report any malfunction of the light, at no cost to themselves, and the lighthouse keeper had a regular remuneration of 10/- per month for doing nothing except take a fortnights holiday on a coral island with his wives once a year. The only gainer would appear to be the District Officer Kilwa, who was better off by 10/- per month, but then he had been paying that out for some thirty years without complaint and what's 10/- per month to the Government?
In 1497 Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese navigator, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed up the East African coast. In 1498 he crossed the Indian Ocean and landed at Calicut on the West coast of India. The Portuguese maintained a presence on the East African coast until the 18th. Century. Fort Jesus in Mombasa is probably the most well known of their fortresses but there are similar though smaller forts along the coast, the ruins of one in one of the Kilwa's, I think from memory Kilwa Kiswani but it might be Kilwa Kivinje, are still very much visible.
FORT JESUS.
When I joined my last ship in the B I, the SIRDHANA in London in 1948, the Chief Officer was 'Haji' Reid and he showed my wife and I a plaque from a David Livingstone Society that he was going to affix to the house in Mikindani that the great explorer had lived in prior to one of his expeditions. Now here we were at Mikindani servicing the buoys of that small port, so we went ashore to find Livingstone's house and to see again the plaque that Haji, now Chief Officer of the B.I.'s coastal steamer MOMBASA, had recently placed in position. This was the first time that my wife had been ashore for a couple of weeks, whereas I was sea sick on my first night at sea, she was now land sick and had to sit on the steps of the local hospital for a while to recover.
Prior to the recent building of the new port Mtwara, Lindi had been the principal port of the Southern Province and still handled the traditional trade. There were a number of buoys to be replaced here and an evening ashore with Jimmy Campbell and his wife, the resident pilot at Lindi to give them all the news of the outside world at Dar before we moved on to our final destination, the new port of Mtwara, where, apart from replacing a couple of buoys, we had to place in a position predetermined by the pilot at Mtwara, a navigational beacon that had been prefabricated by the Dockyard in Dar-es-Salaam.
This completed our safari and we now headed northward bound for Dar-es-Salaam, stopping as previously described for one night at Fanjove Is.
All in all a most enjoyable three weeks safari for us all, including, I'm sure, our dog.
M U T I N Y
In the early 1950’s a small cargo vessel flying the Chilean flag arrived at Dar-es-Salaam and, as she was expected to sail the next day, was given a short stay single anchor berth in the body of the harbour.
Next day, at the appointed time, I boarded her to pilot her to sea. All appeared in order, the Captain was on the bridge, the Chief Officer and Carpenter at stations on the fo’c’sle and a man at the wheel, the only thing that appeared to be unusual was that the Captain seemed to be wearing lipstick. But I was only the pilot and it was not my place to query the idiosyncrasies of a Chilean Shipmaster so, “If you are ready Captain, would you put the engines on stand by and weigh the anchor”. The Captain put the engine room telegraph to “Stand by” and ordered the Chief Officer to start weighing the anchor. Nothing happened, there was no response from the engine room and the windlass remained silent, in fact the only response was that the man at the wheel behind me muttered, as an aside, “the ship no go”. After a few moments the Captain tried again, once more ringing stand by on the engine room telegraph and ordering the anchor to be weighed , with the same negative results except that the man at the wheel kept re-iterating, rather like a Greek chorus, “the ship no go”.
And the ship did not go. It transpired that the Captain had had a fight with the Chief Engineer, it was not lipstick but blood on his lips, and as a result the whole crew, deck and engineroom, had mutinied.
I returned ashore and reported to the Harbour Master who contacted the ship’s Agents and we all went back aboard. The crew, in the persons of the Chief Officer and Chief Engineer were adament that they would not sail the ship, they agreed, however, at the Harbourmaster’s insistence, that they would allow us to shift her to a smaller berth up the creek where she could lie indefinitely without interferring with other ship movements.
You can imagine that the wires were humming between the Dar-es-Salaam Agents and the Owners in Santiago. The Chilean Consul in South Africa was flown up from Johannesburg and negotiations went on for some days.
The dispute was eventually resolved by relieving the Captain of his command and appointing the Chief Officer in his place.
I must admit that, with hindsight, my sympathies lay with the Captain. The Agent told me that the Chief Officer and the Chief Engineer were closely related and it looked to us as though the pair of them had engineered the whole episode to get rid of the Captain so that the Chief Officer could take his place. Whatever the final outcome when she returned to Chile we were quite pleased when I was able to pilot her away to sea, my first and, as it was to prove, my last occasion to handle a Chilean ship.
Home leave. 1951
My wife and I left Dar-es-Salaam for our first home leave in August 1951 aboard the S.S. Leicestershire, a Bibby Line vessel on charter to the B.I. We started the voyage on a high, by virtue of my local knowledge I won the sweep for the ships daily run for the first three days and Bonkie won the whist drive. That was our lot however, although we had a most enjoyable voyage and arrived at Tilbury on a Friday in the middle of September.
LEICESTERSHIRE.
Built: 1949 by Fairfields, Glasgow.
Tonnage: 8,908 grt.
Engine: Geared Turbines, 17 kts.
Passengers: 75.
Bibby Line anticipated that its service to Ceylon and Burma would prosper after the war and to that end ordered both Warwickshire and Leicestershire to service the Colombo and Rangoon route. Both ships were slightly smaller than the company’s pre war tonnage on the route and were delivered in 1948/49 respectively. However with independence for Burma being granted in 1948 and Ceylon a short while later their services were first cut from fortnightly to monthly, this unfortunately also coincided with a downturn in Government Service passenger requirements and an upturn in air transport. In an effort to maintain some sort of service Bibby commenced chartering out its ships whilst keeping others on a tenuous and difficult ports of call rota. Leicestershire was chartered out to various companies, most notably British India from 1951 to 1955 after which she returned to her more normal services for Bibby Line. She was eventually sold out of the fleet to Typaldos of Piraeus, Greece becoming Heraklion and as such capsized in 1968.
Before leaving Dar I had purchased a new Morris Minor car on the Home Delivery scheme. i.e. The car was ordered from the Dar-es-Salaam garage and was made available on arrival in the U.K. for the period of leave, before returning it was handed back to the Agents in the U.K. who then shipped it out to East Africa where one took final delivery. An excellent idea, which meant one, had the use of a car for one’s leave.
We disembarked in Tilbury on Friday morning and arrived at my Sister-in-laws in West Kensington by about noon, After lunch I said that I would go to the Morris Agents, who were out Uxbridge way, on I suppose the present A40, and let them know we had arrived so that, I thought, thinking in terms of East African speed, we might be able to pick up our car next week. But when I arrived they produced all the papers, took me to the garage and shewed me my car, shook me by the hand and wished me happy motoring and pushed me off into one of the busiest approach roads to London.
It might be of interest to 21st century readers to know that the new Morris Minor, in 1951, cost just £482.
I had never driven in the U.K. let alone London, nor had I ever been in that part of London before and, to cap it all they had pulled out the choke to start her so that as soon as the engine warmed up it started to stall. Fortunately I had gone there by bus so that I had a rough idea of the way back and knew that I had to turn right off the main road fairly soon. Creeping along in the nearside lane every time I plucked up courage to edge out for a right turn there would be hooting of horns and great lorries would go hurtling past me. Eventually, after about an hour, I made it to West Kensington with rather more grey hairs than I had started with, and there walking along the pavement was my loving wife with her niece, Sara. Oh look! They cried, there’s Uncle Dick, how lucky, he can give us a lift the rest of the way. Actually by the end of our leave I became quite good in London traffic, Hyde Park corner, Trafalgar Square and all.
MORRIS MINOR.
We decided that for the first month of our leave while the weather was still quite good we would tour around York and Yorkshire, my part of the country, taking my wife’s nine-year-old niece Sara, with us. At that time, long before Motorways were built, the A1, the Great North road, was the main road North but unfortunately it was in the process of being up-graded to dual carriage ways in many places causing long hold ups and to make matters worse my car was still being “run in” as was the custom in those days and I was restricted to not more than 30 m.p.h. In consequence I could not overtake anyone, even on clear stretches and it took me two days to reach York as we had to night stop at Lincoln.
On arrival at York we booked in to an old coaching inn, The Olde Starre, in Stonegate in the middle of the City for a week. Stonegate ran from near the River Ouse to the great gothic Minster in the centre of York and was so called because it was the route taken when transporting the stones from the river for building the Minster. The street was very old and quite narrow; in fact the Inn’s sign was on a beam that spanned the road, being fixed to the Inn and to the building on the opposite side of the street. During our stay the Landlord shewed us the original agreement between the Inn and the other householder. It was couched in flowery medieval legalese but the gist of it was that the Inn could fix their beam to the other house in consideration of a sum of money per year (I forget how much, perhaps some groats ) but on the understanding that the said sum of money should be spent in the Inn during the course of the year. A very satisfactory agreement for both parties!
The Landlord’s wife normally did the catering but as she was on holiday he was able only to provide breakfast, an arrangement that suited us very well as we were out all day touring around and were able to enjoy a substantial “high tea” in Betty’s, the well known York tea-rooms at the bottom of the street in the evening. We were given two rooms off a half landing with a bathroom between. The first night my wife and I took the double room while Sara had the smaller single room but, before long there was a tap on our door and a little voice said “Auntie, I don’t like my room, can I come in with you” So I was banished to the small room. I must admit it was a little eerie with low oak beams and the floor sloping quite perceptibly down to a small Dickensian casement window, but I slept well enough. The next morning the Chambermaid unfortunately told Sara she had been in the haunted room, so I was stuck with it for the rest of the week.
After a week in York we went to stay at a farm in Ebberston, a village on the edge of the North Yorkshire moors. It was run by three brothers and their sister, who had lost her husband at sea during the war, she kept house for them and ran the catering side of the business. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon and while I fussed around wiping down my new car my wife and Sara had a look around the farm. Bonkie soon came back and told me that they had met one of the brothers who was very fed up. Apparently the village cricket team was playing in the final of a local cup competition in the next village but one. The three brothers had drawn lots to see who had to stay behind to milk the cows, he had lost, the cows had proved awkward and he had missed the last bus so could not get over to see the end of the match. She had told him I was a cricketer and would take him so off we went and arrived just in time to see our last man go in to bat with ten runs needed for a win. After a few agonising scares the runs were made and the team had won. As soon as the cup had been presented he had to get back to finish off the cows and asked if I could takes some of his friends for the same reason. I don’t know how but we managed to get some six young farmers into my Morris Minor and arrived back safely.
That night the village celebrated the victory at the village pub, ‘The Bunch of Grapes’ and as I had shewn interest in the match Bonkie and I were invited. It proved to be a really exceptional night; the local farmers had promised that if the village won they would fill the cup with the necessary refreshments. I can’t remember how many times it circulated but I do remember that the last time it contained Black Velvet, (champagne and guinness.) At about half eleven I asked the Landlord what time was closing time and he replied “half past ten but not to worry, the local Policeman lives in the next village and he has been told not to come over tonight anyway, said the Landlord, we have closed one of the doors”.
There were several “characters” in the village. Walter the horsecoper who dealt in cash and always had a wad of banknotes in his back pocket. He had a unique way of playing darts, standing on the line he would lean forward until, just before he overbalanced at a angle of about forty five, he could then almost place the dart in the board. However, as he was never backward in paying his turn, nobody grumbled too much.
Then there was Charlie, the oldest inhabitant. He had a story about a daddy longlegs that got stuck in his throat. When telling the story to visitors it took one, sometimes two, pints to wash that daddy longlegs down.
During the evening a neighbouring farmer came in for a bucket full of beer slops. His sow had just had a litter but was being contrary and wouldn’t let her milk down. He wanted the beer to relax her. About an hour later he rejoined the party, all was well, the sow was lying on her side snoring her head off and all the little piglets were enjoying themselves at her milk bars.
Finally, at some time after midnight, we were all singing carols. The village prided itself on its choir, they sounded good to me but whether we were as good as we all thought we were at that time is a moot point.
The following Saturday there was a match with a visiting team from Halifax. An annual affair, the visitors, with their wives and families arrived by coach which, after off-loading the cricket team took the wives and children on for a day on the beach at Scarborough. After the match and on the return of the families there was high tea and drinks before the coach left to return to Halifax. On this occasion the village team was short through the demands of hay making so I was invited to play. We were still one short so the Captain said to old Charlie,” Come on Charlie, you’ll have to play” “It’s thirty years since I last played and any way I haven’t got my glasses” cried Charlie in alarm. “Never mind said the Captain when you come to bat you can borrow Walter’s glasses.”
We batted last and when I went in at number ten there was still some time to go and my partner got out almost at once. In came Charlie and it turned out that Walter whose glasses he had to borrow was the umpire. Without his glasses the umpire couldn’t see to give us out and Charlie and I batted on and were able to save the day.
The following week was the Scarborough cricket festival so I was able to emulate the Halifax men and take Bonkie and Sara to the beach and then spend the day watching Yorkshire play cricket.
Our return to London, with my car now run in, was much more expeditious until I became totally confused by an unusually complicated road works just outside London and found myself going the wrong way round a roundabout and meeting a motor cycle cop going the right way. Fortunately I was wearing a flat cap and, putting on a gormless expression (not too difficult for me) and using my broadest Yorkshire I was able to convince him I was only another thick yokel from up north sent to plague the smart southerners and thus get sent on my chastened way with a caution.
We were able to take a small flatlet nearby and the rest of our leave passed enjoyably but only too quickly. At Christmas we were able to join other members of Bonkie’s family who lived around London and all too soon it was February and time to return. By sacrificing a few days of our leave we were able to return on the Union Castle’s S.S. Rhodesia Castle going southbound round the Cape. We joined her in Rotterdam and sailed in a snowstorm. She called at Las Palmas and at St. Helena where the sea was sufficiently calm to allow us to land by boat and visit Napoleon’s grave and see the very old turtles.
S.S. RHODESIA CASTLE.
Built: 1951 by Harland & Wolff, Belfast.
Tonnage: 17,041 grt, 9,435 nt.
Engines: Twin screw, 2 x 3 Stage turbines, double reduction geared, 14,400 SHP, 17.5 knots by Builder.
Passengers: 530 one class.
Launched 5th April 1951, completed 6th of October same year.
Made her maiden voyage on U.C.s Round Africa service on the 18th of October via the Cape and Suez. Her funnel was heightened in 1958 and a dome added. In 1960 her passenger compliment was reduced to 442 but remaining as before, one class. Laid up in the River Blackwater on the 4th of May 1967, with no prospective buyer she was finally sold for breaking, arriving at Kaohsiung on the 26th of October and work was undertaken by the Chin Ho Fa Steel & Iron Company.
It was some years since I had last visited South Africa and it was enjoyable to be able to shew my wife around.
At Durban we went on a day’s safari by coach and were shewn the cliff from which a legendary Zulu Chieftain used to throw his prisoners taken in battle. At an Indian Temple we were told that, according to their reckoning, the world was due to be destroyed by fire in 1985.A forecast since proved wrong!
At Lourenço Marques it was very hot alongside the Quay and so that night we left our cabin door ajar on the latch. I was sleeping in the upper bunk and about midnight was awoken by my wife beating on the bunk board and the man in the next cabin banging on the bulkhead, finding myself outside in the alleyway I had to go back in to enquire what was happening. “You are chasing that man who was sitting on my bunk” my wife told me. Of course by then there was no man in sight. We heard afterwards through the grape vine what had happened. A couple of cabins along the alleyway was a woman travelling alone, apparently she had gone ashore to a night club or dance and met a man who had accompanied her back on board. Telling him where her cabin was it was arranged that she would leave her door on the latch and he would rejoin her later. Unfortunately he mistook our door on the latch for hers with the result that my wife was awakened by him sitting on her bunk with very obvious amorous intentions, hence the shindig.
Within a very few days we were back in Dar-es-Salaam and that was the end of our first home leave and, sadly, apart from our final voyage home for secondment to Malta, the last sea voyage as henceforth travel was to be by air.
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My next Southern Province safari, in 1953, was not so successful. On this occasion my wife was at home in the U.K. for medical reasons but the Chief Engineer, Chris Flatstead had his wife with him. On our second or third night we were anchored off Kidandoni, Mafia Island when at about midnight the ship, s/t Nguvu, caught fire and the whole of the superstructure was destroyed. We obviously could not continue, indeed we were lucky not to have lost the ship, and I went ashore to contact the local District Officer to send a signal to Dar-es-Salaam reporting what had happened and that I was returning. When I told the District Officer his reply was most unexpected, "Yesterday was the Sheik's birthday and people all over the island lit bonfires to celebrate, we thought that that was what you were doing."
Nguvu,
Original painting by Richard Crow
I eventually took the Nguvu back to her homeport of Mombasa where an enquiry was held. It was established that the fire was caused by water getting into the fuel for the kerosene powered refrigerator, it was the rainy season, which turned to steam at the burner and caused a blow back that burst into flames. There had been similar instances with shore-based refrigerators upcountry.
B.I. Blazer
No blame was attributed to any of the ship's company but both The Chief Engineer, his wife and I had lost all our clothes and other personal possessions, including my sextant and my old B.I. blazer which was by then irreplaceable. My cabin was particularly burnt out as the ships distress rockets had been stored in a drawer under my bunk which, at the height of the blaze, went off with a spectacular roar of flames and sparks.
Richard transferred to Mombasa in 1955 as Assistant Port Manager and in 1960 was seconded to the Maltese Government for three years as Port Manager, Malta. This secondment was extended for a further year at the request of the Malta Government by which time Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda had acquired independence so that he decided to take early retirement from the Overseas Service.
After a couple of years with the Manchester Ship Canal Co. Richard and his wife purchased a holiday flatlet property in Bournemouth which they ran until finally retiring to Christchurch in 1980.
POSTSCRIPT:
The photos displayed below show the birthday boy with Stephanie Johnson, a neighbour and fellow artist in the Christchurch Arts Guild who made and decorated both the cakes, the RMS Khandalla cake being copied from one of Richard’s original paintings of that ship. He reckons the copy was better than the original! And what is more is you can eat it too. It is now in his airing cupboard drying out for perpetuity.
Richard light-heartedly told us that every eventuality was covered and the guest list, of 80, included :-
Two Vicars
Two Doctors
Several nurses
A Solicitor
A retired Police Officer and
An Undertaker's daughter.
Fortunately all went well on the night and none of the above was required in their professional capacities.
Below are some photos of Richard’s 90th birthday bash held at Priory House, Christchurch on Tuesday 13th. Sept.2005.
Richard and Stephanie Johnson
A view of both cakes, the second depicting an artist's palette and brushes and was the one he cut. In no way could he have cut the Khandalla in two.
Cutting the cakes
Collage of images from the party.