c/o Cunard House, 88 Leadenhall Street, London EC3. By Bill Ferguson. Whittles Publishing, Dunbeath, 2025.
Reviewed by Tim Coyle
The book takes its title from the postal address of the Port Line where mail to the company’s seagoing personnel was received, sorted and distributed to the ships worldwide. The author, Bill Ferguson, was a junior rating who served in Port Line ships from the 1950s to the early 1970s.
As such he experienced the last great years of the British Merchant Navy in which the handsome cargo liners of the Port Line frequented the ports of Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific and North America. Ferguson, writing in the third person as ‘Jack’, brings the reader back to the formal structures and work practices seen from the experiences of the junior sailor, with its class distinctions, highlights and low life in the shipping world of a generation ago.
Aa a youthful passenger on the Many ferries in the late 1950s and early 60s, I became adept at identifying the house colours and funnel insignia of merchant ships from around the world which crowded Sydney Harbour. Most flew the ‘Red Duster’ of the British Merchant Navy. The imperious, white-painted liners of the P&O and the Orient Line’s corn-coloured hulls brought ’10 pound poms’ to a new life in Australia and took starry-eyed young Australians for a great adventure in the ‘old country’ and Europe. Among the other less auspicious, but equally prestigious cargo liners, were those of the Port Line in which Jack served.
Jack attended an Approved Training School and was accepted into Port Line service as a Deck Boy. His first nine months was served as a ‘peggy’ – a junior rates’ messman; his first ship was Port Brisbane. Jack subsequently served in 10 Port Line ships, several for multiple voyages.
After a short introduction to the British Merchant Navy in the mid-20th Century, Jack launches into his seafaring life story; it is fair to say each voyage was filled with anecdotes of his shipboard duties, relationships with his shipmates on and off duty and his experiences of the ports he visited. Australian and New Zealand readers will be most interested to read his impressions of the ports in the late 1950s and -60s.
Jack’s initial voyages saw the usual practical jokes played on the boys by the ratings. Soon after departing England for a passage to New Zealand the boys were told that, as the ship was to pass through the Panama Canal, they were required to save bread crusts to feed the mules which pulled the ships through the Canal. The gullible mess boys duly saved the crusts and accumulated several bags. All except Jack. He had learned at school that the ‘mules’ were in fact electric locomotives. He kept the secret from his junior colleagues who were not amused when the truth came out.
Jack loved New Zealand from his first visit – its beauty and orderliness and the friendliness of the people. He noted the lack of tensions between the Māori people and the European population and the absence of the class distinctions he was used to in Britain. His later attachments to the country included an unfulfilled engagement which, had it resulted in marriage, might have seen him in the NZ Police Force.
His initial views of Australia were mixed. While he enjoyed the ‘cosmopolitan’ feel of Melbourne, he thought Sydney men disrespected women and generally behaved boorishly.
The sometimes-fractious relationships among the crew are a feature of the book. Jack spares no details describing the behaviour and eccentricities of crew members ashore and afloat. These largely comprised drinking and whoring. Jack’s teenage introduction (in New Zealand) to the ‘ring bolters’ (women who came aboard to satisfy the carnal desires of the ratings and hid in plain sight) was confrontational.
Cargo liners spent long periods in port – up two weeks allowing for extended periods of shore leave where seafarers could utilise accommodations in ‘sailors’ homes’ and the ministrations of Chistian and other charitable institutions.
In common with most seafarers, Jack had a low opinion of wharf labourers, particularly those of Liverpool. Dockyard workers were equally despised; one example was painting a ship’s upper works in the pouring rain. One ‘worker’ mopped up the rainwater while another immediately followed up with the paintbrush!
Relationships with the ships’ officers were formal to virtually non-existent. The ship Masters were god-like in their demeanour. Jack was genuinely shocked on the rare occasions when a Master deigned to recognise him. One extraordinary example was his last ship, Port Nicholson. After serving under Captain Young for two years with no interaction with Jack, the Captain asked him one day If he would like to join him on a newly constructed ship, Port Nicholson, to which Jack readily agreed.
The typical-of-the-age lack of information exchanges between seniors and juniors led to the inevitable scuttlebutt gossip in the crew messroom. From the junior sailors’ position, incidents at sea – particularly when Jack was on the bridge performing quartermaster duties- were rarely explained by the watch officers so Jack had to keep a keen ear to establish what had transpired. These little ‘mysteries’ add to Jack’s narrative.
Of the many anecdotes in the book, two stand out. The first is a cameo of the last years of the classic British Merchant Navy. In a heavy North Atlantic seaway in pouring rain, the quartermaster advised all messes: ‘within the next 15 to 20 minutes the Queen Mary will be on our starboard beam passing us on her way to France’.
‘Wrapped in oilskins, Jack and his chums made their way to the moonlit starboard side of the boat deck and, sure enough as their vessel rose on the top of a sea, a glow could be seen in the distance across the moonbeam-illuminated tips of the heaving ocean, bringing some welcome light to the wild North Atlantic night. In no time at all, within half a mile was the second-largest merchant ship in the world. What a sight! Light towered upon light, except for the navigating area, where all that could be seen in the darkness was a red glow of the port-hand navigating light. As the mighty bulk of the liner came abeam of the corkscrewing Port Lincoln a signal lamp on the liner’s bridge came to life, sending, “WNIE, Queen Mary, New York to Cherbourg AA AA” meaning ‘What Ship”…By now the Queen Mary was well ahead and, in the gloom caused by the spray, she briefly illuminated her three mighty funnels. What a truly memorable and exciting sight, particularly in the appalling wind and seas’.
This dramatic moment in time has remained with Jack all these years. It is hard to imagine such an incident would be so emotive today with the gargantuan floating apartment blocks, in the guise of cruise ships, aimlessly roaming the seas – without the funnels.
The other incident was a natural phenomenon. Jack was on lookout duty at night in Indonesian waters on the ‘monkey island’ (an open platform above the bridge). As all was quiet, he was attempting to study for an examination. When he looked up, he was shocked to see the entire fore end of the ship had disappeared, with just the mast and the Sampson posts poking out of the water. The sea was flat, there was no pitching, noise, vibration or any indication of movement. As quickly as it had occurred the water fell away. The only other person to have seen the incident was the helmsman as the officer of the watch had been in the chartroom. The officer opined it may have been a tsunami caused by an underwater volcano, but the complete lack of movement defied reasoning. Needless to say, no one believed Jack when he recounted the experience to the messroom, and he was shouted down by ribald comments regarding his sanity.
The handsome cargo lines of the Port Line, and the other prestigious British shipping lines, have all gone to the great breakers’ yards in the sky; the proud British Merchant Navy no longer exists as a unified and professional entity, replaced by multinational crews manning ultra-efficient container ships and bulk carriers. The solid dockside warehouses and wharves are now prestigious apartments, museums or art galleries, sought after for their water views; Contemporary shipping is now removed to vast, automated container terminals. Guests at the five-star hotels at Circular Quay, Sydney Harbour, often have their intimate views of the Opera House blocked by the vast bulks of cruise ships – a constant stream of which occupy the Overseas Passenger Terminal in summer.
Cunard House is complemented by Jack’s own photographs of ships and shipboard life, and nostalgic reproductions of the classic Port Line cargo liners.
It seemed every one of Jack’s voyages had something different – viewed from both sides of maritime life: the camaraderie and professionalism of the sea as well as the seamy side. It’s a voyage back 60 years to a world which no longer exists. The characters Jack wrote about have all gone to Fiddlers’ Green.
Fiddler’s Green is an after-life where there is perpetual mirth, a fiddle that never stops playing, and dancers who never tire. In 19th-century English maritime folklore, it was a kind of after-life for sailors who had served at least fifty years at sea.
