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Chapter three - page 8

I so much regret now that when I had the chance I did not put down on paper my father’s memories as he recounted them, not that he made reference to his days on cargo ship’s very often other than as generalisations as to how much harder life was then to my own experiences at sea.   But he did tell of the occasion that a Master, finding in Cape Town that sweet potatoes were considerably cheaper than ‘potatoes’ purchased these for the crew.   He soon discovering his error when loud complaints were received from the crew demanding to know what was wrong with their potatoes!   It is very likely that the ‘York Castle’ was on the New York service hence Claude being sent to Cape Town to join her, another ‘twenty days and twenty nights’ ship.   He left the ‘York Castle’ on the 19th of September 1922. 
In the last chapter I mentioned the marriage of his brother Alfred, it was about now that he and his family left for a new life in Australia.   It was the time of mass immigration, those from Europe trying to find a better future in what was called the ‘New World’, most were heading for the United States but Australia was a common destination for the British.   Alfred’s choice of Australia may have been influenced by his wife’s brothers who themselves had settled there. 
My father as I think most of us are, was always very reluctant to speak about anything he found embarrassing, similarly he found it impossible to talk about anything that he thought of as being dishonourable or dishonest.   Thus he never once in his entire life mentioned his mother’s marriage to Gooding and we must, without making unsound assumptions ask the question as to why Claude never spoke of his brother.   Obviously there must have been a reason, something caused an estrangement between Alfred Edward and his family but there is today no means of us knowing its cause.

On leaving the ‘York’ Claude studied and sat for his Master’s Foreign Going Certificate but he was not to be satisfied with this.   The Extra Master’s Certificate is the marine equivalent of the university master’s degree, to give some illustration of the difficulty in gaining this qualification only one other Master in the Union-Castle Line held one, my father’s friend Captain Billy Byles R.N.R.   Claude would have first had to sit his Master’s then, having passed that, his Extra Master’s.    His certificate was issued on the 13th of February 1923. g

e)         See letter from Sandra Kelleher

f)          Until the 1980’s when Merchant Service certificates of competency were given the ‘modern’ unimaginative numerical designations when a Master’s Foreign Going became a ‘Class I’ certificate, they were divided into two groups.   Coastal waters only required ‘Home Trade’ certificates whilst any vessel trading beyond British, North Sea or English Channel areas required ‘Foreign Going’.   A Second Mate’s Foreign Going was roughly the equivalent of Master’s Home Trade.   To sit for Second Mate’s F.G. one required four years (reduced to three if you had served 2 years pre sea training) actual sea time, for First Mate’s F.G. 18 months actual sea time in charge of a watch (as second officer, i.e. as Forth Officer, time counted only as two thirds) and a further year in charge of a watch for Master’s Foreign Going.   Their were six written papers for which an overall mark of 70% had to obtained, an oral exam and a practical signals exam in which you had to show 90% proficiency in morse code, semaphore and flag signals.   Any serious errors when undergoing the oral examination could and often did result in a further six months sea time being imposed.

g)         One of my father’s stories of this period was of a much feared examiner Captain Saul, author of several standard text books of the day.   He was examining a candidate in his knowledge of signals; Captain Saul was notorious for sending semaphore at a ferocious rate, far faster than the nervous candidate could read.   In exasperation Captain Saul threw the flags to the candidate, ‘all right, lets see if you can send then’ he barked.
Not completely cowed our hero grabbed the flags, his arms flew.   His message?
‘Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou me?’