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Chapter Four
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1923 - 1930 The Depression Years
Possession of an Extra Master’s certificate may have impressed Claude’s fellow officers but the Company less so, to make sure he did not get ideas above his station appointing him back to the mail ships but only as Fourth Officer. As second or junior officer of a watch he would be permitted perhaps to get the compass error but his role was very much that of the cocoa maker! (Vast quantities of cocoa were drunk at sea whilst on watch, mixed with lashings of thick condensed milk.) But one did not complain for trade was bad, ships were starting to be laid up, soon there would be officers signing on as able seamen and glad to get the work. The Company in sending Claude to a mail ship as Fourth Officer was exercising the age-old rule, book learning was no substitute for experience.
Claude signed on the ‘Arundel Castle’ on the 23rd of March 1923. The ‘Arundel’ was a new ship; her maiden voyage having been in April 1921 thus Claude’s appointment could have to some extent been seen as recognition of his certificate. Undoubtedly with her exact sister vessel the ‘Windsor Castle’, the pride of the Mail Service but compared to her elder sisters, the ‘Edinburgh Castle’ and ‘Walmer Castle’ the ugly ducklings of the fleet. They would be the only four funnelled ships built by the company; quite why they were so designed is a mystery for the fashion for such flamboyance was long gone.
The ‘Windsor’ and ‘Arundel’ passing on the equator.
An interesting painting, Charles Dixon was a very well known marine artist, he gave this painting to my father as a wedding present. The painting is dated 1921, the ‘Windsor Castle’ made her maiden voyage in 1923 thus this painting anticipates the two liners passing at sea by a couple of years. The artist also omitted the stack of boats abaft the funnels, artistic licence? |
The two sisters were further hampered by a most cumbersome and impractical lifeboat arrangement; subsequent to the ‘Titanic’ disaster it was ruled that there was to be lifeboat capacity for all on board, this in the case of large liners was difficult with the available space. The answer was ‘nesting’, that is having one boat slung above another but in the case of the ‘Arundel’ and her sister this was still not enough; the solution was an ungainly stack of boats serviced by two large gantries abaft the fourth funnel. Quite how the designers got away with this arrangement is something of a mystery for in practice it would have proved to be totally unworkable.
In telling this story of my father’s life the ‘Arundel Castle’ is interesting in that she was one of the only two ships in the Union-Castle line to span the career of both Claude and myself.
In 1924 on the 21st of April Claude signed off the ‘Arundel Castle’s articles, he was about to undertake a bold experiment. Whilst studying for his Extra’s he had met up with another young man who was to go on to become Lord Chief Justice of the Admiralty & Divorce Division of the Bar. a (I have always thought that the linking of marine matters and matrimonial disputes shows a keen sense of humour in the legal profession.)
Claude was very taken with the idea of reading law and becoming a barrister but finances were much too tight to permit his staying ashore for further study. Possibly the depression and number of surplus officers gave him the idea, whatever he hit upon the idea of getting a shore appointment that would allow him the necessary time to attend the Inns of Court ‘diners’, a prerequisite of becoming a barrister at law. My father obtained unpaid leave of absence from the Company and was appointed a temporary Instructor of Navigation at Pangbourne Nautical College.
It seemed the ideal solution - and life for Claude. Pangbourne College takes its name from the town in which it is situated on the bank of the Thames. In an ideal setting the college was then a source of entry into the Royal Navy, the other two principle training ships being the Worcester and Conway; today only Pangbourne survives. Boys aged thirteen to fourteen attended the colleges for two years, they learned seamanship, navigation and other subjects suiting them for a life at sea. At the end of their time at college the brighter boys often went into the Royal Navy as midshipmen but by far the most joined the merchant navy. The larger passenger ship companies were only then (1921) thinking about taking cadets, most of the young men would start their life at sea in one of the cargo ship companies where they would learn their craft in far harsher surroundings.
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