[BITList] les andy capp

[HUGH]

John,

Whatever the reason for the lunchtime visit to a pub in Hull, it wasn't to 
have lunch.  Possibly it was to get away from Nowshera, where I had two coat 
hangers and little else, as relieving 3rd.  Hull does not appear on the list 
of ports visited, but I recall being there, and it is written at the bottom 
of the page I devoted to life on Chinkoa where I was 3rd before relieving on 
Nowshera.  It is heavily underlined.  Only 3 or 4 of all the people I 
encountered in BI were awkward buggers, but I had the misfortune to 
encounter them over a short space of time.  So it was, on Chilka, Chinkoa, 
and Nowshera.  Barely a year with BI, I joined Chilka as  4th, perhaps 
promoted too soon for the tastes of the 2nd, who was never more than barely 
civil to me.  I reckoned if the BI and Chief had no reservations about my 
competence, and the latter could share a laugh with me while discussing 
jazz, the 2nd should have got on with his work and not lost any sleep over 
me.  But who did I meet on Nowshera a few months after the end of that trip, 
but the same 2nd, and I had become 3rd since last he saw me.  I had left 
Chinkoa for Nowshera after suffering the barely concealed dislike of the 
Chief - he took umbrage because nobody had told him I had my 2nd's ticket. 
So, that lunchtime pub visit was possibly to give me a break from such 
corrosive thoughts, and from steam turbines.  I informed Head Office I was 
pissed off, and I got shifted to Dilwara, a haven of calm where my only 
worries were the stbd engine (never fixed) and the boiler water pH value 
(soon fixed).  As I was to find later, Clan Line also had awkward people. 
Few comments to me aboard the MV Clan Maclay did not include the words "we 
don't do it that way" - I was given to understand "we" didn't include me, 
the interloper.  But I got their sodding package boiler going within an hour 
of listening to why it couldn't be fixed.  I think the Chief was relieved 
when I joined the Clan Maclaren.  One thing  they didn't do my way (the BI 
way), really alarmed me - on arrivale, they stopped the main engine on heavy 
oil instead of on diesel.  In Glasgow, the Super came down and asked for a 
dock trial.  I was handy, so I obliged, first pointing out that the 
(Doxford) engine had been stopped on heavy by my predecessor, and the heavy 
was cold, etc. "We'll give it a go, son," he said.  So I organised the 
preliminaries and gave it a go until the air bottles were empty.  "Ah, 
well," he said, "we tried."  I liked the "we" while I recharged the air 
bottles.  I don't know who got it going on heavy when we left Glasgow, but 
when we got near Birkenhead I conducted a class :  Lesson 1, "how to change 
over to diesel before arrival".  Some were aghast at the procedure, but it 
went ahead and, as I said, she was still on diesel when I sloped off some 
days later to the Clan Maclaren.  I hope they worked Lesson 2 out for 
themselves, "how to change over to heavy after departure".  But I fear not - 
it would be blamed on the BI, and on me.

Hugh.