[BITList] awkward bastards

[HUGH]

Of course, there is one group of ABs we are all forgetting - ourselves.  My mother used to call me a thrawn so-and-so.  During my first couple of months in BI, Sandy Suter and I got slapped down for being uppity by a few of our betters one afternoon over a beer or two in a cabin.  I recall lots of fingers pointing at us, with the words, "and another thing".  Our underwear came in for criticism - the colour of it.  On a later occasion, one of the pointing fingers belonged to me, and another bumptious newcomer was getting it in the neck over a beer.  A rite of passage, I suppose it was.  Anyway, we worked out that the safest course was to shut up about previous experience and get to grips with the new experience.

Had I been less awkward I might have reflected on the fact that I'd gone through it a few times before. Ron mentioned oil and water, and the difficulty of getting them to mix (in fact, they sometimes mixed when it was inconvenient for them to do so).  In the first weeks of my apprenticeship, while awaiting the next apprentice school intake, I "borrowed" a compressed air hose from the boiler shop.  Once my journeyman had recovered his composure, he ordered me to put it back at once - better no hose at all, than a boilermakers' hose. "Do you want to start a war?" he asked me. When I left Kincaid's finishing shop for the fitting (erecting) shop after the first year of my apprenticeship, I was given to understand I was doomed, that the chance of me ever becoming a proper engineer was now close to zero.  I had only been in the main fittting shop once, when Bernard Kok, my (Dutch) journeyman had a job to do on an engine almost ready for shop test.  Everything was BIG, especially the engine.  With my assistance, my journeyman had assembled the hydraulic drive units for the Rootes blowers (below the air intakes, port side, see attached), but we were there to twiddle with something on the control platform (stbd side). The engine in the photo is the very one, K227.  Once I had mastered the intricacies of the 28 lb hammer in the fitting shop, I ceased to be looked on as a dolt from the finishing shop, indeed, journeyman fitters ceased to look on my pal Joe and I as dolts quite often until we entered the DO in our 5th year, at which time we were told by all in the fitting shops that our chances of ever becoming proper engineers were now close to zero. We may even have been taken off their lists of possible marriage partners for their daughters. And so it continued.  At a piping contest in a park in Greenock last year, who should I meet but Mr Clark, the fitter who was scandalised by my choice of air hose. Advanced in years, but still sharp, he remembered me, but not the air hose.

For me to class somone as an AB, he had to be consistently an AB, and mostly colleagues shared my opinion.  24 carat ABs were divisive people who should have been weeded out long before they were let free to cause mayhem.  One who was sort of weeded out, was the Chief in Yarrow's DO (Scotstoun).  He refused to interview me, and wouldn't reply if I spoke to him.  Eventually (and it had nothing to do with his relationship with me), the firm bricked up his door into the DO, so we couldn't hear the rows he had with people.  By that point I'd had enough and handed in my notice.  The Director (not an AB) called me in and gave me a personal apology with a "come back any time."  But I didn't.  Apart from anything else, it wasn't the easiest place to get to.  Why wasn't he sacked?  I've no idea.

I didn't get close enough to anyone on the deck side to be able to judge them. All except a Polish 3O who invited me onto the bridge while sailing to North Africa (not BI).  I found the peace and quiet and the low sound (it was in the early hours) most restful, balm to my senses. And there was the odd BI cadet who had a beer with us.  I had a ding dong with one CO in BI, but that was over a specific matter, and once aired it was never aired again.  And there was a minor row with the CO on a ship (not BI) when all of the out of date ER fire extinguishers were discharged on an imaginary fire on deck.  I had found them out of date on joining, and the staff seemed unimpressed when I raised the matter with them, so I organised a demonstration followed by a class on how to recharge fire extinguishers.  I suppose that was me being an AB.

Enough already,

Hugh.

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