January to May Their company was very much appreciated as coming from a farm in darkest Perthshire I was beginning to regret the whole affair and wishing I had stayed at home!
On arriving at Stalham we were greeted by Commander Monroe who had - as an earlier subscriber described it - a 'very red face' however it turned to ' scarlet ' when the Glasgow lad tried to explain to the Station Master who collected the tickets that the ticket was in a poor state but that ' a man kept coming along and hacking bits out of it!
I really cannot remember much of my first night at Ingham except that we were shown to our dormitory. However I soon settled in and started to enjoy the course which covered the basics of seamanship. The Instructors were very good and there was plenty of good natured banter - Mr Townsend I think that was his name used to shout ' come along boys fancy cakes for tea' - his wife had a tearoom in Sea Palling which we used to frequent but we never saw any fancy cakes - he was a benign and kindly man.
Charlie Porte was another very good instructor who had also an earthy sense of humour and if one of the boys passed wind in class he would shout 'who dropped a googly' and if the culprit didn't own up he would walk round the class 'sniffing' the collar of each boy in turn until he was found. I cannot recall Commander Aldis other than when I was his Cabin Boy - one day he entered his room and caught me reading one of his books however he didn't fall out on me and instead asked how far I wished to go in my Naval Career and when I said the bridge he advised me to seek a Cadetship as while it could be done 'before the mast' I would find it easier as a Cadet.
I then sailed on the Egidia, the Elysia which carried whisky to New York - grain homeward - they also carried 12 passengers. From there I sailed on the Empire Halladale which carried troops to East Africa until she was scrapped when I rejoined the Elysia and when the 'E' ships were transferred to the Indian run I moved to the Tarantia for 1 trip to the States so that I could go to Dundee Nautical Coll when the class took up.
