"HELEN" 1950
VOYAGE TO THULE
Chapter 1: Jul 28/30 - Rock Ferry to Jura
"The vessel pitched and rolled in a south westerly gale
and ploughed her way through mountainous seas"
(Daily Paper)
The significance of the text will emerge later on. At the outset, everything was lovely - food, company, weather and sea. There was only one thing missing to make our happiness complete. We had sailed without the mate. Poor McLumsie was shortshipped for the first time in over forty years. As he hailed us farewell from the pier, as we slipped down river on the tide, our spirits flagged and in every heart the ensign was dipped.
There was plenty of latent talent in our ship's company; but the Skipper prefers to spell it with a 'p'. Patent ? Booster. R.N. had sailed in submarines in the 1914 war and could turn his hand to anything. Torrie was a super Wren. I remember an occasion when the Frail, emulating the Mate, cast a bowline on the tail of a warp, when the front end had parted and heaved it ashore and by her timely action saved "Pandora" from ramming the lock gates. And then there was the Cat - Help !!! But had he had a crew of Olympics, nothing in the Skipper's view could atone for the loss of the Mate, his right hand who knew "Helen" from bow to stern and from keel to truck, who had eyes in the back of his head which he would not lose in the direst emergency. Even a smudge on the horizon would speak volumes to the Mate. "That" he would say "is the Roaring Gimlet bound from Liverpool to Belfast" and when an half an hour later the smudge materialised as a steamer crossing our wake within identifiable distance he was proved to be correct.
However, at the fifty ninth minute of the seventeenth hour the sky brightened and Tommy Lor came aboard. At eighteen hours he had slipped the mooring and we were away. Booster was not sure which of the two cathedrals he preferred, the one close to the dockside or the one on the hill. From far Angus he had come to a foreign land and he was drinking it all in. Later I was to be in a similar dilemma with Ailsa and the False Craig.
"Helen" was an impressive sight as she made her stately way down river. She has sixty feet of graceful lines and white hull, and fourteen knots (over the ground) is a respectable speed for the Mersey. We came to the bar light vessel with the sun blazing low in the west, the moon rising in the east, the sea calm and the colour of cobalt blue. On reflection, those bearings had better be corrected for the twenty eighth of July. Shift the sun about four points to the north and we will be about right - the Skipper hates inaccuracy.
The log was streamed and a course was set for the Chickens. As the hash hammer fell, I mused on the days when I was summoned to dinner by the bugles playing 'The Roast Beef of old England' but to no finer feast than the one now served in "Helen's" light, airy and spacious saloon. The red gold soup, the country cured ham and the fresh garden raspberries and the light easy badinage which characterises a company of flotsam just released from the chains which bound it to mere earth.
We had raised the Island and the Mountains of Mourne in the last of the afterglow and soon the lights from Langness and the Chickens were winking. There was a pale glimmer of green on the starboard bow wave. It was rose tinted to larboard. There was a gentle swell, so deeming all well, alow and aloft, I sought my bunk ('The Cat's Basket') in the forecastle and there when I had tuned in to the music of the engines I fell into sound slumber and dreams.
Morning found us sailing through patches of fog with visibility varying from three cables to three miles. We were somewhere south of the Maidens to which however we gave a wide berth. The weather cleared as we went north and there was no difficulty in picking up the Mull of Cantyre and Fair Head, the two portals of the wide Atlantic gate, which opens the way to far Labrador. When we were abeam of Rathlin island, Torrie reminded us of the exploits of her ancestors, who had rescued Robert the Bruce and conveyed him safely to the Irish isles, where to this day may be seen the ruins of Bruce's castle. It was with pardonable pride that she added "Had it not been for that, there might have been no Battle of Bannockburn". To this devasting oratorical bombshell, her audience, who were ninety per cent Scots - even the Cat had a slight Caledonian tinge - gave complacent assent. They said "Nphmn". But Tommy Lor, being a sassenach cried "Och, Aye" which being translated means "Sez you". Be that as it may Torrie's crest bears the motto "I saved the King".
When we came abeam of the Mull, visibility was at least fifteen miles but, notwithstanding, or because perhaps they were not yet awake, the great horn on the lighthouse boomed out, every ninety seconds, two long dreary blasts. For all that we were open to the Atlantic we swayed gently on over summer seas until in late afternoon we rounded McArthur Head and bore up the Sound of Islay to Port Askaig where we dropped a timid anchor just twenty three and a half hours after leaving Rock Ferry.
Port Askaig Is a pretty little clachan sheltering amid trees on the side of a steep brae. It commands a fine view across the sound where the mountains of Jura rise from their vast moorland slopes; but it is no harbour. You either anchor precariously on the edge of a raging tide or tie yourself securely to the Island of Islay.
Why then had we come here? It was to make history. Sooner or later this will have to be explained. I had better do it now. Rather more than one hundred and ten years ago, two gentlemen of Somerset were much concerned at the wrecks on the coast of North Devon and the tragic loss of life involved. Mr John Rye and Mr C.C. Jones exerted themselves on behalf of the poor fishermen and their families and as a result of their disinterested philanthropy the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Royal Benevolent Society was founded. The Society's work covers every phase of shipwreck distress and since its institution over a million persons have been assisted. It co-operates with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the Coastguards and the Coast Life Saving Corps. Scattered about near the most exposed parts of the coasts of the British Isles are some 700 honorary agents who organise instant and immediate relief for the shipwrecked. Now we had the honour to be shipmates with the Scottish Travelling Secretary of - to give it its short title - the "Shipwrecked Mariners' Society". It must have been a proud moment for the Booster, as it was for us. when he hauled up the Society's flag on "Helen's" signal yard. It was the first time in the history of the Society that its flag had flown from a ship at sea.
Presently we put the Booster and the Frail ashore on Islay to visit the numerous agents on that beautiful but almost harbourless island.
The flag was a distinguished piece of bunting - a St. George's ensign with a red gold crown at the cross roads and the letters S.F.M.S in the quarters. Wherever we went it created a prime sensation and some of the comments reported to us were good such as "Losh man, here's the Admiral" "Na na, its some chiel fra the Squadron" and so on. To me it irresistibly recalled 'the flag that braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze' and indeed I hope it will.
About sunset the travellers returned. By now the sound was in a turmoil with tide and wind in conflict and "Helen" had some ado to find a quiet berth for the night. She plugged eastwards against the wind and rounding the south end of Jura, put in to the anchorage known as 'The Small Isles'.
Here we lay, somewhat uneasily through the night and Sunday the following day. The shelter from every quarter but south east was good, but the scend that came in between Goat Island and the point on Jura kept us on the dance all day, while wind and rain discouraged us from making a move, except to shift berth nearer inshore. Here in the little settlement called Craighouses, the Booster was able to visit his agent.
However he brought no Sunday papers aboard. Can you imagine a place so uncivilized? No massacres, no murders, no strikes, no scandals, no clashes, no smashes. no crashes, no battles and no sudden deaths. By way of compensation we could contemplate the peaceful scene around us, the surf breaking on the rocky marge of Goat Island; and the great Beinn an Oir or Hill of Gold which towered above the anchorage.