Destined for a life at sea
CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS ... students on the first pre-sea course at South Shields Marine School.
TO go to sea as a teenager would be a daunting prospect at any time, but in war? But then David Robinson had the grounding of South Shields Marine School behind him.
“Our standard in signalling proved very useful to us in convoy, which always pleased the officer of the watch. We could all swim, thanks to our sessions at Derby Street baths - though our practical boat handling in Albert Edward dock at North Shields left much to be desired!” he remembers.
Captain Robinson MBE, now in Oxfordshire, is a former head of navigation (later nautical science) at the college in Shields.
He affords us an extraordinary glimpse of what it was like for a young man embarking on a sea career during the war years, having been on the first ever pre-sea course at the Marine School in 1942-1943.
“I was interested in Capt Gerard Grey’s memories of his pre-sea course in 1946-1947 and the mention of my former colleagues, such as Tommy Rendall, Charles Boylan, Frank Main and George Earl, who very much influenced my teaching at the marine college,” he says.
Aged just 15, the young David had initially applied to Walter Runciman’s to do a five-year deck apprenticeship. He was offered a berth.
“But my father wasn’t happy for me to go to sea in wartime at such a young age and wouldn’t sign the indentures. In those days when a father said no, it meant no.”
Instead he applied for a one-year course at the Marine School, was accepted, and awarded a Winterbottom Scholarship.
“The course tutor was Rutherford Eddon who taught us maths and science; Capt Baker, a very old sea dog out of sailing ships, who taught us seamanship, and Dr James Hargreaves, the principal since 1938, who taught us navigation.
“Signals was taught by a Yeoman of Signals on loan from the Admiralty to improve the standard of visual signalling by Merchant Navy officers for convoy work.”
He recalls a pretty experimental approach.
“Large areas of basic nautical education was totally omitted, while in other areas students were stretched far beyond the courses in the 1970s,” he says now.
Dr Hargreaves’ teaching was particularly challenging.
“He taught navigation at an incredible pace and covered the entire syllabuses for second mate, first mate, master and half the extra-master in the one year,” he remembers.
“He was undoubtedly a brilliant lecturer but his pace of teaching was far in excess of anything I ever again experienced. To stay with him required many long hours of home study. This was a generation of students whose secondary education had been totally disrupted in the early days of the war and many on the course simply gave up. I, personally, was grateful to have experienced this academic ‘bombshell’.”
British shipping losses by this time were at their height, but he was subsequently able to secure a four-year apprenticeship with Port Line, a subsidiary of Cunard.
“All my fellow deck cadets had been trained at either HMS Conway or HMS Worcester, yet in maths and navigation I left them standing, thanks to the Marine School, “ he says.
His proficiency in exams even got him accused of cheating at one point.
“After some 20 minutes of cross-questioning, the chief superintendent announced that no cadet in Port Line had ever achieved 100 per cent in maths or navigation but, thanks to the Marine School, I had!”
Years later, in 1970, when Dr Hargreaves retired, Capt Robinson thanked him for what he had done for him as a young student.
“Long may he be remembered,” he says.
Enrolment records of the era list some of the students on that first course and it’s fascinating to learn from Capt Robinson what subsequently happened to some of them.
Men like Douglas Ridley, for instance, who became master of the liner, QE2, and William Bell, who became a master in Port Line. Ramsey McLaren later sailed as captain with Huntings, while Richard Jordan became Capt Jordan, master and eventually marine superintendent with a Glasgow company.
All are on the larger picture here, together with Capt Robinson himself, who is fifth from the left in the third row down.
The other picture shows some of the students with lecturer, Capt Baker.
*Follow me on Twitter @Just_JanisB
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Thursday 17 May 2012
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