LOG BOOK GLEANINGS

Evening Star, Issue 23379, 23 September 1939, Page 7

LOG BOOK GLEANINGS

" PEOPLE BY THEMSELVES " UNIQUE PHASE OF ENGLISH LIFE “ ONE-ERS " AND " KNOBSTICKS ” ON “ THE CUT ” • [By First Mate.] Home is home the world over, whether it be the cabin of an oceen greyhound or the confines of a barge. Ashore, perhaps, home life seems less glamorous; a life afloat has romance in its favour. To the. confirmed “ landlubber ” the life of those who transport nearly 20 millions of tons of merchandise over . Britain’s 2,425 miles of ship canals in long, squat, gaily-painted barges through lock or under bridge every year must seem a monotonous existence. Few who paused to watch these barges would have more than the lightest hint of the life that turns the vessel into a home. A smoking galley stack, a glimpse of gleaming brass in a tiny cabin, a line of washing, or a woman steering a barge and maintaining vigilance over a child—these may be the only apparent signs of home life. To the initiated few these things would he reminders of the unique existence of those who have been called “ the people by themselves.” One family—father, mother, and children—usually provides the crew of a barge. “ doing home from work,” to them, means descending from deck into the cabin (often no bigger than the average compartment •in a railway coach), where they eat and sleep. But the pride they take in that cabin—the care with which they tend it and the skill with which they beautify it —make it the equal of any suburban drawing room. The barge-folk have a great love for bright colours, and so, intricate and cleverly-painted designs cover everything that is paintablc; brass, always polished to maximum brilliance, ♦bounds. The wife of a barge-mau (they never use the term “bargee”) is usually the daughter of a family on another boat—town girls are rarely suited to the life. Domestic accomplishment is only half the qualifications expected of the women of the barges. They, must be able to take an expert part in the working life of the vessel as well as cook, mend, and rear a family.

Education of their children is, of course, an inevitable problem, but much has been done to overcome it. At Paddington and Brentford, for example, special schools have been opened, and one company has converted a large barge into a school, the teaching staff being provided by the education authority for the county in which the barge is berthed. Though canals have been in use for about a century and a-half, the barges themselves are still very much as they were originally. The most radical change has been the substitution of the engine for the donkey or horse that, plodding along the towing path, once drew the boat along. The majority of the canal fleet are “monkey” boats, 70ft long, 7ft in beam. On the Liverpool and Leeds Canal, however, the boats are limited in length to 62ft, the maximum that the size of the locks on the canal permit. Jn compensation, however, the barges have a beam of 14ft 3in. • Modern craft voyage in pairs, one boat—the “ butty ” —being towed, by the other. Not the least of their advantages are the vast improvement in the space allotted to the living quarters and the up-to-date fittings with which the cabin is equipped. Among themselves the barge-folk have their own words of identification. Those who own their vessels are “ one-ers ”; “ joshers ” work on the Thames; “ Severners ” trade from Gloucester to Bristol; and “knobsticks” from the Potteries to Liverpool. And the canal, to them all, is “ the cut.”

AM EXTRAORDINARY CAT Those who go down to the sea in ships deal witli mysteries unknown to those who live'on laud. The case of Pasha, the City of Manchester’s cat, is a case in point. The City of Manchester is a freighter in the Australian and New Zealand trade. In the cabin of the chief steward is a large framed -photograph, under which are the words; “Pasha, Lost* at Sea 13/7/39. 11.1. P.” The date is mournful evidence that superstition even overrides the nine lives of a cat. Pasha was an extraordinary eat; 12 months ago he walked on board the freighter whilst at its berth in New York. He attached himself to the chief steward, which is not uncommon for cats to do, and remained with, the ship until the date of demise recorded above, travelling 60,000 miles during the intervening period.

Pasha was an extraordinary cat in many ways, for Pasha is a masculine name, yet somehow, though Pasha was never known to leave the ship in port, he gave birth to an offspring on July 3 this year. Then on the 13th of the month, last seen enjoying its ninth life in the ship's lifeboat which was slung over the side of the ship, Pasha was seen no more. When and how the fatality happened is not known; whether it was a deliberate suicide or an accident can never be known; whether it was Pasha’s remorse or surprise at the change of sex will never be known. Pasha rests in the sea a few hundred miles out from tho Australian coast. All that is left is the orphan kitten and the photo. The photo hangs in the chief steward’s cabin, the kitten travels in the forecastle, fed at intervals by the watch below- with milk from a fountain pen. NAUTICAL The frequent use of the term “in a ship” instead of “on a ship” has caused those who go down to the sea in ships to draw attention to the fact that a liner is like an island, and must be referred to in the same way. People always go on to an island; they likewise go on to a ship, not into it. The 1 Nautical Magazine ’ gives interesting reasons why the term “on •a ship” is more correct. It says: “Now, is ‘in a ship’ a truer expression than ‘ on a ship ’ ? • “In most seafaring circles it is accepted as a more accurate term, but the reasons are obscured and hardly sound. The King and Queen, for ex-

ample, when on board the Empress of Australia, did not go ‘ into the Empress of Australia.’ Likewise, of course, various officers report on board, ‘ to-day went on board ’ and so on, but never ‘ went into the Mauretania.’ A ship can he likened to an island, and few people affirm that they live in an island: it’s always ‘on’ an island. “ Look at it how we will, a ship is a floating object and you are ‘ on ’ that object before you live in anything it contains or holds. ‘ All aboard ’ can be more correctly interpreted as ‘ All on

board ’ than ‘ All in board.’ There is, of course, nothing seriously wrong with the term ‘in a ship ’ excepting that a few of us do not care for it, and that it obviously dates back to the time of the Ark, and naturally we have advanced a bit since then. On tho score of accuracy, some of us are going to keep on using the expression ‘ on a ship ’ even if it does make some people go purple in the face.”

GOT WHAT THEY WANTED When the smart Blue Star liner Sydney Star reached Melbourne on a recent trip passengers complained bitterly that one night the dining tables were covered with newspapers instead of linen; that empty beer cases took the place of chairs; that the lighting consisted of candles stuck to the tables by their own grease; that butter was served in the lids of biscuit tins; that seaboots, oilskins, and lifebelts cluttered up the saloon; that the stewards were unwashed, barefooted, and dressed in dirty, ragged trousers; that the officers looked like rum-soaked beachcombers; and that the food consisted mainly of salt beef and "spotted dog.” “It looked disgraceful,” they said, “ but we asked for an oldtime sailing-ship dinner—and we got it.” MORE FIGUREHEADS That picturesque old custom of decorating ships with figureheads is being revived. A well-known company in Britain, the Fred Olsen Line, of,Norway, has been building ships with these distinguishing marks, and some of their vessels bearing this .ornamentation have already appeared in the Port of London. Among them was the motor ship Braga, engaged in the fruit trade, which recently discharged in South-west India Dock. The figure is believed to represent the famous Portuguese explorer, Dom Henrique the Navigator, who is shown in a castle surrounded by the sea.