MERCHANT SEAMEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 February 1943, Page 3

MERCHANT SEAMEN

FRIENDS NOW IN EVERY PORT QUAINT CUSTOM IN NOVA SCOTIA. COATS OFF WHEN YOU DRINK. The whole Empire is anxious to recognise the gallantry of its Merchant Navy. And now, as Douglas Willis said in the 8.8. C. short wave studio where he was giving a talk the other day, “in every port, the British seaman is assured of a hearty, homely welcome.” South Africa, he thought, deserved the palm for the greatest amount of hospitality, because there he found “people come and look for you to give you a good time. But nowhere, nowadays, in the Dominions or Colonies need the seafarer be a stranger in a strange land. The most interesting of all these hospitable canteens and clubs, he has discovered, is the newly-opened Allied Merchant Seamen’s Club at Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is the only place he has visited in the world where “you must take your coat off when you drink.” The club is fitted out on the lines of a luxury hotel. The bar alone seats over five hundred —“seats,” because local licensing laws make standing while you drink illegal. Mr Willis explained that Halifax is nominally “dry.’ Intoxicants can be bought, in the ordinary way, only at official liquor purchasing bureaux. There people pay and sign for drink and carry it home in bottles in a paper bag. The lounge of this club was completely furnished by the crew of a Canadian corvette, which provided the money from their Avages. He described how. when you buy a drink at the bar, you first' of all have to get tickets at' a grille, and then, passing along in a queue, you exchange the tickets for the beer. A waiter then carries it to a table for you. He nearly backed out on his first visit when he saw a burly policeman, swinging a truncheon, posted at the doorway. Pretty poor welcome, he thought. But the reason for the Law’s representative is to ensure that members “checked in” their coats at the cloakroom before entering the bar. That’s to prevent anybody concealing a bottle to take out.