The Shipping Federation’s employment office (The Pool) was situated at Mann Island on the Liverpool waterfront.

The Pier Head’s three graces are from left to right the Liver Building, the Cunard Shipping Company and the then Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Building.

Across the road from the Shipping Federation is the Albion House, the Head office of the White Star Line. Over a century earlier, from the building’s balconied windows were flung pieces of paper by White Star Line’s clerks.

THE RMS TITANIC

On each piece of tossed paper were scrawled the names of survivors of the RMS Titanic, which sank after colliding with an iceberg in April 1912.

The reason for this bizarre form of informing people who had and had not survived the sinking was tragic. Such was the distress of relatives when crowds stormed the building’s entrances. Handing the pieces of paper out at the doors would have been chaotic and dangerous.

THE SHIPPING FEDERATION’S POOL

When seeking a new berth, unemployed seamen visited the Shipping Federation Offices to offer our Discharge Book and various tickets to the clerks. The unemployed seaman is then offered a choice of ships currently taking on crews.

Most voyages last up to three months and entail a round trip dropping off and loading cargo in the Mediterranean, West Africa, or the Americas. Few Liverpool ships voyaged to South Africa, India or the Far East. However, Holt’s Blue Funnel liners sped across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the Far East; even India but mostly Indonesia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

A good time – the best time to be a seaman, the British Merchant Navy employing 350,000 seamen was the largest and the most formidable navy in the world. The Ellerman-owned vessels were so many that it was boasted that the company given 24 hours could put a vessel in any port in the world.

Assured by the clerk that the MV King Arthur was destined only for a routine Mediterranean voyage I opted for a berth. Why not, I was assured that I would be home in less than three months and I liked the idea of cruising the Mediterranean.

FOOL AHOY!

‘What did they give you, lad,’ I was asked as I exited the Shipping Federation’s doors.

‘The King Arthur,’ I smiled. ‘It suits me. It is a three-month trip to the Mediterranean.’

‘It that what the lying bastard told you, son? The veteran seaman smirked.

Shrugging off the remark as typical banter I grinned. Pocketing the paperwork, I then set out along the port’s Overhead Railway to sign on the MV King Arthur.

THE VOYAGE WITHOUT END

Soon afterwards, on February 8, 1961, with me and a crew of about thirty other complete strangers the vessel set sail via the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean Sea (I had been promised) to – Alexandria and Port Said in Egypt. Then Iran (Persia) and Basrah situated some way up the 2,880 km long Euphrates River,

From Iraq, King Arthur voyaged to the Crown Colony of Aden, now Yemen and waited for news that we were to return to Blighty.

RIGHT. CREW ‘CELEBRATE TWO MONTHS OF BEING STRANDED IN THE THEN-BELGIAN CONGO

Not so fast: after loading salt our vessel was bound for the Far East, Japan in fact.

THE LAND OF THE LUMBERJACKS

Oh well, stuff happens. Several months had passed since we slipped the bowlines at Liverpool, and we set out for the vast logging camps of Canada and the West Coast of the United States.

Then with San Francisco in our ship’s wake, we woke up to the news that we were bound for Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide where after loading we waited for news of our next destination.

It would take us two weeks to voyage to the Portuguese African colony of Mozambique. From Beira, King Arthur voyaged to Durban in Verwoerd’s South Africa where we experienced apartheid first-hand. No problem but there was much mirth at the predicament this posed to our West Indian engine room rating.

DEVIL’S CAULDRON

Loading coal, we were then headed for Matadi situated a couple of hundred kilometres up the River Congo in the Belgian Congo. Why worry? The Congo was caught up in the blood-letting Congo Crisis (1960-1965) from which several of us barely escaped with our lives.

LEFT: DEVIL’S CAULDRON, CONGO

‘Cheer up. Things could get worse. So, we cheered up and sure enough – things got worse.

After running aground at the notorious Devil’s Cauldron sweeping the Congo River, the ship and crew were stranded for two months at Boma, then a remote African kraal.

It was with a sigh of relief that after running repairs we afterwards set sail for the dry docks in Cape Town where we would undergo a replacement section of the vessel’s bow section.

Finally, the King Arthur sailed up the River Thames in April 1962. It was the longest three months of our colourful lives as British Jack Tars.

THE VOYAGE WITHOUT END is one of 70 true account stories in THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL by Ex-Mariner Michael Walsh. His book and others can be purchased from AMAZON, LULU and all major bookstores.

THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL  ex-Liverpool seaman Michael Walsh. Bestseller: 70 stories and over 100 pictures. A first-hand account of the British ships, seafarers, adventures and misadventures (1955 – 1975). A tribute to the ships and seamen of the then-largest merchant marine in history. LINK TO BOOK → LULU.COM    AMAZON.CO.UK 

BRITANNIC WAIVES THE RULES Michael Walsh The Last White Star Liner (1845-1960). In 68 lavishly illustrated stories the company’s last deckboy vividly recalls shipboard life. The liner’s colourful characters and jaw-dropping incidents both on board and in New York’s notorious Hell’s Kitchen. A unique collector’s item. LINK TO BOOK → LULU.COM AMAZON.CO.UK