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The crystal ship - the Carrick, moored on the Clyde, in 1959.
Built in Sunderland, in 1864, to carry immigrants to Australia, and wool and copper back to Blighty, she later saw service in the North American timber trade; as a hospital ship, moored off Southampton...
Built in Sunderland, in 1864, to carry immigrants to Australia, and wool and copper back to Blighty, she later saw service in the North American timber trade; as a hospital ship, moored off Southampton...
; and as a Royal Navy training ship, before retiring to become the RNVR Club, moored on the Clyde.
In the 1970s, my maternal grandfather, born in 1888, would attend bi-annual 'Cape Horner' dinners on the ship - reserved for men who had rounded the Horn in the days of sail.
Then an old man, a veteran of both World Wars, he would return home, hoarse from singing hauling songs, smelling strongly of rum, and wobbling slightly, as if his teenage bare feet were still planted on a planked, and sea-tossed deck, somewhere in the Roaring Forties.
Despite 40 years at sea, I think he only once sailed to Australia, just after the First World War. His family had been dispersed, when he was just 11, after his own father had drowned in Aberdeen Harbour. His only brother, younger, had ended up in Oz.
Grampa had telegrammed to say he was coming, but, on the day his ship docked, things didn't go to plan. He caught a tram out of Sydney, to the end of the line, then walked the next 15 miles, in the Australian heat, to his brother's house...
where his sister-in-law, who he'd never met, said his brother had had to go to work, otherwise he would have lost a day's pay.
My grandfather took tea with her, wrote a letter for his brother, and then made the long, sad journey back to his ship. He never saw his brother again.
My grandfather took tea with her, wrote a letter for his brother, and then made the long, sad journey back to his ship. He never saw his brother again.
