Question: Tell me about going down to meet a liner on
the Calshot. What was the procedure when you got there?
When we got there. Well, you go down and you'd probably be
there before the ship anchored, time is an essence you know, …
you'd be loaded up if she was outward bound with about 13-1400 bags
of mail, with anything up to 8 or 9 cars, baggage, hand baggage,
even gold. We even carried gold down you know, and you always
had Police support to watch that sort of thing, so you were really
loaded up and perhaps a couple of dozen passengers you know, of all
kinds, children and ordinary people, perhaps people that were
immigrating you know. Well then you'd set off and you'd wait
for the ship to drop anchor and she'd swing to the tide and you'd
move alongside her, and they opened what they called the shell
doors for the gangway to go in, or two gangways perhaps. You'd moor
alongside, put three or four ropes up each end, spring had two head
ropes and the same on the after end and then the ship's derrick
would come over. You also took the stevedores from the dock
with you, you took ten or a dozen men. They would unship the
cars, they'd hook the cars on and they'd be lifted up and the
baggage and the mails. In general, that was it, you know, you
were there for...oh...sometimes three hours unloading depends how …
how fast the ship could take it. Sometimes it was nice and
quiet and it was calm, sometimes it was dodgy and you know where
she was jumping about you'd be breaking your moorings and you'd
have to hold everything, stop everything, get more ropes and wires
and that out and some of it was quite a headache you know laying
alongside there or perhaps under what they called the flare of the
bow. Now with the Normandy they used to send a paddle steamer
down and she would act as a fender and she would go in under the
flare because it come right out like that and the tender would moor
on the outside of the paddle steamer so you would more or less be
in line then, the but actual paddle steamer was right in
underneath. It was so much freer on the Normandy,
particularly. Isle de France we did her but she wasn't so
bad. And that was it...or you may be going down to bring
passengers and baggage and cars back to Southampton. The
whole idea of that was obviously with the expense of docking the
ship and the time, if they was able to get it on tenders, well
that's how we did it you know.
