BRIGG MAN ENJOYS ONE OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF HIS LIFE

Raised and educated in Brigg, Cliff Turner, now 91, continues his memories of serving with the Navy during the 1940s. He now lives in New Zealand.

When we did reach Calcutta I was appalled at the sight of so much human misery and degradation; many people had no homes and spent their entire lives on the streets.
One night I was the Petty Officer in charge of the shore patrol; I think I had four ratings, maybe six. Our function was to look out for any of the crew who appeared likely to get into any kind of trouble but probably because of the high price of alcohol we did not meet any. We were accompanied by a similar patrol of Indian army men.
Although the patrol had no trouble from crew members, I had a momentarily terrifying experience. It was full moon and the occasion to bring some kind of effigy from a Hindu temple and carry it through the streets. The effigy was carried on an ornate platform; poles protruded from its four corners and about four men shouldered each of the four poles. There was a huge crowd, many of them were burning paper and rubbing the resultant ash into their foreheads; the noise was deafening. 
Suddenly one of the men carrying the platform stumbled and the whole thing tipped over and broke into pieces. A loud wail came from the throng and for a moment I thought that we white faces might somehow be thought to be responsible for the disaster. But the police, using their sticks, soon restored order and we returned to the ship unscathed. 
Any trip ashore exposed us to multitudes of beggars and I was pleased when our visit of a few days came to an end and we left for Port Blair in the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. This was the only place I have ever been to where it was necessary to take medication to prevent malaria. 
The island on which Port Blair is situated was at that time used by India as a penal colony and there was little of interest to be seen but it also provided one of the highlights of my life. 
A party from the ship were taken, first by motor boat and then by canoes, into the jungle to see a forestry operation. After being felled, the tree trunks were dragged by elephants to a railway line where other elephants lifted them onto bogeys which ran on railway lines to a river. When the laden bogeys reached the river, more elephants were waiting to tip the tree trunks into the water. I cannot recall if the trees were milled locally or, after being floated down the river, they were loaded on to ships to be exported.
Soon after returning to Trincomalee we learned that we were to go to South Africa for about three months, with a few days in Mauritius en route. 
Mauritius was taken from the French during the Napoleonic wars and French was still spoken there; as previously recounted I was able to air my school-boy French. 
Most of the inhabitants were of Indian origin, descendants of workers taken there to work in the sugar cane plantations. Rum was produced on the island but I do not recall sampling it; what I do remember is some horrible locally produced sherry, the quartet Studwell, Hannan, Wheeler and Turner disposed of a full bottle in a shanty-like bar somewhere in the interior of the island.
The interior could be reached by steam trains which were wood-fired and the names of two townships, Quatre Bornes and Curepipe, have stayed in my memory. There was a British army unit somewhere in the interior and several of us spent a few evenings in the sergeants' mess, sleeping there overnight and being returned to the ship by army vehicles driven by African soldiers. At the time this did not strike me as being odd but I now wonder why the British government felt it necessary to have troops on a speck of land of no strategic importance.
We arrived in Simonstown, South Africa, on the day that the result of the election that ousted General Smuts as Prime Minister became known. Simonstown was a British naval base known as the South Atlantic Station and we were to be on the station for about three months to replace another cruiser, HMS Nigeria, which had gone to Britain for a refit. Simonstown is about twenty miles south of Cape Town and is connected by a railway along which passenger trains ran frequently. 
On the first evening after our arrival I travelled up to Cape Town with one or two messmates to find the place abuzz with excitement about the election result and many people bought us drinks. After the expensive drinks in Rangoon and India, and the horrible "sludge" in the Trincomalee canteen, South Africa was a drinking man's paradise. 
Two breweries, Lion and Castle, produced drinkable beer at a reasonable price and, due to the vineyards in Cape Province, brandy was very popular when taken with ginger ale or other mixers.
There was a huge bar called Del Monico's in Cape Town with a ceiling that looked like the night sky with moving stars, and it did not take long for the Birmingham crew to make this our favourite night spot. 
It was about now that I first went to horse racing. The ship's painter, a messmate George Nuttall, asked me to go with him on Union Day, a public holiday commemorating the union of Transvaal, Cape Province, Natal and the Orange Free State in the aftermath of the Boer war. Here I learned of "the double", which meant picking the winners of two specified races. George and I picked the first leg winner and I had dreams of a good win but our second pick did not perform. 
Then came a visit to Port Elizabeth and East London. Going ashore in Port Elizabeth, I encountered a couple called Mundey who asked me to have dinner with them in a restaurant. They turned out to be English, working in Southern Rhodesia and having a holiday in South Africa. Sometime later, when back in Simonstown, I saw them in Del Monico’s and invited them to the ship; I think they had a drop of rum in our mess and they certainly went away with some duty-free cigarettes.
At one of these two ports a party from the ship were given a tour of a car assembly plant - I think it belonged to General Motors. Apart from that visit and meeting the Mundeys I recall nothing of those two places.
Next stop was Durban, a much more attractive place. Again I went to the races to see one of the big events of South African racing, the July Cup. I did not pick the winner. Another enjoyable trip was organised by a seaman’s mission to a place called Amanzimtoti. We had a boat trip on a river running through acres of sugar cane. On returning to the mission we were asked if we would like to go to the Sunday evening service. Several of the men went but I was not among them.
In Durban I went with my friend Pat Hannan, a rugby enthusiast, to my first and last rugby game. It was between Natal and Transvaal and seemed to me to be just a lot of beefy men pushing and shoving.
Captain Haines had reached the top of the captains’ seniority list and as he was not promoted to rear-admiral had to retire while we were in Durban and his replacement, Captain Pakenham, joined us. He was to later play an important part in my life. 
Then it was back to Simonstown for the rest of our stay in South Africa. When we left we were short of several crew members who had deserted. 
More memories from Cliff to come on Brigg Blog.