1954–1955
S.S. Gleddoch
Scottish Ore Carriers
Steam tramp
An ore carrier, and a hard, cold trade. She shuttles between the iron ports — Bône and La Goulette in North Africa, Pepel in Sierra Leone, and Narvik inside the Arctic Circle — and discharges at Barrow, Irlam, South Shields and Salford.
2 pictures — tap to see them
The ports named on this page. This early page summarises whole months in a line, so her passages are not separately recorded.
- Log entries
- 15
- Ports
- 7
The log
29 Dec 1954 to 18 Sep 1955
December 1954
- 29 Dec 1954
Signed on Port Talbot
January 1955
- 1 Jan 1955
Sailed — bound Pepel via Las Palmas
DISCHARGED Middlesbro
Undated
- —
Voyage via Falmouth
- —
Voyage via Las Palmas
- —
Voyage via Las Palmas
- —
Voyage via Falmouth
- —
Voyage via Falmouth
- —
Voyage via Las Palmas
- —
Sailed Bône
SAILED FOR BONE
- —
Discharged Barrow
DISCHARGED BARROW
- —
Sailed Narvik via Belfast
SAILED NARVIK VIA BELFAST
- —
Discharged South Shields
DISCHARGED S. SHIELDS
- —
Sailed Narvik
SAILED NARVIK
- —
Discharged Irlam
DISCHARGED IRLAM
September 1955
- 18 Sep 1955
Signed off Salford
SIGNED OFF 18th SEPT 1955 @ SALFORD
What was happening
Background written by the family, not from the logbook — but it explains a good deal of what is in it.
1954–1957
A country still on rations
When David first signed on in 1954, food rationing in Britain had only just ended — the last of it, on meat, finished that July. The ships he joined carried the raw material of recovery: iron ore from Algeria, Brazil and Sierra Leone into the steelworks of South Wales and Tees-side.
In the log: The Hollypark and the Gleddoch run almost nothing but ore, between Bône, Narvik, Pepel, Vitoria and Port Talbot.
1954–1971
No telephone, no news
There was no way to call home. Letters were sent ahead to the agent at the next port, and if the ship was diverted the mail chased her round the world for months. A man could sail knowing his wife was expecting, and learn he had a child from a telegram handed up a gangway in another hemisphere.
1954–1971
Two years was a normal voyage
Foreign-going Articles could run for up to two years, and often did. David's longest unbroken spell in this logbook runs seventeen months, from June 1960 to November 1961 aboard the Scotstoun. Leave came at the end of it, not during.
1954–1971
The map keeps changing
The place names in this log are the ones David used, and many of them have since changed. Bombay is Mumbai, Madras is Chennai, Bône is Annaba, Bougie is Béjaïa, Ceylon is Sri Lanka. He sailed through the end of one world map and into another.