1953–1954
S.S. Hollypark
J & J Denholm
Steam tramp
David's first ship in this logbook. A tramp steamer working ore and general cargo: three trips to Vitoria in Brazil, a dry-docking at Birkenhead, and a run down to Konakri in West Africa.
3 pictures — tap to see them · State Library of New South Wales
The ports named on this page. This early page summarises whole months in a line, so her passages are not separately recorded.
- Log entries
- 7
- Ports
- 2
The log
1 Oct 1953 to 2 Nov 1954
October 1953
- 1 Oct 1953
Signed on Middlesbro'
Undated
- —
Trips — bound Vitoria via Cardiff
3 trips to Vitoria
March 1954
- 27 Mar 1954
Dry dock Birkenhead
April 1954
- 26 Apr 1954
Sailed — bound Konakri via South Shields
Undated
November 1954
- 2 Nov 1954
Signed off Middlesbro'
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.