My life story - Henry J Macey (best books for 20 year olds .TXT) 📗

left Eagle, I was posted to H M S Chaser, a submarine support ship in Portland.  I was acting leading hand now and was in charge of the upper deck watch.  My reading and writing, stopped me completing the exam and getting the grads to be full kellick.  Perhaps I was good at my work, or maybe there was nobody else; so I kept my rank as acting.  Much to one particular leading hand announce he had taken a dislike to me on his arrival from day one.  He was always encroaching on my department, trying to find something wrong. He outranked me so I could not order him out, or complain to higher authorities without seeming petty.

 

I just got on with my job and made sure my boys did theirs. We gave him nothing to carry tails about, and just ignored his presence most of the time.  Perhaps he didn’t like the way I talked down to him, instead of looking up to him. In all fairness, he was a fully qualified first class leading prate.  My four-man workforce used to say to me, ‘you’re not good enough to be a first-class leading prate but you’re very good at acting like one.’ We had a choosey job and didn’t really need all of us to do it, I think that’s why this kellick had it in for us.

 

To make sure he never found us loafing, I would send a two-man team to dip the tanks. One with a roll-up dipping tape and one with a pad and pencil, they would wander around the ship. Then visit the subs if any were tied up alongside, they could go onto subs to check the tanks as part of their job. Our favourite kellick could not, so they could have a coffee with the cook. Or if a Yankee sub was in, they could have an ice cream or two. If they didn’t bump into him, they could just keep on wondering.

 

Tony one of my boys had been to college and was good at the things I wasn’t. He used to do the paperwork for me and did a good job of it. He was not interested in rank in any form and refused to take any advancement opportunities. I kept badgering him to improve himself, but he would not. “I like it the way it is,” he told me. “If I foul up on the job under your supervision, you get the rocket up your backside not me. I like the security of standing behind you, your not afraid to stand up for our rights. And you’re not that bad to work with either, no thank you! I’ll stay as I am.”

 

The kellick’s interfering came to an end one day when the chef stoker, paid one of his very rare visits to our workspace on the upper deck. He had come to give me a prior warning, of two subs arriving in the morning. They had picked up some bad water in some foreign port; it had contaminated their distilled water tank. They had pumped the water overboard, but we would have to purge the tanks and replenish them. It would take us all day to complete the job, and as the subs were due to sail the next morning. We had to be prepared to work on until we were finished.

 

As the chef entered the kellick was standing by my desk, studying my paperwork. When the chef said to him that this was not his work area; and what was he doing here. The kellick replied, “just checking up to see if they're doing their jobs properly chef. There’s no one with any rank here to supervise them, I’m keeping them on their toe’s.” The chef went red, and blasted the kellick out of the water, “this is my department” he bellowed. “Are you suggesting I don’t run a tort ship, get out I’ll deal with you later.” That was the last time I had him interfere, in fact, he disappeared completely not long after.

 

My department was responsible for the supply of distilled water to the subs for their batteries, which we made onboard Chaser with an evaporator. We could not pump it to the sub’s, without the threat of contamination from the pump. So we gravity fed it to the tank onboard the sub, with hoses we had to keep sterile. To speed up the transfer, we would pressurize the feed tank with compressed air.  One day, we were unloading some compressed air cylinders, when one got away from us.  It landed on the jetty hitting a bollard that broke off the value and rolled into the water next to a submarine.  The escaping air acted as a jet, sending it through the water and out into the harbour.  Some fishermen in a dinghy saw it and reported that the sub had fired a torpedo at them.

 

Chaser was a large old landing craft, she was still in commission, but never once did she go to sea while I was aboard her. With her engines shut down, they kept one boiler alight to supply steam and power to the ship. It was the only department that runs a twenty-four-hour watch, the rest of us worked eight to four. Withstand easy at ten, rum up at eleven and lunch at twelve. Another stand easy at three, it was a hectic work schedule.

 

I had an old 1936 ford popular which I had paid seventy-five pounds for, and it took me two hours to get home from Portland. Every weekend I could spend at home I did, it was on one of my return journeys I almost became religious. If you know Weymouth you know there is a steep hill, with tight curves leading down to the town. It was early Monday morning and I was half asleep, I must have started dossing as I approached the tightest right-hand turn. With an eighty-foot drop on the other side of the fence, this was not the place to be asleep.

 

In my dreamy state, I remember looking at the hazy barrier, and everything seemed to be in slow motion. When through the hazes a hand appeared from my right, as though it had come in the window. The hand took hold of the steering wheel and pulled the car around the bend. I was suddenly wide awake and trammelling and thanking my guardian angel for looking at me. At muster one of the Killicks, came up to me and asked if I was alright. I was still shaken from my near encounter with death and told him of the events of that morning.

 

He was a deeply religious man, and because of this, he was well-liked for his fare handedness. He was in no doubt of the identity of the person responsible for my survival and took me to see the padre. I had contacted with the padre before, we had long discussions concerning our two faiths. Now I was here being lead up the golden path to salvation, two days later I realized it was my hand I saw through the mist. Blimey, that was a close call.

 

A few months later I had my first car accident and wrecked my car completely. Some of you might say I got my just deserts, ‘me’ well we all have accidents don’t we.

A Normal Life.

I left the Navy and got married, seven days before my twenty-second birthday in 1961.  The vicar, who married us, got quite excited when he found out our Christian names.  My wife's first names are Mary Jane, and mine being Henry Joseph.  He kept telling people that he was going to marry Joseph and Mary. I informed him that we would not be calling our first son Jesus.

 

Going for a job at a well-known Ford dealer in Taunton, the interviewer asked what training and experience I had.  I handed over my Navy papers, showing my training on petrol and diesel internal combustion engines.   They asked where I had gained this training.  I told them, on the aircraft carrier H M S, Eagle and on engines from submarines.  The interviewer looked at me steadily and said that if they ever got an aircraft carrier or a submarine in for repair, they would give me a call.  I went home and tossed the papers into the dustbin.

 

My father got me a job at the milk factory, where he worked. With my knowledge of evaporators, I was the right man to work in the milk powder plant there. Here I would be doing my old job in reverse; they turned the milk into steam. Instead of harnessing the steam they allowed in to escape and harvested the dried milk flakes. Inside a large heated stainless steel cone-shaped container, sprayers were set up to spray a mist of heated whey leftover from making cheese. The whey would almost dry immediately in the heat of the container, and fall as dry milk to be bagged at the bottom of the hopper in the room below.

 

When I had left the Navy, I had been offered a job in the Arab Emeritus doing just this, but with seawater. The steam would be piped away to be cooled and turned into freshwater. The salt was secondary and would be disposed of in several different manners. It was the same as our evaporators, but they called this process desalination. Both names were the right name for the process; you had to vaporize the water to desalinate it.  I didn’t take the job because I was getting married, and my too be wife didn’t fancy living in an Arab country.

 

The job at the milk factory would be easy for me. I had done it for so long, no one had to tell me how to do it. The sprayers were almost identical to the sprayers in the Navy; you had to adjust them to get the finest spray. In the case of the three-drum boilers, the oil droplets had to be fine so the mist would ignite immediately giving maximum heat. With the milk, it was the same, so it would dry immediately. If it didn’t you would have dried milk clinging to the sides of the container, which you had to remove and was an extra job you didn’t need.

 

 

At the interview, I had impressed the manager of the plant, with my knowledge of cheese production which I had gained from my father. And of course, the equipment I would be using was almost the same. He gave me a white pair of overalls and wellington boots, with a paper hat and took me for a tour around the factory.  I saw many old school friends and a few old girlfriends. On that tour of white-walled, and shiny stainless steel piped rooms.  When we finished our tour, in the white-tiled room where the milk powder was made. Then he handed me over to the foreman, to show me around.

 

When we reached the big round stainless cylinder; which dominated the centre of the room. I looked through the inspection port, that was next to each sprayer and said. “I think you should pull this one, the atomizer doesn’t seem to be working properly.” He looked himself and I cringed