Having written a brief piece about Mrs Catchpole’s grandfather’s service at sea prompted me to look through my late father’s papers regarding his Uncle Ernest.  Father always had a soft spot for him and the painting he did of the ‘SS Kaikoura rounding Cape Horn’.  As a child he used to stay with him and the painting had always fascinated him.  When their old cottage in Tangley was being sold father was given the painting plus a collection of his merchant navy papers.  I thought these might be of interest to others as like Mrs Catchpole’s grandfather, Uncle Ernest was there at the transition from sail to steam plus they are a snapshot of a hard way of life long gone.

First a look at a photograph of Ernest in later life with his wife Pheobe.  The photograph is courtesy of his great, great grand daughter, Caroline Hampton.  Ernest Arnold Ashby was born in 1870 and died in 1946.  Before he went to sea he was a Horsekeeper.

Time spent stirring up water….

This is the list of ships he sailed on in his own handwriting….

Not in chronological order it would seem when compared with the discharge certificates.

Certificate of Discharge

Voyage on the ‘Rimpha’ to Sevastopol.

Closer examination reveals he is known as Thomas Cullen and gives his birth date as 1872.  The name Cullen was his mother’s maiden name.  But why he chose to be known as that and stated his age as younger I have no idea.  Surely it was usual when lying about one’s age to say one was older?

Forever an intriguing mystery.

Certificate of Discharge

Voyage on the ‘Duchess of Cornwall’ to the Black Sea and on the ‘Lismore Castle’ to Cape Town.  Returning on Christmas day 1896 and discharged in London.

Certificate of Discharge

Voyage on the ‘Norham Castle’ to Cape Town and on the ‘Kaikoura’ to an unspecified destination.  This voyage is described as Mail Service.

At this point Ernest’s turn around times have been very short, perhaps a sign of our reliance on shipping to service the United Kingdom and Empire.

The documentation trail goes cold until June 1912 when the Board of trade introduced a booklet titled ‘Continuous Certificate of Discharge’.

Continuous Certificate of Discharge – explanation

Continuous Certificate of Discharge – Seamans details

Notice the sworn declaration changing his name and birth date.

The reference to a tatoo of ‘Pheobe’ refers to his wife whom he married in 1898 in Tangley, Hampshire.  He resided there until his death in 1946.

Continuous Certificate of Discharge – voyages

Character reports voyages 1 – 12

Entry number 5 is the ‘African Prince’ and now he is sailing during wartime.

The ‘African Prince’ was torpedoed off Ireland in July 1917 and sunk.

How lucky was Ernest?

Certificate of Continuous Discharge – Voyages

Certificate of Continuous Discharge – voyages

In the 1920’s Ernest served on the prestigious ‘RMS Berengaria‘ operated by Cunard.  The ship was originally the German ‘Imperator’ but was taken as reparations.

Ernest retired from the sea on the 28th May 1922 with an unblemished record.

Account of wages – Edinburgh Castle

His last voyage was on the ‘Edinburgh Castle‘ to South Africa on the Cape Mail run.  He was at sea for 52 days.

His last voyage earned him £6 4/- 1d after deductions probably in those days a better wage than a lot of people.

The document makes interesting reading.

To finish, some personal notes from a sailor in a far away land to his loved ones at home

Christmas card 1914

SS Gaika post card

SS Gaika post card

And below an envelope addressed to him on the ‘SS Gaika‘ from those loved ones at home to say he was not forgotten.

Envelope addressed to the SS Gaika

When I enquired of Mrs. Catchpole about the story behind her grandfather making the model of the ‘Santa Maria’, she wrote telling me about his maritime background, listing the ships he served on.  My curiosity was aroused, the result of which was some Google research.  To my surprise Google turned up a number of newspaper articles about the Barque ‘ Shandon’, the first ship that Sidney Newing served on when aged 15.  This ship turns out to have quite a history.

The Argus dated September 4^th, 1934 reports on the ‘acquisition’ for one peppercorn of the ‘Shandon’ by the Ship Lovers Society of Victoria.  The article explains the work involved.  The London Borough of Poplar is lending 14 authentic ships flags and Bristol are lending some marine relics.

Follow this link to the article:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/10975502

The Age dated September 17^th, 1934 has an article and photograph.  This is reporting her reconversion from a coal hulk to some semblance of her former glory for an exhibition organised by the Ship Lovers Society of Victoria.

Follow this link to the article:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19340917&id=WEkRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NZUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5844,1866312

The Age dated October 11^th, 1934 has an article on page 11 about the ‘Shandon’ being the centre piece of an exhibition and being moored at Spencer Street in Melbourne, Australia.

Follow this link to the article:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19341011&id=SDlVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NZUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7221,4329845

The Argus dated January 19^th, 1935 reports that now the exhibition is over the ‘Shandon’ is to be towed away and reconverted to a coal hulk.  The article reports some interesting facts about her.  ‘She was built 51 years ago (1884) as a 1,397 tons iron clipper.  She traded under the British flag for 30 years before being sold to Norway.  Sold on to the Commonwealth Government for War Service (WW1) soon after peace was declared she was sold to her final owners as a coal hulk.

Follow this link to the article:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11008629

The Age dated October 9^th, 1935 then reports on the ‘Shandon’ Ship Lovers Society being sued over an unpaid bill.

Follow this link to the article:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19351009&id=KuxjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yZUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7143,3683747

There you would think the story ends, but no, there is a final chapter.

The Queenscliffe Maritime Museum of Victoria, Australia has the following on their website and I quote from that:

SHANDON DECKHOUSE – CREW QUARTERS

The Shandon was an iron sailing ship of 1397 tons, with dimensions – length 245.9 feet, beam 37.8 feet and draught of 21.3 feet.  Built in 1883 at Port Glasgow she had a chequered career as a trader for nearly 40 years.  She was converted to a lighter until the end of WWI then re-rigged as a barque and spent the next four years trading across the Pacific Ocean.  In 1922 she was in use as a coal hulk in Adelaide. During WWII she was a coal hulk in Townsville.

Shandon had one moment of glory in 1934 when she was involved in Victoria’s 100^th anniversary celebrations.  Shandon returned to Melbourne sometime in 1961 and was broken up at Coode Island in that year.

In need of some restoration, the Shandon will eventually open as a public display.

Follow this link to their site:

http://www.maritimequeenscliffe.org.au/historic-items/

Makes me think of the current ‘challenges’ facing the preservation of the ‘City Of Adelaide’.

Some things never change in the world of ship preservation, eh?

The latest issue of the Gauge ‘O’ Guild Gazette carried the news that Jack Ray had peacefully passed away five days after his 95^th Birthday.  I had the pleasure of meeting Jack when he came to Leeds one weekend to photograph and record a commentary for a slideshow about our G & J Shortline which Jack wanted to include in the Gauge ‘O’ Guilds collection.

At the time my father and I were erecting the layout in the Foyer of the Yorkshire Post building for a week long ‘airing’.  Jack efficiently and unobtrusively set about photographing the layout whilst we dealt with the trials and tribulations of unpacking, assembling and getting to run an extensive collection of locomotives, rolling stock, accessories and scenery.  Every now and then Jack would diplomatically enquire if it was possible to move this or arrange that for a particular shot, always prepared to patiently wait whilst we assembled the necessary items.

Once the shooting was over we retired to my parent’s house where mum had prepared a most welcome supper during the course of which Jack entertained us with his stories of other Guild slide shows he had produced.  After supper we decanted to the lounge where Jack had set up small recording studio and for the next hour or so he expertly interviewed my father and I about the G & J.  This would then be edited later to provide the accompanying commentary to the slide show.

Some weeks later through the post a personal copy of the slide show, commentary tape and notes duly arrived.  Most impressive it was too, in my view as good as any professional.  Over the years our copy of the slide show has been shown at and appreciated by all sorts of meetings, not all of them railway orientated.

On my bookshelf are the books that Jack wrote; ‘A lifetime with ‘O’ Gauge’ and ‘Model Railways and Their Builders’.  Both books are written in a most enjoyable style and have been read and re-read many times.  What struck me about Jack was how easy he was to get along with and how passionate he was about ‘O’ gauge.  His philosophy of wanting to record for posterity as many of the different layouts as practical before they disappeared was spot on as, like in our case, the G & J no longer physically exists.  However, as with so many other layouts and their builders they live on in Jack’s slide shows and for that I am eternally grateful.

Thank you Jack.

One of the benefits of having this website are the correspondence that one receives from time to time from people around the world who have stumbled across the site when doing searches.  It is nice to have ones efforts favourably commented upon and I felt that I would like to include extracts from some of them here:

Gentlemen,

I just thought I would let you know that I think the Elizabethan galleon and your restoration job you did on it are absolutely phenomenal!  I love it!  Since I was young and I saw my first image of the elizabeth jonas I have wanted to build it, but life has had a way of getting in the way. 

Had you ever been able to figure out who built that model in the first place?  or how old it was when you acquired it?  Interesting that it was never given a paint job in the typical multicolor zigzag pattern like the real ship has always been shown with in all the other images I have run across.  It’s good though because your model has some very interesting surface detail.  I hear tell that the reason they gave it such gaudy paint job was to make it resemble the merchant ships of the time and disguise its true firepower until it was too late for its hapless victims to do anything about it …element of surprise and all that rot…

Beautiful Job!

Cheers,

Tom Joslin, Shingletown, California, USA

Jeremy,

Just a note to say how much I enjoyed your article, and admire your skill in restoring Bat so beautifully.  I’m a great admirer of LBSC for his progressive contribution to model engineering. He left a great legacy in his writing and drawings.

Kind regards,

Allan Wallace (South Australia)

Dear Mr. Bull,

Thank you for your email regarding the unique Galleon model you have for sale. Although we do have a large model ship collection, our focus for any future collecting will be on ships directly connected to Littlehampton and the local boatyards.

I was very impressed with the attached document, which demonstrates your passion for the topic.

I wish you the best of luck with your search for a good home for your model.

Kind regards,

Juliet Nye, Curator, Littlehampton Museum.

Thank you for taking the trouble to write to me, it is appreciated.

Trying to match the colour for the Louis Marx Southern Pacific Crummy proved challenging.  I found a website that gave out the RGB number, but even this became difficult to match myself.

Salvation came in the form of our local art shop.  Browsing their range of paint tubes I came across Winsor & Newton’s Griffin Alkyd range.  Their Scarlet Lake (191 4603) was a spot on match.  There are a number of drawbacks; it dries matt, you can’t spray it and even with thinning it is the devil to minimise the brush marks.

That said it is possible to minimise the brush marks by taking the following steps;  Thinning with White Spirit, gently rub down between coats (after it has dried hard which I accelerate by putting in a very warm place) and when applying each subsequent coat brush on at 90° to the previous.

The detailing of the handrails etc is drawn on using a Faber – Castell Pitt artist pen.  These have a fibre tip and so don’t dig into the paint, don’t bleed into the paint and when dry are permanent.

To combat the matt finish I then varnished it with a clear gloss varnish.

Given that the monetary worth of the car is not great I feel that the above is a cost effective solution.  Although not a perfect replication of the original I think the result is very acceptable and better than a missing or blank end.

First attempt, not so good!

Replacement end