Prankery On The High Seas

These days, there aren't many people left in Hull that work in the fishing industry, and most of those that do are involved more with the fish processing side than with the practice of bringing the fish home in the first place.

But I remember as a child, that the area I lived in was almost entirely populated by families that had people who worked either on the docks or on the fishing boats themselves....

My own father had worked on the docks after he left school at the age of fourteen, but by the time I was born, his 'career' had taken a different turn, though I did have a number of uncles that still worked in the industry. I can't remember whether this story was told to me by one of them, or by one of my dad's friends, but I remember thinking how amusing it was at the time, so I'm going to share it with you here:

Whoever it was that told me this tale, let's call him 'Jack' for want of a better name, told me how when he first started out on the fishing boats, he'd been a young lad, and had managed to get himself employed as an 'apprentice stoker'. 

In those days, a lot of the trawlers that went to sea were steam powered, so a stoker's job was an enviable position. Not only did it seem to ensure that you'd have a job for life, but also, as a stoker, you spent most of your time below deck, (though he did tell me that he was expected to help out with the general fishing duties sometimes,) instead of having to brave the weather handling trawl nets, or gutting the catch in arctic conditions up on deck.

Jack told me that these trawlers were very basic, being designed for getting to and from the fishing grounds and doing the job once they got there, and that modern conveniences were conspicuous by their absence. Bunks were limited and were usually shared by one man off duty while one man was on. Washing was very basic, being done over a  bucket of water on deck, and toilets just didn't exist at all.

Of course, people still had to 'go' but being all men together, they'd usually just 'go over the side' into the sea. There were times though, when the sea was so rough that it wouldn't be very nice to even go up on deck, let alone to drop your pants once you got there. It was times like this when visits to the boiler room by members of the crew would become more frequent.

Urinating wasn't a problem. That could be done over the side in reasonable weather, and even when times were rougher, as long as you could 'direct it' onto the deck, you were ok, because of course, the decks were  being constantly 'rinsed' with sea water. By our present day standards and values, this doesn't seem at all pleasant, but that was the way life was at sea: you had to do what you could, when you could do it.

Other 'toilet functions' required a little more care, and that's when the visits to the boiler room became necessary. The method used would be that a crewman would visit the boiler room, take a shovel from where they were stacked, lay it on the floor and do what had to be done on the shovel. Then whatever was on the shovel would be thrown straight into the furnace to supplement the ship's fuel.

Nobody bothered at all when this occurred. In bad weather it happened so frequently that the guys working in the boiler room would just ignore it and carry on with their work. That was except for when the Skipper was caught short.

The Captain required a little more respect than the regular crewmen, so when he came down below and picked up a shovel, everyone would know why he was there, and so as not to be seen watching him, the entire boiler room crew, to a man, would face away, and politely wait until he'd finished.

Everyone except Jack, that is. Jack had been somewhat of a practical joker when he was younger, and he told us of the time when he looked over his shoulder and saw the Skipper with his back to the rest of them, 'doing what had to be done' on the shovel. A wicked thought came into Jack's mind, and he smiled as he waited, watching the Skipper attend to his biological needs. Then just as the Captain had finished and was 'attending to the paperwork' so to speak, Jack crept up behind him, quietly removed the fully laden shovel, and replaced it with an empty one!

He tells of how the Skipper turned, looked down and froze on the spot, how he glanced frantically around the boiler room, frowned, scratched his head and finally went back above deck, but he also told of the puzzled, almost constipated look the Captain had on his face for days afterwards.