Tonbridge to the Americas in 1946

Pages For this Section

Tonbridge to the Americas in 1946

Africa in 1951-2

Africa 1959

Liverpool and Germany in the 60's

TONBRIDGE 1946

My secretary used to look after my corgi in the factory when I was away. He was fed from the canteen, where his daily diet was boiled lights, Yorkshire pudding and chocolate sauce. This last named got on one day by accident instead of gravy but as it proved such a success, the habit continued. When I was there, he used to follow me through all the buildings, up and down the staircases and how he avoided ever-treading in the pools of chemicals that were lying about I do not know. He used to visit his girl friend Ruby at the gasworks next door and my secretary used to call him back to lunch over the loud speaker system. He earned his keep because when I was wandering round Africa, he used to go on wandering round the factory and it is on record that no sooner did his nose appear round the door of the engineering shop than all the fitters used to pick up their tools. His name was the Earl of Tonbridge, but they christened him "The Nark."

Returning to my secretary, she was a pert pretty little thing, very clever and could take dictation in English, French, and Italian. In her more candid moments she used to refer to my nasty American mind, whatever that may mean. One day she resented my pointing out an error that she made and I said tartly, "I suppose, Miss Archer, you think you are a model secretary?" and she put her nose in the air and gave me a very definite "Yes" for an answer. As she was going out of the door at the far end of my office into hers which adjoined I said "Miss Archer, if you have a moment free, look up the word "model" in the dictionary." The door slammed. One minute later, the door opened again and the office dictionary came flying at my head. She had done as I suggested and read "Model - a small imitation of the real thing." I lived in Coventry for a week.

U.S.A. 1945

During the war my firm had heard of a process that had been developed in South America for shelling cashew nuts and we badly wanted that process, if it was successful for breaking into the brake-lining industry. All cashew nuts, wherever grown in the world, were all shipped to the Malabar Coast, where the kernels were extracted from the nuts by a crude process, operated by children with wooden knives, the valuable oil by-product that was contained in the shells, being burnt in the process. The only transport that could be found for me was the United States liner SS Washington, which was still a troopship, in which I was promised a bunk in a four-berth cabin. It turned out to be a 40-berth cabin. Never have I lived through a nightmare like that journey across the Atlantic. The ship of course, being a troopship was dry, but that did not enable the captain to et enough sober members of the crew at any one time to form a practice fire crew. Ash trays were never emptied, Coca-Cola bottles rolled backwards and forwards across the deck and were a. positive menace. After a woman had been killed in the dining saloon, by hitting her head on a stanchion, the ship hoved to for 48 hours. Never had I ever imagined that you could have such enormous holes in water as there were in those troughs between the waves. What annoyed me as much as anything was that the stewards had fresh orange juice for breakfast, whilst the paying passengers had tinned. There were 350 G.I. brides on board with their progeny, black, white and khaki. I was ordered, repeat ordered, to report to a place on the ship designated as Times Square a.m. and p.m. to receive a pram containing four squalling infants to wheel them up and down that pitching and tossing deck for their ration of fresh air. For the last four days of that trip I did not wash, because I considered it more sanitary not to and I arrived at the swagger Biltmore Hotel in New York with four days of stubble. I phoned my business friend with whom I was travelling on to Brazil and after a long soak in the bath, he came along and fetched me. Those who can remember our standard of living after five years of war, will realise how my first night in New York surprised and depressed me. Bill Hoffmann jnr. took me that night to the exclusive Stork Club, where everything was wonderful of course, but I only remember one single incident of that evening.

There is a law in the United States that food once brought to the table in a restaurant, must never be brought a second time. Bill paid the bill, a waiter was clearing the table and in one hand he picked up the butter dish containing pats equivalent to a month's ration for a family of four back in England and with the other the ashtray full of cigarette and cigar butts. These he placed ceremoniously face to face and carried them off to the dustbin. It is not an exaggeration to say that I nearly cried and after what I had been through on the Washington this was the last straw and I have hated New York ever since.

BRAZIL 1945

Bill Hoffmann and I flew from New York via Jamaica to Belem at the mouth of the Amazon on our journey to Fortaleza, 350 miles down the Brazil coast, where the cashew nut process was being developed. On the flight down Bill had regaled me with stories of the 20,000 types of wood which exist in the Amazon valley, but it was Belem itself which first astonished me. Built in the para rubber boom at the turn of the century, it was now a ghostly city in spite of its opera house as big as Drury Lane and its hotels. We stayed at the Grande Hotel and shared a bedroom half as big as a tennis court with two double beds in it and four enormous wardrobes, of such beautiful figured wood that we were both speechless. We sat on the bed and tried to work out what they would fetch in Park Lane or Park Avenue. As we found that the local plane to Fortaleza did not go for three days, we started to unpack and put our things in those lovely wardrobes. The figured wood designs were photographed onto steel sheet - as a precaution against termites - and so much for Bill's knowledge of the Amazon forests.

Belem, as you would expect, was exceedingly dull and we spent most of those three days in the bar, practising my entire Portuguese vocabulary - gin e tonica. On the bar counter there was a variety of nuts, cashews, pecans, etc. and tiny four inch bananas to soak up the gin. To keep our spirits up, I bet Bill a dollar I would drink two of those bananas through a straw. He accepted and the barman joined in the fun, which made two dollars. I suppose I was giving a good imitation of mad dogs and English-men mixed with the general hilarity, so we were joined by three Belem youths who spoke excellent English, who were certain that nobody could drink two greenish-yellow bananas through a straw, let alone an Englishman who was ipso facto not like other people and in any case full of gin. I bet them I could and the pile of dollars rose, but after another five dollars each, I managed to keep Bill and the barman out of the bidding, and concentrated on the three dagos who wanted to take the micky out of me. I closed the betting when there were 167 U.S. dollars in the pile and proceeded without difficulty to drink my two bananas through a straw. It is, of course, quite easy although I had never done it before. However, I knew that chemically bananas consisted of 95% water and if one beats it up sufficiently the cellulose fibres, which hold it rigid must break down and the mass will flow, and so it proved to be. I bought a dozen pairs of nylons, a lady's wrist watch and a fabulous handbag made of unborn calf skin, which my wife still treasures. The flight in the tiny plane with the off-shore winds hitting our beam at each landing strip on the way, for they were all laid the wrong way, thoroughly put the wind up us, not allayed by the tiny cups of strong black coffee that was the only refreshment on the way.

The mountains, twenty miles in land, getting a very heavy rainfall, Fortaleza has a very good water supply, but it never rains in Fortaleza itself. At least it had not done so for fifty years until the day we arrived. Drops as big as saucers showered on the tarmac and in five seconds had disappeared and how the terrified natives ran for it.

Bill was a real American hustler and he had been driven mad by the locals and their perpetual "Patiencia, amigo" - "Patience, friend" - their equivalent of the Spanish "manana" and when we arrived back in the La Guardia airport customs we had to wait. Two typical Brazilian "johnnies" coats hung on their shoulders, asked an American customs man how long they had got to wait and did not get a very polite answer. One turned to the other and said in Bill's herring "Patiencia, amigo." Bill could have killed him.

I waited for a plane to get back home - I thought I would give the good ship "Washington" a miss that time.