Aden: Random Memories 17e: The Return of The Natives: Attention all shipping

We boarded the ship for the very last time. There was the final party to look forward to and the possibility that if the weather in Biscay was rough, more seasickness to look forward to.

The politically incorrect design for the children's party dinner menu.

The final party is a dim and distant memory. It was a jolly affair. I am sure we had to wear party hats and probably play games, but I can’t really remember a thing about it.

Our cabin was next to the wireless room. We heard all kinds of signals. I presume they were incoming. Then one magical day a voice announced “And now the shipping forecast...” the litany commenced. We were nearly home. Ever since then, at the sound of the opening words, there is an eternal 9 year old who knows a major change in his life is imminent.

Thankfully Biscay was calm. We sailed across tranquilly. Eventually, one cold foggy morning we woke, the Caledonia motionless, in Liverpool. We went through the immigration formalities. A customs man was fussing over our boxes. My mother kept telling him she had bought the Braun food mixer in Aden, and all he wanted to know about was the camphor wood chest which we had had since Singapore. Consequently we went through customs without having to undergo the Spanish Inquisition, which is more than can be sad for a family we had befriended on the ship. Their boxes were all being emptied out and every item scrutinised. I felt so sorry for them.

© 2012 Gwailo54

Aden: Random Memories 17d: The Return of The Natives: The Mediterranean & Gibraltar

The Mediterranean

We didn’t stop off anywhere before we reached Gibraltar, so not much happened of any excitement or interest after we left Egypt. We swam in the ship’s pool, but this was full of sea water, not quite what I expected. There were funny games like quoits and organised games where the grownups behaved like children, well worse than children actually, no self respecting child would behave like that in public!

Then there was a change in the weather. It was rainy and dark, the ship rocked and rolled. Breakfast was picked at rather than eaten. Not many people were on deck or in any part of the ship. Eventually the motion of the ship got the better of me. I was tucked up in bed feeling very sorry for myself, no that my parents seemed that much better!

Gibraltar

The weather cooled as we went west. One cold morning we awoke to find ourselves in the harbour at Gibraltar. It was a cold version of Aden. Typically British symbols were to be found among palm trees and other exotica, not that it was that exotic for me, it was everyday. But the cold was horrible.

We did all the things tourist have to do when time is limited. We were like the hordes of Americans in Aden who disembarked from the cruise ships swarming all over the place to visit this and that. We mocked them. The irony was lost on me until now.

A child sees the world through uncomprehending eyes. Adults want to make everything difficult and in Gibraltar I saw a thing called “the border”. There was this guy called Franco who lived on the other side and he decided he didn’t like something or other and had closed the border. Nobody could get in our out by land. The only way was by sea or by air. 

Yes, the airport at Gibraltar. We had to wait until a plane had landed or taken off (I don’t remember which) before we could cross the road which went across the runway. That was quite unusual and exciting to see.

We also had to go up to see the apes. Their keeper gave us Maltesers and bits of banana to feed the apes. They would approach us and force open our hands and snatch the food we had. It was every monkey for him or her self. My mother took her turn, and was immediately surrounded by the creatures. Then one sat on her head. Cameras were lifted and click, my mother became a memory for others by accidental humiliation.

© 2012 Gwailo54

Aden: Random Memories 17c: The Return of The Natives: Egypt

I was told the ship was going to go through the Suez Canal, but we were going to disembark at Port Suez and go to Cairo. I felt slightly cheated that I wasn’t going to see the famous canal, but we were going to have an adventure and rejoin the ship at Port Said.

We got into the small boat that took us ashore, and already on board was a Gilly-Gilly man, or an Arab magician. His repertoire consisted mainly of regurgitating small chicks out of his mouth, removing them from a child’s ear and even, horrors of horrors, from out of my shorts! I have no idea how it got there for him to find it there. I didn’t even felt it inside my shorts.

We were ferried in a coach to Cairo across a flat landscape. It made little impact on me. Somewhere along the journey we were introduced to our Egyptian guide. He was probably called something easy for us to remember, a ‘typical’ Arabic name like Abdul or Mohammed. I can still hear him, especially the clear high pitch of his voice, calling us when he wanted us to gather together, “Memphis party, this way please.” Our round badges identified us, a picture of the Sphinx with Memphis written above it on the edge. In some of the boring parts of the journey he entertained us with comments like “I learned English from an American. See you later alligator!”

We followed a river, it was the Nile. It wasn’t blue or white, but a muddy brown. Nobody had taught us about the Muddy Brown Nile in history or geography. The city was vast, bustling, so much humanity. We were ferried to the Cairo museum. There we saw the treasures of the boy king Tutankhamen. Egyptian funeral rites were explained and shown to us. The famous mask for his mummified body was on show. It was a vast display.

No visit to Cairo would be complete without a trip to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. Our coach took us to the end of a road and we had the option to travel to the pyramids by camel or by donkey. I had already experienced riding a camel. I chose the donkey, not that it was more comfortable.

Nothing had prepared me for the majesty of the monuments. We were regaled with facts and history, part of which rattles about in my head and pops up from time to time. Alabaster was a word I heard a lot. So much was made of alabaster, covered in alabaster. They made such a fuss about telling us about alabaster, yet it seemed to be as commonplace as water as it was used so much.

We also went inside a mosque in Cairo, which I cannot recall but it was vast. We wore sacking over our feet as we walked around. It was a most stunning building. Yet again in my young life, I was facing something from another culture. Instead of a practical construction like the tanks at Crater, this time it was a religious building that could stand up against the cathedrals of Christendom.

© 2012 Gwailo54

Aden: Random Memories 17b: The Return of The Natives: All Aboard!

There is little I can remember of our departure. We boarded the R.M.S. Caledonia, room B19 (as described on the ticket) and eventually sailed away. I stood at the stern of the ship looking at the flame at Little Aden. It was bright even against the clear blue sky. Slowly, inexorably, it shrank until I could see it no more. I quietly said ‘Good-bye’.

I was going back a place that I didn’t really know, a country that was called home, with which I had some connection, and there were people called family friends and relatives, “aunts” who sent me postal orders for my birthday and Christmas.

We weren’t even going back to Innsworth, my father had a posting to a place called Cottesmore in England’s smallest county. Possibly, for the first time, the unknown was staring me in the face and I didn’t particularly want to meet it.

Kids being kids, regrets and sadness and any negative emotions receded and there was something exciting to look forward to. We would sail through the Red Sea. Would we pass where Moses and the tribes of Israel walked across and Pharaoh’s army was drowned? Would it be apparent where this was? My idle curiosity was soon diverted elsewhere and I wasn’t really bothered about it.

The weather was still more or less the same as when we left Aden, so although we had already travelled a long way we were still enjoying warm weather with bright sunshine all day long. Hardly a cloud was in the sky.

Postcard: ANCHOR LINE R.M.S. CALEDONIA LEAVING BOMBAY

from an original painting by James Burnie

(Please note there is no name on the ship. I have seen on the web an identical postcard for on of her sister ships, so the company didn't have to print three sets, one for each ship, the other two being the Cilicia and Circassia) 

© 2012 Gwailo54

Aden: Random Memories 17a: The Return of The Natives: Time to go

Hard though it was to believe, our time was soon up and we had to return to the U.K.. I don’t suppose I ever thought we would return. When I was an adult, my mother used to enjoy embarrassing me by retelling the story of when I asked her, ‘When are we going back home, mummy?’ after we had returned to the U.K. from the Far East. ‘Home’ was where aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents lived. It wasn’t home to me. That place was cold and had snow and lots of drizzly rain. Home was where I lived among people who were not like me.

My father was of the opinion another overseas tour was highly unlikely. It was 1964, the crisis in Aden had yet to explode and the ignominious retreat, the last nail in the coffin of British rule was just over three years away. If my father had been gifted with second sight, he couldn’t have been more accurate in his predictions. As this was our last opportunity to see the world, my parents decided we would return by sea. A voyage from Aden, up through the Suez canal, with a diversion through Egypt, then we would pass through the Mediterranean Sea to Gibraltar, where the ship would berth a while, and finally traverse the Bay of Biscay to Liverpool.

In preparation for our departure, my mother started knitting sweaters. As I swam and jumped and dived in the pool at Khormaksar, she sat in the shade knitting, day after day.

We must have also spent some time packing up all our belongings, but I cannot remember doing this. I had my own small wooden crate which contained my toys and books, but not my teddy bear. We left the flat, and spent our last night in Aden in some hotel. It seemed empty and uninviting. It was also the first time I had seen a bidet!

For some strange reason, both my mother’s passage and mine (a total cost of £142 10s 00d) were paid for by the government but my father’s (cost £95 exactly) wasn’t. I don’t know why this was. My father’s fare cost the equivalent of £1,500.00 today. This probably did not include the expense of the trips we made in Egypt and Gibraltar.

The tickets for our return to the U.K.

© 2012 Gwailo54