I remember very little about my voyage in 'Obra', but it marked a profound change in my life. Our cabin, for two Cadets, was comparatively huge, with masses of drawer space, and was accessed from an inside alleyway. I can't remember who the other Cadet was, but it was probably Derek Slope, and with Dave Rae as Third Officer. I had met Dave Rae (Streaky) when he was Cadet in one of the other 'M's. We were keen on music, and I'm pretty sure it was Dave who made this small poster with our repertoire on the reverse side.

I see from my discharge book that the Captain was J.Nowell Richards, and I have a feeling he was known as 'Posh Horace' and had a fiery and unpredictable temper. But no Commander could compete with Claude in that field, and with us he was perfectly reasonable. The Mate must have been a good chap too, because I can't remember him at all.

We Cadets had our own small table in the dining saloon, although we sometimes had Posh Horace for company, as he was wont to move around the tables and not sit in one particular place. Quite a good idea on his part, come to think of it.

'Obra' was a coal burner at this time, and I remember the palaver with ashes, and the dust when bunkering.

One big difference between 'Mantola' and 'Obra' was that whereas 'Mantola' had had the same master for a decade or so, 'Obra's complement of officers would change frequently; she would come home with officers going on leave, and return to India with officers coming off leave. In some ways this led these homeline ships from India to be neglected.

One other thing I recall is the fact that the elkington plate serviette rings in 'Obra' were varied, some old, with more decoration round the rims, and engraved with strange names of old BI ships. What happened to all that old BI plate, I wonder?

Cadets Killick and Willoughby in 'Kampala' were due leave, and they were relieved by myself and Brian Roland Davis, who was a bit junior to me (how jealously officers of all ranks preserved their seniority! one even feels its effect at this late stage in life) but had had a completely different beginning to his career, his first appointment having been the new 'Dumra'. Brian had (and probably still has) a fantastic memory for dates. He could reel off the date of arrival and departure from every port he had been to (and that was a considerable number in the case of 'Dumra'). He had completed a year in her, gone home on leave, and here we both were in Bombay (me for the first time) preparing to join 'Kampala'.

ss 'Kampala'. Her lifeboats were painted white in 1948.

Our cabin in 'Kampala', on the Starboard side of the Boat Deck, was large and comfortable. Our duties were not too onerous and we were left to get on with them. One thing we had to do was manage the carbon blocks in the fresh water filtration unit (they needed turning over and washing daily). We had baggage room duties to perform (something we were both used to by now), and we looked after lifeboats. With the 26 lifeboats there was always something to do in them.

In 'Mantola' we could carried 176 passengers, all one class.

'Kampala' could carry 60 First Class, 180 Second Class and 2,441 Deck Passengers in the fair weather season (North East Monsoon). Deck passenger numbers were restricted in the South West Monsoon season.

I still remember my first departure day from Bombay. It started with an early morning shift from Alexandra Dock to Ballard Pier. I was on stations aft with the 2nd Officer Lars Giertsen, and he warned me to be careful because we were probably being watched by one of the 'Partners' from the tower on top of the Mackinnon Mackenzie office, not far away. Huge crowds gathered on the quay, and then came a surge of porters wearing numbered red tabards into the empty tween decks, each with bundles of six foot lengths of cloth in their arms, strewing these about the decks and thereby securing deck space for the deck passengers they were serving. Each deck passenger was allowed some six feet by three feet of deck space. Then came the deck passengers themselves, whole families of them who would erect their baggage round their alotted spaces.

'Kampala', departure day, Bombay. Deck passengers securing their space for the voyage on No.2 hatch upper deck (soon to be covered by a canvas awning).

The cheapest deck passenger fare was obtained by those passengers who had brought their own food for the voyage. Higher fares were paid by those requiring half board or full board. There were cooking facilities for passengers in the forward deck housing. Amidships, down in the shelter deck, two small galleys worked full blast, side by side, one Muslim and the other for Hindu deck passengers.

Our departure from Bombay was quite emotional with garlands of flowers over the bow, paper streamers between ship and shore, and lots of coconuts dropped into the water as Hindu good luck gestures.

First port of call was Marmagoa, now called Panaji I think. A German Hansa line vessel, funnel still painted Hansa colours, lay where it had been scuttled at the beginning of the war, and surprisingly enough for 1949, we transported half a dozen or so German seamen across to Mocambique, for repatriation. They were Deck Passengers, and were given No.5 'tween deck to themselves.

Thence to a Seychelles anchorage off the port of Victoria for a few hours, and on to Mombasa, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Mocambique, Beira, Lourenco Marques and Durban.