Caronia's 1953 Overhaul
I've alluded elsewhere to the interaction between crew members from the various regions of the UK, however, the story below from Frank Hughes gives some further food for thought…
Frank writes…
I remember the 1953 Caronia overhaul well! That month, the very first international football match was to be televised
in the UK, in black & white of course. The match was England v Austria, and being played at Wembley Stadium.
The “Green Goddess” was berthed in the Canada dry dock at Liverpool, and the deck crew were all on a 12-hour Fire Watch - working a 12 hours on / 24 hours off system. The deck crew were almost half & half Scousers (people from Liverpool or “the Pool”) and Mouches (people from Southern Counties around Southampton).
At that time, my parents must have had one of the first TVs in “the Pool” (…with a 9 inch screen in a bakelite casing). Knowing that some of the lads from Southampton could not readily go “home” at the end of their shift, I invited some of them to our home for dinner and to watch the match.
My parents borrowed a couple of benches from the church hall, set our lounge out Cinema Style and they brought in a few beers. Dinner was cooked, and we waited for our guests to arrive.
Sadly nobody from the ship turned up! On returning to my next shift you can imagine what I said to my Mouche shipmates for not turning up, especially after all the effort my parents had gone to, to make them feel welcome.
The reason was eventually declared… they'd realised that on all previous occasions when Scousers had been stuck on board while Caronia was docked in Southampton, no-one had ever invited a Scouser to their homes; their consciences had been pricked!
