Our English Adventure (1964) #1

On a sunny winter's day in 1964, when I was just a kid, the Union-Castle Mailship Cape Town Castle sailed from Table Bay, bearing the Barnes family across the sea to their English Adventure.

 
Father was sent on a course in England, and as it would last for 2 years, the family went too, lock, stock and barrel. We left tenants in our home in Clovelly, with Granny in charge (in the downstairs flat) and the neighbours looking after the garden. I still remember the military green VW Kombi that came to collect us to take us through to Cape Town to board the ship, and also going through the customs shed and out onto the quay and up the gangplank. All very low key and primitive by today's standards, I am sure, but still a source of wonder and excitement to an 8-year-old!

As one of only a handful of children in First Class, we had the most marvellous time, hardly seeing our parents at all during the 2-week voyage! I can only imagine they must also have had the most marvellous time. We spent our days in the playroom, where there was supervision and organised activity. As far as I remember, I spent a great part of the voyage on the back of a large and very realistic rocking horse!

Children ate separately from the adults in a dining room with round brass portholes, and during a particularly rough passage, water came gushing through these, and the sailors had to rush to close them. There was an indoor swimming pool, salt water, in the bowels of the ship, which was rather horrible and I don't recall swimming in it, but in the rough seas, the water would swish up and down from one end to the other in a very alarming manner!

The best times were when we were outside on the deck, where we could run around and play deck quoits and lie in the deckchairs. In equatorial waters we would hang over the railings and look for flying fish and the Crossing the Line ceremony involved King Neptune and a number of mermaids. If we'd had digital cameras back then, you would be looking at the video now, but imagination will have to suffice.

The ship had its own particular smell and as a small child, I thought it was a behemoth of the seas, but in actual fact, I think it was probably a lot smaller than the average cruise ship these days. It didn't have stabilisers and sometimes the going was pretty rough, particularly through the Bay of Biscay, but it was an experience of a lifetime, and it played no small part in our broader education on life.