As mentioned before I would spend most of my recreational time with the Geordies in their room. I came to learn of the harsh conditions of Tyne side during the depression of the 1930’s followed by prolonged bombing as the Germans attacked the ports and the huge shipyards. Theirs was a life so different to that of a middle class young Colonial who had been brought up in isolated splendour on a beautiful tea estate in a paradise island. Even my year long stay in Melbourne was in a comfortable establishment in a prosperous part of a great city in a thriving new country. So the more I heard about the grim life in the North East from these poor folk who were so very kind to Graham and me, the more I wanted to learn just what life was really like there and what drove them to want to go to sea in the middle of a world war. They were to a man all staunch supporters of the Labour Party, and again this meant nothing to me as I knew then little of British party Politics. So one day to really find out what made them tick from the depths of their emotions I asked one of them who had befriended us both to tell me his story. Alfie Round was just eleven years older than me, and was a confirmed and dedicated Christian with an unshakable faith which however he kept very much to myself and in no way ever wanted to press on others. So I asked him once, just to tell me what life was like as a kid brought up there, in the harsh conditions of North Shields and what had made him go to sea?
He replied that his Father had started life as a fisherman on trawlers and had served on the, “HMS Laconia” an armed merchant cruiser which was torpedoed in the First World War but he had luckily survived . After the War he had joined the army and just before Alfie was born he had gone to India where he just vanished and was never heard of again! His Mother meanwhile had remarried and made a new Family and so he had been brought up with his Granny and Grandpa who was a coal miner and took in foster children.
“ They were a kind couple for the most part living in a poor household like many others. Granny Barker would always turn out tasty Sunday dinners and the nicest Yorkshire puddings. We were very poor but we never went hungry. She excelled in baking bread, and there was always a good soup made by a ham bone thrown into the huge cast iron pan. Grandpa loved his pint with his mates but rarely came home the worse for wear. I was brought up in cramped conditions like others with the sharing of a desk bed. Just imagine a room of about 10’x10’ square feet and a desk at one end which would convert into a bed in the centre and 6 children in it, 3 heads at one end and 3 facing the other way. Every now and then someone would kick and shout and Gran would threaten them with a leather belt……things were tough. Granny Barker could be kind one minute and a demon at another time. It was said that she was always worse at the time of full moon and her temper would be violent flinging anything that came to hand, once even a hot iron at her husband. I was treated like a common messenger boy to do anything and everything until one day when something in me snapped and I said “NO” and then tore down the stairs away into the alleyway to seek refuge. I ran to Molly’s house a kindly Scottish lady who hid me behind her arm chair but Gran came storming in and grabbed me. I was expecting an unmerciful flogging but fortunately the neighbours had come and reported her at that moment to the “Cruelty Man” a community officer charged with seeing that children were not harshly treated and that saved me. After he paid a visit she was kinder to me and less harsh. In Jan 1937 I started looking for a job when still only 14 years old, and applied for one with a Mr Deredder a Jewish Butcher to be an errand boy. I presented myself
