Friday, July 30, 2021

The good ship SS Rajula

 

SS Rajula (1926 - 1973) British India Line

In June 1971, on our way from Australia to England, Mitch and I had the pleasure of spending a memorable week on the good ship SS Rajula, from Penang in Malaysia, via Nagapattinam to Madras. This was a legendary, ancient and venerable old tub! I believe it was then the oldest passenger ship still operational under a British flag. 


We wanted to book the usual hippy option of deck passage, but the agents refused, saying it was too rough (physically and metaphorically!) for us westerners. Their story was that, due to the imminent monsoon, they could only take 3,000 deck passengers, not the usual 5,000! A 2 berth cabin wasn't very expensive, so we booked one - and found we were actually in "first class". Well, first class on the "Rajula" was a bit different - but at least included a porthole, and a bathroom. We also had all our meals with the officers. A good deal of alcoholic beverages was consumed - including lethal pink gins with the First Engineer! 



This was before containerisation, and the Rajula was definitely not a drive, drive off vessel, so we wondered how the Land Rover was going to get loaded aboard... 




By good old-fashioned harbour crane! With a big cradle and steel cables holding bars under the wheels. She was carrying a fair weight in the rear, so did not go up level. Very worrying! 



Once the Land Rover had been lowered into the hold, I had to go down to check she was suitably secured and locked. This involved shinning down a vertical ladder bolted to the decks - on which were many of the thousands of deck passengers. This was quite a surreal and exposed experience - rather like one imagines a slave ship must have been. 


Many passengers needed to disembark at Nagapattinam, south of Madras, but the Rajula was too big (9,000 tons, 26ft draught) to go into the harbour there, so we anchored offshore - and a convoy of local vessels soon came out to meet us. This was quite an event - a bit like being boarded by pirates, all shinning up and down ropes thrown over the side! As well as taking passengers and their cargo ashore, there were also many hawkers, who brought their wares aboard to tempt folk. We were warned to lock our cabins, and close all portholes! 





A couple of photos of the deck class passengers. 







Entering Madras harbour. On the rest of our trip to England we carried many stow-aways from the good ship SS Rajula - cockroaches! 

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Thanjavur, India, 1971

 

Brihadisvara Temple, Thanjavur

In 1971, on our way to England from Australia in the Land Rover, we sailed from Penang, Malaysia to Madras (now called Chennai) in the good ship SS Rajula, then headed south to visit some ancient temples. This one is over a 1000 years old! It was built between 1003 and 1010 AD. The size of it, and all the amazing detailed carvings are incredible.  


There is a chained, decorated temple elephant in the colonnade, and folk go across to give it treats. 


Like this young lad!



The main entrance to the temple complex takes you through several buildings. 


We (my Aussie pal, Mitch and I) stayed at a tourist hostel in the city, and were in a room on the first floor, with a big verandah all round, giving us great views. Thanjavur is also a major Indian railway junction, and we had a brilliant birds-eye view of the station, with the temple in the distance. 


There were many old steam trains in India back then. Maybe there still are? 




We also had a rare birds-eye view of our Land Rover! 


And a great view of all the goings-on in the streets below. 


Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Cookson brothers 1970.

Brothers in Aus
Brothers in Australia, 1970

 As today (27th July) is my late brother Richard's birthday I thought I would put up some memories, and a few photos of him that have made it into digital format. Richard is on the right here, I'm in the middle, Chris to the left.

All Cooksons
All Cooksons, 1970

After graduating in London in 1969, thanks to our parents Richard and I were able to drive a Land-Rover from London to Australia. After leaving England at the end of September 1969 we arrived in Perth, WA, in January 1970. Later that year Mum and Dad and Chris (who was about to start university in England) visited us in Perth, en route from a trip to Japan for the Expo 70 World Fair. These pictures were taken on a day trip from Perth to an abandoned timber mill, Hoffman's Mill, near Dwellingup, south of Perth. We had been there before in the Land-Rover, and knew the area. The bridge behind us is the famous Harvey River Bridge, an old wooden bridge. 

Richard in Perth 1972
Richard in Perth, 1972

I didn't take this one, so I guess it was taken in early 1972, possibly as an ID shot for sky-diving, which he had started. He was killed in a car accident, driving to his first actual jump. He came up a hill on a Sunday morning, going east towards Northam, got the sun full in his face as he crested the hill, missed the bend, went off into a field and rolled into a tree. Tragic way to go. 

Richard had decided to stay on in Australia when I headed back to England at the end of May 1971, as his girlfriend in England was Australian, and her family was relocating back to Sydney. That didn't work out as well as he hoped, but he was enjoying life in Perth and decided to stay. He had a grand job as a medical lab. technologist for the Public Health Labs, and had bought himself a nice old Series 1 Land Rover, which he fitted with a tuned 3.5 litre 6 cylinder Chrysler Valiant engine. He got through a few gearboxes, I believe! 

Snow in Turkey, 1969
Snow in Turkey, 1969

Richard enjoying a snowball fight in the mountains of eastern Turkey, somewhere in the Erzurum area! 

Summer Hill pool
Summer Hill pool, 50's

A very early photo! This was taken in the pool at Summer Hill, Bishopscourt, which my parents built in 1947 or so. We were all raised there. This picture is from the late 50's, I guess. We were actually on a blow-up Moomin! From R to L, Richard, me, Chris. Happy days!

Contour Path
Contour Path, 50's


Another favourite from the late 50's. This was taken on a hike up to and along a stretch of the famous contour path, above Kirstenbosch Gardens. I remember that day, as Richard was very proud of the huge branch he picked up and used as a stick!

Swildon's 1967
Swildon's 1967

10 years or so later we had gone underground! This was taken on the "40 foot pot" in Swildon's Hole a pothole we used to explore near Priddy in Somerset. This was actually a waterfall, and we took a roll-up metal ladder to get down (and up!) it. It was also cold, so we wore wetsuits under overalls. Richard made his by gluing an ex-army battledress top and trousers together! 

Priddy, Somerset
Priddy, Somerset, 1967

This was probably taken the same day as the one above. We didn't often take a camera underground. We used to camp in the farmer's barn, along with other folk. 

Swildons
Swildons 

This was taken at the top of the 40 foot pot, waiting our turn to descend. Richard on the right, friend and neighbour Jonathon on the left, and I've forgotten the name of the other friend in the middle, but I remember he was very tall! 
The famous 40 foot pot is no longer there, after a major storm in the 70s flooded and re-organised the cave interior. 

Leaving Perth 1971
Leaving Perth 1971

Richard is the one on the left here, leaning on our Land-Rover. I'm the one in the red hat leaning on Pete and Di's (on the right) Land-Rover. Friend Jack Crosby is sitting on Pete and Di's bonnet, while friend Mal Dingwall is sitting on the ground in front of Jack's Datsun 2000 sportster.
This was taken in the car park of Cottesloe Heights in Perth, where we had rented a flat. This was taken towards the end of 1970, when I was heading off to the North with Pete and Di for a few months. 

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Felix and the Fiddle

This is the story of "Felix and the Fiddle", our first true "Swap":

Way back in the first year of the century we were in South Africa, getting ready to migrate to Ireland. We had spotted some brilliant handmade copper and brass figures of musicians at an art gallery, and thought we would be able to sell them in Ireland. However, having no spare capital was a problem!

We tracked down and got to know the creator of these humorous figurines, Kosie Wium, and got on very well with him. It turned out that apart from being a sculptor, artist and poet, he is also a keen fisherman and offroad driver. At the time our daily transport was "Oscar", a 1976 Series 3 short wheelbase Land-Rover, but we also had "Felix" a 1972 Series 2A long wheelbase stationwagon fitted with a 4.1 litre Chevrolet straight six engine. We didn't use Felix very much, due mainly to his massive thirst.

Sooo, when Kosie starting looking covetously at Oscar, we cheekily offered him Felix - in exchange for a collection of his figurines! He was interested, and after we agreed a value for Felix, he faxed us a list of figurines, using his trade price and adding a few extra, because he's like that. We said yebo gogo, and Kosie went to work on the figurines!!

A few weeks later he visited us for a barbeque, bringing along all the figurines, carefully packed in black dusbin bags!! We gave him Felix's keys, and he went away contented!!

Friday, July 28, 2006

Bridie the Connemara pony.

On Wednesday evening we were sitting quietly after supper when there was an “anybody home”? Call from the door. Oi vey, we thought, bloody tourists! Nope – it was Tony, with a rope in his hand, to the other end of which was attached Bridie, the Connemara pony! “I've brought a friend to visit” he said! And he stayed and chatted for a good while, with us getting to know old Bridie again. She was very patient and calm, and just stood there savouring all the attention. She obviously dotes on Tony, as she was nuzzling his chest! They really do take good care of their animals, those Keanes. Very special lot altogether, and what a nice thing, to walk old Bridie all the way up to door to say howzit. She had been away off up the mountain across the valley for months, and we missed her a lot.

Apparently she is a kosher Connemara, and has the papers to prove it, but she isn't show material as she is the wrong colour!! Apartheid exists in the horse world! The best colour for Connemara's is apparently grey, and she is a deep brown – chestnut, I think they call it. The old girl is about 15 years old, and has had a pretty solitary life, alone on the mountains most of the time. Her mother and a couple of sisters were stolen – horse rustling is alive and well in these mountains! They didn't ever ride her, but she was used to haul fenceposts way up high on the mountains at one time.

"Bridie" is our name for the old girl, after we heard that the ruin in the woods across from us was "Bridie Lally's House". Recently, down at Keane's pub, I got chatting to a fellow at the bar (as you do!) and he said no, she was actually Biddy Lally, and he was the young chap who found her lying dead in the house, many years ago, when his parents had asked him to go up and check on her. She was a spinster, and lived alone up here. She had long blonde hair, and used to wash it in the stream that runs down the side of our house, and then sit and comb it dry in the sun on the big rock where our house now sits.


Hehehe – an Irish solution to an Irish problem! For the last few months we have been watching the progress of young Thomas's new house down there across Lough Bofin. That was where we first stayed when we came over here, in his Aunt Pauline's house just down the road – a dead-end, which up until 1935 was actually the route of the Galway to Clifden railway line.

Anyhow, young Thomas is a very pleasant young feller indeed, and the house is pretty big, for that neck of the woods, with a big double garage to one side – seperate from the house, as is the way round here. The walls went up, the roof went on (hope he's used tiles like we have, with an extra nail at the bottom, as he'll get a lot of wind where the house is) and the usual big mountain of topsoil was dumped next to the house. Ah, there's the garden now, we said. Sure enough, in due course it was spread out neatly – and then – extravagance of extravagances! - roll-out turf was laid out – instant lawn! Brilliant, but must have costaplenty!

Driving past tonight, what did we see dotted all over his brand new off-the-shelf lawn: SHEEP – a whole herd of them!! Jawelnofine, the lad obviously has run out of funds for the obligatory ride-on lawnmower, so why not just inspan the family herd to do the necessary?!! Fair play to ye, lad, as they say around here!! Nice one!!

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Connemara contact

Yebo Gogo! and here we go a-Blogging once again. It's sure to be sporadic, but that is the nature of life these days. Hang in there, and check back often! 

Hot (well 23 degrees is hot in Connemara!) Sunday on our side of the mountain in Maam Valley, and a very lazy day it has been, too. However, I did find time to tinker with the online photo album sites, and have posted new (and some duplicates too, by accident!) stuff up at : http://www.flickr.com/photos/alan-cookson/ .

Broadband looks like it could reach this outpost of civilisation by the end of next year, since rumour has it that there is a Government directive to the effect that all schools have to have broadband up and running by then. We shall see! Meantime we have upgraded to ISDN, which is no faster than dialup (unless you use both lines together, and pay for 2 calls!) but does allow us to use the telephone and surf at the same time. Works fine on my old desktop, but whenever we switch the modem across to the laptop - that has to be rebooted. VERY inconvenient! Have no idea what causes that. Maybe the fact that my desktop is running XPSP1, but the laptop runs XPSP2, which has more strenuous security features?

Nina's birthday today, so had a cheerful chat with her around midday, just as festivities were getting under way in Amsterdam! She had already received my wee parcel, sent off on Thursday, so that was great. Sounds like it was a really hot day over there, with 30 forecast. That's it for now, must go and pour some Birthday Booze, and get supper on.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Well Goodness Golly Gosh, this is totally brilliant stuff! Well done Ninotch, I LOVE it!! Keep up the skryfing and blogging. PA XXX

Stories from the Jukebox of Time
This is brilliant stuff! As if one needed any further encouragement to get Blogging, the good old Economist comes up with a very "on Point" article. Actually it's part of a survey on "The New Media" (Among the audience | Economist.com) in the April 20th issue.

It's the links, stupid | Economist.com