Buenos Aires

[Keith Tindell]

Thats jogged my memory, i also bought one of those leather jackets, if i remember correctly fur lined??. On the St Merriel that was our cargo back to Germany, Fray Bentos corned beef, 5 hatch full of the stuff. Remember we could get a beer and a baby beef roll for very small amount of money. We also signed on a English/argentinian there, he sailed with us for the rest of that voyage, and i recall he sailed out of uk for some time afterwards, cannot recall his name. KT

[Mike Hall]

Good old B.A. i remember it well.
i have been there at least seven times on three different ships and never had any trouble with anyone.we even ,the ships crew
played football against a local team and a south american saint line ship.and we beat them both.there was never any
trouble with anyone.when the local team were playing there were quite a few of these marineros,with there guns,cheering there team and us when we scored.
in b.a. there used to be a funfair near the docks and when we six of us went on it,the whole structure moved to
one side as the cars went around the top bends.
in b.a. i sometimes remember we had to anchor and the only way to and from the
ship was by a small boat,anyone remember them,hail and pay!!
montevideo visited about six times never had trouble there,always managed to get a good time.!!!!
and as for rosario,we arrived there on the houlders "swan river" on the 24 dec 1959 and left on 15 jan 1960,thats
a long time in one port.some of us spent christmas with the locals where we were made very welcome.

been to la plata a couple of times but i do not remember much about the place.

mike
for those who are going to say the swan river was not houlders,she was from "the british empire steam navigation company"

[Russ Kennedy]

My memories of BA covers 1961/62, sailed with South American Saint Line on the St Essylt. Great memories, , anyone remember the Copper Kettle, best beefy lomo completo, (not sure about the spelling, Steak Egg & chips) in BA. Steak sarnies, marineros, vigilantes, BA had it all. Never had much trouble with Marineros, always managed to get a couple of hundred ciggies (Chesterfield if I remember correctly) through the gate, buy for 10 shillings, sell for £2.
Went ashore with the Senior Leckie and Junior Leckie, Viggies came into the bar we were in, some mix up with passes/ID cards etc, leckie and his junior ended up in the nick for the night, back to the ship next morning minus watches and cash!!! Another hairy memory, Sen 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th (me) went to see Boca Juniors play Rosario at the stadium in BA. Half way thro’ second half Rosario were awarded a penalty, Crowd in our end went ballistic, we were on the 3^rd (top) tier. Ref blew up, Viggies marched on , single file in front of the goal at our end, knelt down and promptly opened fire with tear gas grenades. Never been so scared since!!! Very effective approach, match abandoned, our end cleared in 15 minutes flat!!!
Also remember being anchored off the mouth of the River Plate while the Army and Navy settled a couple of arguments by the navy lobbing a few HE shells into the city. Not sure, but I have a feeling the Navy won that particular argument
One last remaining memory, afternoon/evening ashore with a brother junior, due back for watch at midnight, late, decided to run. We were docked in Dock 4 close to Army or Navy HQ (can’t remember which). What I vividly remember was running past a barrier with the words “Traverso Prohibido”, the sound of a rifle bolt and a rather loud shout. Turned around to face a very large gentleman in uniform, waving a very large rifle at us. Funny how in one millisecond we knew exactly what Traverso Prohibido meant!!!
Happy days indeed, wouldn’t change it for the world!!

[Captain Kong]

The Cantinas on the dock at No 4 dock sold A BIG Steak, egg and chips with a bottle of Vino collapso all for five shillings. I also bought the BA boots lined in sheepskin and the Leather Coats lined with sheepskin for a fiver. good swag.
I wrote about BA in Voyage on the Urmston Grange in Seafaring Stories thread around page 22?
Cheers Brian

[Captain Kong]

for those who are going to say the swan river was not houlders,she was from "the british empire steam navigation company"
I was on the Clutha River of Houlders she was a tanker, in 1962
Brian

[John Albert Evans]

One time leaving BA going down the River Plate en route to Montevideo, the helmsman must have still been hung over from the night before because he was told to steer to Port but he went to Starboard and well and truelly ran us aground, we were there for about 3 to 5 days stuck. I cann't remember his name but he was from Preston, Lancs.

John

[corrientes]

Quote: " and a resturant called the Copper Kettle"

That was exactly where I was heading (above) when they picked me up and incarcerated me. Great place and unforgettable food.

[Jim Brady]

The drill was as I remember first stop Stella Maris,cheap beer,get tanked up there and then head into town to the main drag which you all know and I will not attempt to spell,Copper Kettle if you had copped on (the priest said "and the girls walk home alone")which did'nt always happen.You may end up in the New Inn where a couple of girls sat next to you without an invite and the "Bouncers" stood around you demanding what was 10 bob a shot for cold tea passed off as whisky,what we called a "clip joint".I was glad that by accident the next time that I was down there on the "Eastbury" we came across this fairground and all the girls on the stalls were "bang at it for free".I got in with Chola off the hoopla stall and i stayed with her for the month or whatever that it was we were there.I stayed aboard until about 10PM went ashore had a few beers upto the fairground 11PM taxi to this hotel and spend the night there.How could this be done on galley boys money!!!!!
Regards.
Jim.B.

[Captain Kong]

Anyone come across Cleopatra in the Lighthouse Bar in the Calle Viente Cinco de Mayo?
She was a very sexy ... and found out later not a lady. Very well known and a legend.
Brian

[john sutton]

Attached is a piece from my long ago abandond book this part deals with a trip to BA and the river parana.enjoy

Generton was an old coal burning tramp ship with a tall funnel which was apparently to assist in the burning of the coal in the boilers. Known as “forced draught”. All I know is that when we left Manchester and went down the canal, when we got to Eastham at the bottom of the canal there was about twenty foot of funnel to re-fit as it had been removed on the way up the canal to get under the bridges. We lived forward which is some thing that died out in deep water ships after the war. Like the coaster I was on, the galley was amidships and all the food had to be carried forward in canteens. In rough weather we got cold food and in hot weather we got hot food. It didn’t really matter if it was cold or hot it was slop
In addition to sleeping for,ard we slept on paliases (straw mattresses) another thing that went out after world war two. Under board of trade regulations these mattresses had to be changed with every change of crew so when the new mattresses arrived and we were about to throw the old ones away, some bright spark informed us that we could sell them in the Cape Verde Islands where we were calling for coal bunkering, so we stowed then down the lazerete.
Generton, besides all the other antiquities had an open wheelhouse which meant that the whole of the navigating area was open to the elements and the steering position was a cubicle raised about two foot and surrounded by a barrier waist high.Reminisent of those old war films where Jack Hawkins was controlling the frigate from the upper bridge. Steering in an open wheelhouse is great at night in the tropics but not very nice at night in northern waters, especially in the rain around the European coast and it wasn’t very nice in the tropics during the day as the skipper wouldn’t put up any awnings so we spent the two hour stint on the wheel in full sunlight. These days they would probably get sued
The officer that I was on watch with, third mate, was renowned for breaking wind. He used to walk from one side of the bridge to the other breaking wind with very step. Whoever was on the wheel used to count the explosions and report to the mess deck the total to see who counted the record amount. From memory the record was twenty two. His party trick in bars was to ignite them. In actual fact my watch was the only one that was glad that we had an open wheelhouse. Life would have been unbearable in a closed wheelhouse in northern waters with all the doors closed.
We had a mixed crew on Generton, the stokers were Asians, I suppose there were no English stokers who would crew a coal burning ship in the tropics, even in the fifties. There were two ABs that were Estonian and we reckoned that they were ex German army and couldn’t go back to their own country as at that time it was under Russian control, they might have been disappeared. They had been on Generton for several years, probably because if they changed ships they may finish up where they didn’t want to be. I did learn though, that the Estonian name for kidneys is “pissfilters”.I supposed that piece of information could come in handy someday, although it hasn’t so far in the last fifty years. The rest of the deck crew were from Manchester and Salford.
We arrived at the Cape Verde Islands to bunker, which was a rotten job as the coal dust went everywhere and we spent days after cleaning everything. The palliasses were traded for American cigarettes which the knowledgeable one advised us brought a better price in the Argentine than English cigarettes. The fact that they were a brand nobody had ever heard of didn’t really mean much to us as American cigarettes where not available in the UK so we were not familiar with any brands.
When we arrived at Buenos Aires several weeks later (we only did eight knots) the local who was contracted to be night watchman offered to buy any American cigarettes from us so we unloaded the lot and had some pesos to spend. All the way across to Buenos Aires we had been practicing ordering steak ,eggs and chips which was the thing to eat in the Argentine(biffo,quevoes y papafritas).Everybody was walking around muttering it, in order to get it right. Steak wasn’t something that was served at the crews table on Generton.In fact it wasn’t readily available anywhere in the UK at that time. Of course when we got to our first bar and ordered it and they asked how we wanted it cooked the whole procedure broke down and we ordered in English by shouting, as you do, and all our rehearsals were wasted.
So the first night we had our steak egg and chips and very nice it was. Argentine steaks rank among the best in the world. Next day the watchman returned, and not in a good mood. He showed us one of the cigarettes that we had sold him. It was a paper tube with a little bit of dry tobacco dust in the bottom. It appears that these cigarettes were from US army supplies during world war two and had been lying around in the Cape Verde Islands for the past ten years. We had to repay him the money on pain of getting “duffed up” when we went ashore.
Buenos Aires, it would appear, is a really beautiful city. Probably the most European of all the South American cities. I say, would appear ,because as usual we only got as far as the dockside bars and they are the same no matter which country they are in.
One bar that I had a few drinks in there was a barmaid that I was quite attracted to, so I spent some time drinking there. At the time I was nineteen, she must have been at least fifteen years older but very attractive and South American. When the bar closed we went somewhere else in a taxi, originally for a drink but the place turned out to be a hotel. In the days of Peron it would appear that spending the night together without the benefit of a marriage certificate or on the basis of money changing hands, was illegal.
The taxi took us into the suburbs of Buenos Aires and pulled into a hotel. the driver sounded his horn, a roller door raised and dropped down behind us, we exited the taxi, the doors in front of him raised and he was gone. We went inside this old world hotel and into a magnificent room with mirrors on every wall, and the ceiling. In later years I often wondered if we were the entertainment that night and someone was behind the mirrors watching our activities.
I had arranged to see her the following night, late on so that I didn’t need to hang around all night drinking and when I got to the bar I could sense that there was a problem. The problem was two guys who were throwing their weight around among the customers, who were all seamen. My friend indicated that these two were police and I should leave and come back later and wait for her outside the bar. When I came back, I looked inside the bar and the troublemakers were just leaving. When they saw me they approached and started verbalising me in Spanish, which obviously I couldn’t understand apart from “andar vamos”which I thought meant I should leave so I started walking away and they followed me until we came to an alley where they again said”andar vamos”indicating I should go down the alley. I had a problem. Either they were thugs and I was about to get rolled(not uncommon in dock areas) or they really were police and I was about to get beaten up, robbed and thrown in jail(also not uncommon in Buenos Aires)When we got into the alley ,one of them stood back with his jacket open and his hand inside it and I assumed he had a gun there and the other squared up to me and started to throw punches .It didn’t seem sensible to stand there and get beaten up and I believed that if I traded punches I would be arrested. When the puncher got close enough to me and he was a bit distracted, smirking at his pal like it was a big joke, I hit him, hard, and ran, zig-zagging as I ran like they do in the movies leaving him stretched out on the ground and his pal not really knowing what to do but laughing at him. Obviously he could have shot at me but even in Argentina explanations would be required why he shot at a British seaman who was running away from nothing. A beating for resisting arrest was one thing but a shooting must have been a problem for him. Anyhow, I ran right through the nearest dock gate and up the gangway of a British ship. Fortunately the night watchman was one of the crew so I went down the galley and had a cup of tea with him. He told me that a couple of his shipmates had been worked over a few nights before.
I never saw my South American beauty again, although I was in Buenos Aires again on another ship I thought that it would be wiser to stay away in case the cops wanted a return bout.
In those days Argentine was run by Peron and the police could pretty well do as they pleased and if they picked you up and said you resisted arrest they beat you up and there was no arguments. I suppose I was lucky. And I didn’t get my shirt ruined.
From Buenos Aires we went up the River Parana to Rosario. The only notable thing that happened was that having got back to the ship very late at night I developed a hunger and as there was nothing available in the mess I decided to look ashore. There was an all night grocery store right opposite the nearest gate to where we were lying; the only problem was that the gate was closed. Not wanting to walk a quarter of mile up the dock and back and then walk all the way back, I decided to scale the gate, first making sure that there were no dock police around, went to the store and all I could find that I understood and didn’t need cooking was a tin of sardines, paid for them and scaled back and returned to the ship. Really proud of myself. It was quite a large tin of sardines so I ate half and left the rest, in the tin, on the mess table. I had the rest for breakfast. Big mistake. Halfway through the morning I developed stomach ache and then the trots. We left Rosario at about midday and it was my turn to go into the chain locker and stow the anchor chain. (Being an old ship she didn’t have self stowing chain)With the stuff that was coming up in the mud on the chain and the stuff that was coming up in my rainbow yawns it was not very pleasant down there. I wanted to die and quick but I managed to finish the job and return to my place on the toilet.
Diamante was further up the river Parana and we spent some time loading, I believe iron ore. We were so far up the river inland that the whole place was like the “Old West”. Just simply a mine and a dock with a couple of bars. The streets were dirt and there were no pavements and from memory very few street lights.
On the Generton we tended to drink ashore with whoever happened to go down the gangway at the same time whether it was an officer or one of the crew. I suppose that as we were all together in the heap of crap that the owners call a ship we might as well drown our sorrows together. In Diamante I got separated from the crew that I’d been drinking with and was wandering around when I was approached by a couple of the locals asking if I was interested in a couple of girls. I was always interested in girls but never enough to get involved in anything that was available in Diamante, where they probably had diseases that hadn’t yet reached Europe. They were persistent and said there was beer available and that the rest of the crew were there, so I followed them, cautiously(didn’t want to get rolled in some god forsaken South American town/village) to what turned out to be a mud hut on the outskirts of town and sure enough the boys were there enjoying? the company of two young women. There were only two rooms in the house. The bedroom was occupied by one of the officers, fast asleep, drunk and the rest of the team were in what I suppose was the lounge. Everybody was drinking and we were well on our way. The girls were offering their wares but there wasn’t enough beer available to make them attractive however one of the Estonians decided that his needs where greater than the lack of glamour and romance in the situation. He agreed a price, assuming that they would transfer to the bedroom but it seemed that the bedroom was for sleeping (the officer had taken the bed) and the lounge was for working. She went to a cupboard and took out a rattan mat and unrolled it on the floor, lay down, pulled her skirt up and indicated that she was ready for business. The Estonian was a little taken aback as we were all sat around watching. The room was lit by a single bulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling with a pull chain as a switch. Having given the girl the money, which he wasn’t going to get back, he switched the light out and proceeded with the transaction. Someone switched the light on again so the Estonian got up and took the bulb out and carried on. Some of the spectators, who were smokers got their lighters out and shed some light on the action, by this time proceedings had started and he wasn’t going to abandon his endevours.We all sat around applauding and splashing beer on the pair of them. A goodnight was had by all.


john sutton