Head or Heart
ALBERT HALEWOOD BREW (1913-1976)
In 1929 Albert finished his schooling for he had passed the age of 15 when school attendance was no longer mandatory. The following year his father negotiated an apprenticeship for him as a fitter and turner. His indenture was signed on 27 August 1929 when he was 16 and it was for 5 years with the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand. As part of the agreement he was to be paid 17 1/2 shillings per week for the first year, 23s. for the 2nd, 37s for the 3rd, 55s for the 4th and 70s (3 pounds 10 shillings) in the 5th year. This was a far cry from the wages his great great grandfather Thomas Brew received of 7 shillings per week in the last year of his apprenticeship as a blacksmith in 1812. Albert completed his apprenticeship without incident 5 years later and at the end of 1934 it was time to find a job.
His first job was with the Australian shipping company, Huddart Parker as 8th Engineer on their motor ship “TSMV Westralia”. She displaced 4717 tons and and he served in her from 25 August 1934 to 12 October 1934. Very proudly Albert gave his first pay to his father as was expected. His duties were described as On regular watch of 8 hours per day, on Main and Auxiliary Engines and he proudly described his responsibilities as 2nd in charge of watch. At the end of his first voyage the ship’s chief engineer, RC Cumberland, wrote of Albert;
Report as to Ability : Highly satisfactory in the performance of all his duties
Report as to conduct : Very Good
Report as to sobriety : Strictly Sober
After this, 13 October 1934, he signed on in Sydney in another of Huddart Parker’s fine passenger ships, the steamship “Zealandia" as 7th Engineer and his rate of pay was 16 pounds 13 shillings per month. This ship was smaller than his previous ship at 3435 tons. (The First Engineer’s pay was 49 pounds 7 shillings and threepence). The ship with young Albert aboard left immediately for Hobart, the capital of Tasmania and arrived in that port 2 days later. The next day she returned to Sydney and during the next 24 hours she discharged her passengers and freight and completed her reloading for yet another trip south to the ‘Apple Isle’. Quite commonly after every second or third such round trip she made a further brief trip north to Newcastle so that she averaged 4 sailings south each month. Her usual pattern was Sydney--Hobart--Port Huon--Hobart--Sydney--Newcastle--Sydney and so on sailing approximately every 14 days.
Albert served continuously in “Zealandia” until 6th August 1935 after which he came ashore for leave. He was 22 years of age and what great fun it was to tell the family about what he had seen and done. On 30 August 1935, he went back to sea in the same ship and shortly afterwards he became her 6th Engineer. By this time he was growing very keen on Iris Bannister and he was able to persuade her to take a holiday to Tasmania on board his ship in December 1935. (The 3rd Class one way fare was 3 pounds 5 shillings or about one weeks pay for the average working man). Albert didn’t get to see a lot of his girl friend considering he had to stand watches in the engine room each afternoon but he usually got off duty around midnight and was able to meet her and talk in the early hours of the morning. Early in the new year he was promoted to 5th Engineer (rate of pay 18 pounds 4 shillings). He was still aboard in March 1936 when he was made 4th Engineer on a rate of pay of 21 pounds 8 shillings and sixpence per month and finally left the ship in Melbourne on 1 May 1936 after nearly 18 months in her. Albert was now able to enjoy the next three months home on leave. During this time he got to know Iris very much better and it was during this time that he asked her to marry him. In due course and after meeting her father Leonard Bannister, a milliner in business in the city of Sydney, Iris said ‘yes’.
On 5 August 1936 Albert joined his next ship, the steamship “Corio” of 3346 tons gross (1934 tons net) Albert joined her in Melbourne as she set out on one of her regular trips around the coast of south eastern Australia. Her regular schedule was Melbourne--Whyalla--Port Kembla--Newcastle--Melbourne. Sometimes she also called in to Port Adelaide while in South Australian waters and her round trip usually took about 18 days. He was “Corio’s” 4th and most junior Engineer with a rate of pay of 19 pounds 14 shillings per month until 19 November 1936 when he came ashore for a welcome period of leave. In fact he was home for nearly 4 months, the first month being engaged on board ship in maintenance. It was good to catch up with Iris again because he had been away for 3 months and their only means of keeping in touch had been by letter. This was a busy time for making final arrangements for their wedding and for fixing the date in relation to the planned movements of his ship. Although Iris’s sister Joyce had married some months before, and his sister Peggy was marrying about the same time, Albert was determined that his wedding was going to be very special.
Meanwhile he went back to sea joining “Corio” again in Melbourne on 8 March 1937 as her 4th Engineer. At 25 years of age he had been at sea for 3 years. His rate of pay had been increased to 21 pounds and 4 shillings per month and he was now able to take full charge of the watch in the engine room.
He was discharged in Newcastle on 25 September 1937, before the voyage was over because of a very special event. After landing he took his gear and walked quickly across the docks to Newcastle Railway Station and immediately set out on the 2 hour steam train trip for Sydney and his marriage to Iris. It was a dinner suit affair and for the 25 year old Albert quite daunting. The ceremony was held on Thursday 7 October 1937 at the Pitt Street Congregational Church in the city, the principal church of the denomination. It began at 5 pm and afterwards the wedding ‘breakfast’ was held at Winsor Gardens in Sydney’s north shore suburb of Chatswood. Albert’s brother Bill was his best man and Iris’s sister Joyce was her Matron-of-Honor and it was a great family affair. His mother’s sisters and brothers were all represented and there was hardly room for anyone else.
After 3 weeks of married life, Albert was back in Newcastle on 28 October 1937 to again join “Corio” for another stint of sea service. Again he was the ship’s 4th Engineer and as the ship headed out into the bright Pacific, past Nobbys Signal Station, the beaches and breakwaters he knew so well from his childhood and headed south for Port Kembla, he thought of Iris whom he had left behind in Double Bay, Sydney. No longer was his father his next-of-kin, and his home address was 6 Kelvington Flats, William Street, Double Bay. The enforced separation did not come easily to the young marrieds and when “Corio” was next in Newcastle 3 weeks later, Iris went up by train to meet Albert and stayed with him in a city hotel while his ship was in port. The three or four days they had together was a precious time but the time for parting soon came around again. Albert went back to sea and Iris went back to Sydney to the flat her father had provided for her and her brother Jim and for Joyce before she got married. The Bannisters had bought it for the children to live in after they had sold the family home at Vaucluse and had gone on a world trip at the beginning of the 1937. This was to be the pattern of their lives over the next few months, whenever “Corio” was in port in Newcastle for a few days, Iris would go up and take a hotel room so they could be together.
Albert was able to get home for Christmas and took leave from 20 December to 27 January 1938. The exciting news he took with him when he went back to sea was that Iris was expecting their first child. On hearing the news Iris’s mother, Nellie, demanded that she stop spending so much time in Newcastle and stay in the flat in Double Bay. Although it had been listed by an agent for sale it had not gone and at Leonard’s request was taken off the market and occupied by Iris while she awaited the birth of her baby. Her brother Jim was her flatmate until he too got married later that year. Albert was away at sea till 26 April 1938 when he got home for 3 weeks leave which he spent at Double Bay. He was again at sea in “Corio” till 25 June during which he was made 3rd Engineer at a rate of pay of 25 pounds 5 shillings and sixpence. In July he quit the company and took 4 months leave. This meant he was at home when his son was born on 19 August 1938 and he did not go back to sea till the baby was 3 months old. He called him John Richard, perhaps having in mind that his parents had lost a baby called Richard Albert in 1908 and a son called John in 1924.
At this point Albert went to work for a new company, Burns Philp & Co. Ltd. signing on from 18 November 1938 for duty in the new diesel powered twin screw passenger vessel TSMV “Bulolo”, She displaced 6270 tons (3440 tons net) and Albert signed on as one of four ‘Junior Engineers’ at a pay rate of 20 pounds 4 shillings and sixpence, a rate which compared poorly with the rate paid to the four greasers of 18 pounds 8 shillings.
Iris’ brother Jim, married in December 1938 which left Iris alone in the flat at Double Bay with baby John for long periods while Albert was at sea. Iris’s mother Nellie now insisted she and John come and stay with her at their property, “Terranora” at Valley Heights. It was agreed that when Albert was in port, Iris and John would stay with him at his (Albert’s) parents home in Vaucluse and while he was away at sea Iris and John would stay with her parents, Nellie and Leonard Bannister at their home in Valley Heights in the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney.
With Albert aboard, “Bulolo” headed north to the Islands of the Pacific. He was home for Christmas, enjoying 4 weeks leave and didn’t go back to the ship till the beginning of 1939. But he was now under considerable pressure from Iris and her mother because, as they told him, him being away at sea was no way for a marriage to succeed. He was forced to come to terms with the same problem that his father had faced in 1913 and his father before him viz. how to provide a home and at the same time continue with a career at sea. He had little choice; when he left his ship at the end of May 1939 it was to be for the last time. He was 26 years old and had worked at making marine engineering a successful career since his apprenticeship 10 years before. It all seemed to have been for nought. But events were to develop in ways he could not have forseen.
He might well have taken advice from Samuel Johnson offered nearly 300 years before;
“I again visited him on Monday. He took occasion to enlarge, as he often did, upon the wretchedness of a sea-life. “A ship is worse than a gaol. There is, in a gaol, better air, better company, better convenience of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of being in danger. When men come to like a sea life, they are not fit to live on land.” “Then” said I, “it would be cruel for a father to breed his son to the sea.” He said ”It would be cruel in a father who thinks as I do. Men go to sea before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession; as indeed is generally the case with men, when they have once engaged in any particular way of life.”
JAMES BOSWELL : THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON
On 1 June 1939 Albert started work as a “Technical Assistant” for the Plume Oil Company, now the Vacuum Oil Co. in Sydney. He had seen 5 years of service at sea and now set about adjusting to a career in sales in lubricating and fuel oils. Joyce (Iris’ sister) and her husband George Royle had bought a house in the Sydney suburb of Lane Cove and this seemed to Albert and Iris to be a good place to set up their new home. Consequently, late in 1939, they took a long term rental on a duplex house at 41 Morrice Street, Lane Cove. Copying his father, Albert called his home “Halewood”, the name of his father’s last command in sail and the ship he himself was named after. However events in Europe were soon to overtake the plans that Iris and Albert had made for the future just as they were for millions of others at that time.
There was talk of war in the community. The daily newspapers were full of reports about Hitler’s belligerence and Germany’s aggression. Albert was aware that if he joined the Royal Australian Naval Reserve he could go to sea on training exercises and with his qualifications and experience he was likely to be made an officer. His cousin Willie Carson Warner who was 10 years older than him had done just that. In August Albert applied and then on 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland. After 2 days of slaughter Britain and France declared war on Germany, and the same day the Australian Government met and authorised the Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, to announce that Australia and Germany were at War. With heavy hearts Albert and Iris heard him make the announcement on radio that night.
Albert had 10 male cousins as well as his brother Bill and they talked among themselves about what all this meant for them. As well as this he had as many female cousins and the husbands of those who were married began to also think about how to respond much the same thoughts. Willie Carson Warner was the first to enlist in 1939 followed by Barron Carson in April 1940. The general mood was to apply to join up and this only made Albert all the more frustrated because there had been no response to his application to join the Reserves and by that means to see active service. Added to that he had opposition at home. His mother-in-law spoke her mind without hesitation. She told Albert in no uncertain terms that since he had a wife and child it was his duty to stay home, but the peer group pressures from his many cousins were too great and he paid her no heed whatsoever. ‘They’ had won the battle over him coming ashore from his shipboard career but ‘they’ were not going to win this one.
Excerpt from the book Jane's Legacy by John Brew.
