Cecil in Beira

By 1928 Ernest felt that his son should move from Port Sudan, so he obtained him a job with T.B.F. Davis in Beira, on the coast of Portuguese East Africa, now Mozambique - picture shows Beira docks. Cecil soon found that the move was a mistake. The firm was run by Davis from Durban. Helen, in her life of Cecil, wrote, "He was a very difficult man and Cecil soon fell foul of him." To make matters worse, Cecil was poorly paid.

That he had to live in an hotel, the Savoy (above), probably didn’t help his finances. This picture is interesting in that it shows the little trolley cars, the main way of getting round the town, which were pushed by Africans. If you met someone coming the other way one of you had to lift your trolley off the lines: one can imaging the problems that caused!

This picture shows the Harrison Line ship Tactician alongside in Beira docks.

Cecil found himself in debt, there was ill-feeling amongst the staff which made working conditions unpleasant, and, soon after he arrived, he found himself having to tell some of his colleagues they were sacked. Feelings between the British and the Portuguese ran high, which made working on the docks difficult. Unsurprisingly, he was again ill. It was thought he had ‘flu but it was possibly pneumonia, resulting in the damage to his lung which was to affect him later.

Despite all this Cecil enjoyed himself. He played football: in this picture he's second from left in the back row.

At some point he became engaged to a Francis Beaton. She is shown here with her car and her dog. That she had a car indicates that she must have been well-off; that she had a dog must have meant that Cecil was very much in love, for he hated most dogs, with the exception of Jock, the dog Gill and I took down to Gawthorpe from Keele.

When, in 1930, Captain Haylett, by this time in command of Harrisons’ Defender, called at Beira he was seriously ill. He had an ulcer and survived on a diet of milk mixed with a shot of whisky. Returning to the UK via Cape Town, his condition deteriorated so his Chief Officer diverted to Madeira where Ernest was put in hospital. Later transferred to a Royal Mail ship, which would give him a quick passage home, he died in the Channel. He should have been buried at sea but Granny insisted he be brought ashore, and he was buried in Leytonstone cemetery.

Perhaps appropriately, Grandpa was the last member of the family to see Ernest Haylett alive. I take it as very significant that I was given the name Ernest. Picture shows Ernest in Beira taking a sight of the sun.