Cecil in Port Sudan - 1

Ernest Haylett saw that Cecil wouldn't make much progress at Scruttons so he found him a job with a ship’s agents in Port Sudan (above). He called at Scruttons' office to tell his son that the owner, a Greek called Contimichaelos Darke, was coming to England and would interview him. Cecil met him and was given the job. Before he left, his boss at Scruttons was good enough to organise him some valuable work experience in London docks.

Both father and son knew that Edith would be bitterly opposed to her 'delicate' son disappearing off to a place as outlandish as the Sudan, to work for a foreigner, so neither said anything until all the arrangements were made. As expected, she was furious but accepted what was a fait accompli, kitted him out with - mostly inappropriate - tropical gear, and saw him off at Liverpool. The move was the making of him. Cecil left England in 1923, aged 21.

Port Sudan is on the Red Sea coast of Sudan and was its main port. The heat is extreme, with summer temperatures regularly over 40C, the highest ever recorded being 48.6C. Judging by the main street, the town itself must have been a bleak place in 1923.

This picture shows the shipping agency offices in Port Sudan, one of which, presumably, was where Cecil learned the skills he would use for the next 38 years on the east coast of Africa. Large shipping companies might have their own offices in important ports, but in small ports most entrusted their interests to a shipping agency.

The agent’s job was to look after the ship from the moment it came in to harbour until the moment it left, dealing with both passengers and cargo. The cargo had to be obtained, usually from up-country and against stiff competition, transported to the coast and, through stevedoring companies, loaded onto the ship.

Cecil learned to take pride in watching one of ‘his’ ships leave port loaded down to the Plimsoll Line: ie, as full as she could safely be.

Port Sudan was a 24-hour port, with ships arriving and leaving at all hours of day and night, so Cecil worked impossibly long hours. When he went out to a ship as it approached port, he often had to climb aboard up a steel ladder: he soon learned to wear gloves, for the steelwork of the ship was so hot the crew could fry an egg on it. His job was get the cargo for Port Sudan unloaded, the goods from the Sudan loaded, the ship filled with the bunkers (coal) it needed, and turned around as quickly as possible.

While most of the few pictures of Post Sudan in Cecil's album are post cards, this is a photograph of work on the docks, and one wonders whether Cecil is one of the men in it. Cecil was exploited by Contimichaelos Darke simply because he was conscientious and good at his job. In particular, he had a talent for dealing with people, be they the local Fuzzy-Wuzzies (as he called them) who worked the ships, the stevedore company, the captains, many of whom were arrogant, or his Greek boss.