I Am Who I am Because....

....a father thought his 21-year old son was wasting his talents in a lowly-paid post in an office in East London and arranged for him to have an interview with a Greek, Contimichaelos Darke, for a job on the docks in Port Sudan, a port on the Red Sea where the temperatures rise to over 40C in the hot season.

The father was Captain Ernest Haylett, and the son was my father, Cecil Haylett. Ernest's ship plied a trade from Britain to the West Indies and to east and south Africa. I have often wondered why Ernest chose the hottest, driest, dustiest, most barren port he visited as a suitable place for his son to learn to be a ships' agent. I can only imagine that he felt he needed to move Cecil quickly, or perhaps he had discovered that there was a job available in Contimichaelos Darke's office, or, perhaps, because Contimichaelos Darke may have owed him a favour.

This last idea is an interesting one. It is usually captains who owe ships' agents favours, as the job of a ships' agent, among many other things, is to look after every aspect of a ship's needs when it comes in to port. I know that my father used to receive presents from captains - after having lunch on board a ship he would often be handed a bottle of Scotch which we had to smuggle through customs when we left the port, and he also received boxes of Scottish kippers from Clan Line captains.

However, in those days there were ways in which agents could owe captains a favour. One of these involved coal. If a ship steamed carefully it could use less coal that might have been ordered in advance, so the balance of the coal was often sold by the agent and the money shared between himself, the captain and the chief engineer. I'm not suggesting that Captain Haylett bribed Contimichaelos Darke to take on his son but it may have been that a debt was owed.

I'm also intrigued that Captain Haylett felt it appropriate for Cecil to work for a Greek. In those days, the 1920s, prejudices against other nationalities were common with the British, and Greeks in particular were often discriminated against. Captain Haylett must have had some respect for Contimichaelos Darke though this might have been misplaced, as Cecil worked far too hard for excessively long hours, to the detriment of his health.

Yet it was the making of him. He became an exceptionally good ships' agent, trusted and respected. From Port Sudan he went on to work in Beira, Dar-es-Salaam, Mombasa and Zanzibar, where he met my mother.

Picture: Ernest and Cecil together in Port Sudan.