But it’s lucky, isn’t it?

I’ve just finished reading the autobiography of Charles Herbert Lightoller DSC & Bar, RD, RNR. The book is called “Titanic and Other Ships” and is the story of Lightoller’s career, first in the Merchant Navy and then in the Royal Navy during the First World War as a member of the Royal Naval Reserve and then again in the Merchant Navy. It’s a right, rollicking good read if I may say so, very much in the vein of a boy’s own adventure in parts and I have to admit that I enjoyed it very much.

The title of the book, if I may opine, would seem to me to have been suggested by his publisher, trying maybe to cash in on the memory of the Titanic on which ship Lightoller was serving as Second Officer when the ship sank after colliding with an iceberg in 1912. The book allocates around 25 of its 190 or so pages to the loss of Titanic and subsequent enquiry and Lightoller writes about it in a very matter of fact way, understandably so given that he was there and nearly died trying to swim away from the stricken liner, after he had supervised launching the port side lifeboats, as it sank beneath the waves.

Lightoller’s naval career, however, was so much more than just his service on the Titanic. The book starts during the last years of the age of sail in the 1880’s when he was thirteen years old and the stories and adventures come thick and fast. The language in the book contains many nautical references and is not a little archaic and dare I say, nonpolitically correct (by today’s standards) in places but such were the mores in the mid 1930’s when the book was published. Lightoller progresses onto steamships and even takes a break from seafaring to go prospecting for gold in the Canadian north-west.

During the First World War Lightoller was in charge of a small flotilla of Destroyers escorting convoys of merchantmen down the North Sea from Norway to The Humber Estuary and he describes the practice of one of the leading Destroyers dropping a depth charge and then the boats of the following Destroyer being lowered to collect the cod, floating on the surface, which had been stunned by the explosion.

After the war, Lightoller returned to the merchant marine but in the early 1920’s he retired and that’s pretty much where his book ends which is a pity because leading up to the second World War Lightoller was employed by the Admiralty to cruise the channel with his wife in their small pleasure cruiser, paying particular attention to the German coast and noting down anything of interest. Then in 1940 Lightoller’s pleasure cruiser, the Sundowner, was requisitioned by the Admiralty to take part in the Dunkirk evacuations and Lightoller together with his eldest son and an eighteen-year-old Sea Scout volunteered to sail the vessel across the Channel and rescued some 130 men from the beaches at Dunkirk.

Anyway, back to the book. While I was reading it, Lightoller’s words in my head were being voiced by Kenneth More, the actor who played Charles Lightoller in the 1958 film, A Night To Remember, which is in my own humble opinion, the best Titanic film. Oh sure, James Cameron’s 1997 offering had state of the art computer generated special effects and huge purpose-built sets, but the 1958 film had Kenneth More and his portrayal of Edwardian stiff upper lip and British reserve. OK, not strictly Edwardian as King George V was monarch at the time but close enough methinks.

A few days ago, I was sitting in the garden happily reading the book when out of a somewhat cloudy sky: Splat! A great dollop of bird shit landed on the open page of the book I was holding, most of it hit the book, the rest fell into my lap. I went into the house to get some paper towel to remove the offending article from the book (yes, and from my clothes) but unfortunately though as I was wiping it away, much like the facehugger’s blood in Alien, it ate right through the page!

This is the second time in 65 ¾ years that this has happened to me, being hit by the product of a defecating bird. I remember the first time; I was about 9 or 10 and I copped a full load on the side of my neck. My mother, who was with me at the time, laughed, then she told me it was lucky… Lucky to be hit by bird shit? I had my doubts. Mom produced a small handkerchief and dabbed at my neck, but I had the feeling that it was still there as we walked home, all the time I was holding my head over to one side to avoid the nasty substance touching my jumper and coat.

Lucky indeed!
Later in the day of the second bird shit hit, I received an email from NS&I telling me that I’d won a prize on the Premium Bonds and when I checked it, it was a thousand pounds! 😁 Automatically re-invested, so don’t come knocking.

Whilst doing a little in-fill research on Charles Lightoller, just to satisfy my own curiosity, I saw that there was a plaque dedicated to him in Ducks Walk, Twickenham, opposite the site where he along with his middle son and a business associate took over and operated a small boat building business from 1947 until Lightoller’s death in 1952.

This Friday just gone I decided to have a bit of an awayday down to Richmond to go and see the plaque. In the second photo, I missed off the top of the bloomin’ thing! I just couldn’t hold my camera up high enough to get the whole thing in… Therefore I have also included a photo I found on the interweb, taken by someone who obviously could lift their camera high enough, showing the whole thing including Lightoller’s name. Notice how the condition of the plaque has deteriorated somewhat.

Titanic and Other Ships by Charles Herbert Lightoller, I heartily recommend the book to anyone who likes tales of ocean-going derring-do.