I joined the William Ashburner in Barry Dock on a sunny September day in 1946 and to me she looked beautiful. She was a three-masted schooner with a deadweight of about 300 tons. Although flying the Red Ensign, she was really an Irish ship, being owned by Capt. Nicholas Sinnott of Ennistymon, Co. Clare, who had been a master with the Blue Star Line. The mate, John Healy, and two AB's Barney Shiel and Mick O'Dowd, were also Irish. My lofty position was cook and deck boy.
Alongside the dock, I turned to at 6.30 am to get breakfast for the crew at 7.30. Deckwork started at eight o'clock. Since those days I have seen many dog kennels bigger than the galley of the William Ashburner. It was situated abaft the main mast and was more like a rectangular box, about six feet square, bolted to the deck. Against the after bulkhead there was the coal-burning range with the coal bunker alongside it, and against the forward one was a small work bench with the spud locker alongside it, which was also the seat. Washing up was done in a wooden bucket outside on the hatch cover. The bucket was similar to the one each of us had for our own personal use for washing, laundry etc. The only wash-basins aboard were aft in the cabins. During heavy weather or rainstorms, when it was necessary to have both sliding doors closed on the galley, it gave one an idea of what lay ahead in the next life if you fell by the wayside - the heat and the gloom were almost unbearable.
The ship had a Widdop semi-diesel 'hot bulb' engine of 100 horsepower which we always used. The day I joined it was in pieces, being worked on by dockyard mechanics. A few days passed and the engine was fixed and we left Barry for Cardiff to go on the grid iron. Then came three days of misery. The grid iron is similar to a dry-dock except it is tidal with keel blocks on a concrete slab and heavy dolphins on the shore side against which the ship lays. We had the boat over the side at daylight and proceeded to scrub and scrape the side as the tide ebbed. I think she drew about 13 feet loaded so this gives an idea of the area to be cleaned. When the water was low enough we got out of the boat and worked from the muddy bottom of the grid iron. As the tide flooded we worked up to our waists and then got back in the boat. In three days we had scraped and painted the hull with Stockholm tar. I remember how it burned our faces and wherever else it touched on us in the hot sun.
We proceeded from there to Sharpness where we loaded grain for Cardiff. While loading I learned another less than enjoyable aspect of my new life, trimming grain. The William Ashburner had been built in 1876, an immensely strong vessel with massive frames and planking. She had, I was told, quite a few deep sea voyages to her credit. Consequently, her hatches were very small and the grain had to be trimmed out to the sides and fore and aft quite a bit. This was back-breaking work while lying on one's side. With loading almost completed the hatches would be filled to the top of the coamings while we lay on our sides in the stifling space under the deck in the darkness, shovelling our way to the hatch and praying we ( or, at least, I ) hadn't been forgotten there. For all this I received 30 shillings cargo bonus on top of my £7 10s 0d a month. My pay was rarely over £11 a month. On top of this I had to cook three meals a day and keep the captain's and mate's accommodation clean and polished.
The captain and mate lived aft in mahogany and brass splendour. The captain had a room to starboard off the saloon, and the mate's room was to port. Both cabins led forward with the companion way between them. All the panelling was beautiful mahogany, as was the curved handrail of the stairs. There was a table in the middle of the saloon, and this had a large brass lamp hanging over it. All the lights aboard burnt paraffin oil, as we had no electricity. The captain had a small wash basin in his cabin which folded up and drained into a bucket. The rest of us lived forward down in the fo'c'stle where, if the hatch was closed, it was so gloomy that it was almost impossible to read, the only light coming from a few prismatic thick glass skylights let into the deck overhead.
Our passages were all within the Bristol Channel, to or from the ports of Sharpness, Avonmouth, Cardiff, Barry and Swansea. We never used the sails while I was in the William Ashburner. The trips from Avonmouth to Barry or Cardiff were too short and we only did the longest passages, from Avonmouth to Swansea, three or four times while I was in her, and then the wind was either too much or too little or in the wrong direction. The fore and mainsails were in place but the boom had been removed from the mizzen mast, so she did not have a sail there. The jibs and the staysail were kept down in the forepeak. The old Widdop engine was used all the time, and was adequate for most of our work. It was very economical and gave us a speed of about six knots.
The hours were mostly long and hard, sixteen hours or more not being uncommon, depending on destination and tides. Anchoring was a special nightmare as the chain, which was very heavy, had to be pulled manually up out of the chain locker as much as three shackles, which is 270 feet. This had to be flaked out along the deck. To hoist the anchor we had the windlass, which was coupled by a chain to a little engine in the forward deckhouse - unfortunately it never worked while I was in the ship so it all came in by hand cranking. Thank goodness we did not anchor very often.
The captain's only navigational aid was a little domestic radio on which he listened to an occasional weather forecast. For the crew's entertainment there was one pack of playing cards and Barney's fiddle and little melodeon. We never felt deprived and were generally quite content.
Acknowledgement : Mr.Maunder published an account of his career in Ships Monthly, November 1989, and this has been augmented by information provided in subsequent correspondence to me.