James Donaldson
Ship name / Flight number: Ranchi
Arrival date: 07/11/1951
On the 70th Anniversary of the the Voyage of the Ranchi
19th September -7th November 1951.
It does not seem like seventy years ago that the S.S. Ranchi (16,738 tons) a ship belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Navigation Company, set sail from Tilbury Docks on the River Thames on Wednesday, the 19th of September 1951, bound for Sydney. She carried 42 Little Brothers bound for Sydney Australia, accompanied by two Australian escort supervisors, returning home. It was an adventure of a lifetime, for many of the young men immigrating had not left British shores before, and perhaps some of them had not even lived away from home for any period of time. By the time that we landed in Sydney, after seven complete weeks at sea, on the 7th of November 1951, at No 6 Berth Woolloomooloo, two weeks later than anticipated, we were absolutely filled with experiences that we could never have anticipated After our arrival in Sydney, we then set sail on uncharted waters to make a new life in Australia, setting off with high hopes, excited anticipation and unbridled enthusiasm into the future, with all the confidence of youth in the land of opportunity.
The “Ranchi” had been part of a four vessel “R” Class of ship, her sister ships being named, “Ranpura”, “Rajputana” and “Rawalpindi”, all built in the period 1924-1925. She was 548.5ft long (156.72m) and had a beam of 71.3ft. (21.7m) The “Ranchi” was launched on 24th January 1925, built by Hawthorn Leslie and Company of Hebburn, County Durham in England, on the River Tyne at Newcastle. Before the Second World War, the hull of the “Ranchi” had been painted black with a white band, her above-deck fittings red, her superstructure stone-coloured and her two funnels and air ventilators painted also in black. One of her funnels had been removed in Bombay in 1939, as part of an overhaul, which included the fitting up of eight six-inch and two three-inch guns as armaments.
Before the Second World War, the “Ranchi” had been one of the most luxurious steamers of the P. and O. shipping fleet. She was commissioned for the Bombay Mail Service, and was part of the India Mail and Passenger Service for the shipping line. She was said to be “even more sumptuously decorated and furnished” than any of her sister ships. It was a custom of the Company to detach one of their newer mail steamships each year, to serve as a cruise ship sailing around the coast of Europe. It was the “Ranchi” that was chosen to cruise the Mediterranean, including trips to Dubrovnik in the late 1920s and to the city of Venice, in the spring and summer seasons. The poster below, advertising cruises to Norway as well as to the Mediterranean, effectively attempts to show the glamour and class of such holiday cruises. All this glamour was to change in 1939. All frivolities ceased as the lights went out.
The “R” Class ships were heroic little vessels. Each of them were converted to being armed merchant cruisers as War approached, and were deployed as convoy escorts in the dangerous tasks of convoy duties. They were the only larger ships available to protect the vital convoys apart from the smaller corvettes and older destroyers in the early years of the War. The “Ranchi”, was commissioned into service on the 27th August 1939, barely four days before the War commenced. The now “H.M.S. Ranchi” sailed as a Royal Navy vessel in the Eastern fleet in the Indian Ocean, for four years, during which service as an escort and patrol vessel she steamed 300,000 miles. Her sister ship “H.M.S. Rajputana” was torpedoed and sunk in April 1941 by a German U-boat. Her other sister ship “H.M.S. Rawalpindi” was also sunk in 1939, by the “Deutschland” in a famous surface action in the early months of the War and which involved the famous German battleships, the “Scharnhorst” and “Gneisenau”. This “R” class ship fought on until every gun aboard her was silenced and the “Rawalpindi” left to sink, ablaze from the damage from the deadly enemy shellfire. After 1943 the “Ranchi” later acted as a troopship for the Ministry of War transport division until 1947. The “Ranchi” herself narrowly avoided being sunk near Benghazi in North Africa when a German bomb was deflected by the wirespan of her forecastle and which luckily fell through the ship without exploding or sinking her.
I include this wartime section within this short article, because having sailed to Australia on board the “Ranchi” in the very crowded conditions of a migrant ship, commissioned under the dark and depressed economic conditions being experienced by the British people after a long War, the “Ranchi” in 1951, could easily have been dismissed as a battered and worn-out old steamer, which she was. Her glamourous pre-war days as a “sumptuously decorated and furnished” liner, were totally over; her refits had drastically altered her former underdeck appearance; her best days were behind her, yet her heroic service for the sake of her country in the harsh times of war were second to none as a vital warhorse and workhorse of the sea. She was there at the beginning and there at the end. She was, after a fire on the very next voyage, consigned to be sold as scrap in 1953.
We left St Pancras Railway Station on the Wednesday morning train bound for Tilbury Docks, having posed for our photograph outside the station. We are dressed in the garb of the day, with 1950s hair styles, most boys wearing ties and everyone in a coat. Looking back, I remember many of them with great affection, and the times we spent together.
James Donaldson is on the extreme right hand end of the photo with the crew cut front row
Although the “Ranchi” in earlier days had advertised herself to carry 600 passengers, the September “Cruise” as a migrant ship to Australia in 1951, carried 937 passengers. It was a one- class ship and passengers were free to move about in any of the areas available to the non-crew members. The “Little Brothers” were accommodated on one of the lower decks, in cabins that had four double bunks and each bedroom slept eight of us. As one can imagine, there was little room for personal effects, but no one seemed to mind, and we enjoyed each others’ close company for seven weeks. We were allowed to visit the cargo deck every couple of weeks to open our heavy luggage. I remember that every morning, the P. and O. Steward, used to arrive punctually at 6.0 am to serve a trayful of steaming hot mugs of tea and toast. This was always quickly disposed off. Food and mealtimes were always popular.
Most days were spent outside the cabin, either boxing on the deck, or going for early morning runs after the deckhands had hosed the decks clean; or lounging on deckchairs, eating, reading or talking. Deck tennis and deck quoits were also popular daily pastimes, as was taking a dunk in the little swimming pool, with all the other bodies seeking to do the same. Watching girls and scenery were also popular .
I remember most clearly, as we sailed down the English Channel, looking over the rail, to see the marker buoys bobbing on the surface of the waters, to mark the position of the sunken British submarine, “H.M.S. Affray” lost at sea on the 14th of April 1951, with the loss of 75 lives. It was a touching moment to sight the little marker, where so many sailors had died on a training exercise, only months before.
The Bay of Biscay gave everyone out first taste of rough seas and wild weather, but not nearly as wild and woolly as crossing the Great Australian Bight was to prove. This second experience of stormy weather crossing the Bight had remained vividly with me for the whole of my life. I did feel queasy and uncomfortable, but made up my mind not to retire to my cabin, to lie down sick, but instead to climb to the top deck and see it out. I was alone getting very wet and holding on tightly to the rail. The “Ranchi” was heaving up and down, to a great height and depth in the rain, dipping her bows into the very high waves that rolled over them, and lurching sideways with great force and power. The winds blew hard and cold against my face, and it crossed my mind, that I would not like to experience any kind of engine failure at that particular time. Considerably blown away and greatly invigorated by the chilly, stormy experience, I later joined 7 others for Dinner, being one of only a few migrants present for dinner that night, out of a normal sitting accommodation of over 100 or more other passengers, who did not front for the meal. The dining room was nearly completely empty. I remember that the Steward, kept offering everyone, complete tureens of roasted potatoes and meat dishes as seconds. Never had so “few” eaten so much for so “many”.
In Spanish Morocco where the ”Ranchi “was forced to stop because of engine troubles The “Little Brothers” from left to right are Jim Donaldson, Bobby Graham and Peter McVey, September 1951
The most vivid experience of the whole voyage was the engine troubles that the “Ranchi” experienced on the voyage to Australia. We initially broke down and paid an unscheduled visit to Ceuta in Spanish Morocco, quite close to the British naval base at Gibraltar at the entrance to the Mediterranean. The weather at Ceuta was delightful, giving each of us a beautiful sunny day to walk around. A few days later, we were berthed alongside the dock at Algiers, the capital of present day Algeria. We were not allowed ashore. Who knows we might have joined the French Foreign Legion. We looked out from the deck-rail, over the darkened and deserted docks, but nothing stirred.
Repaired, and on our way, we broke down again in the Suez Canal and remained completely helpless at a standstill, without power, as we looked over the sand dunes at the passing military activities along the Canal Zone. This all took place in the midst of diplomatic wrangling when tempers flared. and fears increased, as a result of the Eqyptian Government increasing pressures on the British Government and repealing the 1936 Treaty in October 1951. Local unrest and reprisals continued along the canal from Egyptian nationalists. It was to become much worse in the early months of 1952 when many people were killed. The weather was very hot indeed. Sadly, a baby died on board ship at that time and the bereaved family had great trouble in being able to go ashore for the burial. As we were towed out of the Canal and into the Gulf of Suez, there were lines and lines of ships lined up waiting their turn to use the canal. The “Ranchi”was given an enthusiastic welcome by the irate crews of 617 ships, honking their horns and blaring their sirens.Their crews may also have been personally anxious about stopping or being delayed in the Suez Canal.
Crossing the Line was a big event, everyone being immersed in the food waste and porrage before being dunked in the swimming pool. This was enthusistically participated in by some young British soldiers migrating to Australia to join the Australian Army. It was a real fun day. People enjoyed themselves, and mixed freely.
Concerts were wildly supported, and featured a number of wonderful amateur particpants. I also remember waking up in the early dawning, at Colombo, on the former island known as Ceylon having slept on a deckchair on an upper deck, to see the greatest red-coloured sunrise in my life, illuminating the tropical tree palms, greeting the new day. My first sight of Australia was another milestone moment on the trip.
Our last morning on board the ship, was to wake up on deck, to see the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge rising majestically above us. Like the rainbow after the great flood, mentioned in the Bible, it seemed to be a omen of hope for the future: a chance for a brand new day and a new beginning.
The Gala farewell dinner featured the above food treats for the migrants.
James Donaldson
May 2024 – written by James Donaldson
The most interesting article in the last B.B.M. Newsletter of April 2024, about Little Brother, James Speed’s arrival in Australia in 1952, and his later reconnection with his half- brother Eric, in Scotland after 87 years; and their eventual reunion in Cupar, a town in Fife, and former Royal Burgh, lying between Dundee and Glenrothes; raised many happy memories for me.
I had known James in the early 1950s. as we both lived and worked as Little Brothers in the Culcairn district. Culcairn is a town of nearly 1500 people, now located in the Greater Hume local government area, and is situated on the Olympic Highway between Albury and Wagga, 514 kilometres south-west of Sydney. and was an important centre of sheep and wheat-farm activities in the days when we both worked there. It was a vigorous and vital little town, with lots of happy, hard-working people. Being involved in the football and cricket teams and helping out at the local show and church life also helped newcomers to be accepted and extend relationships.
I arrived in Sydney on the 7th of November 1951, after a six-week voyage on the “Ranchi” and after a short stay at the Big Brother Training Farm, took the overnight mail train from Sydney to arrive in Wagga Wagga, early next morning where I was met by my new boss Mr Jim Roberson, who lived 22 miles away to the south at Mangoplah on the Cookardinia Road to Morven. There was no electricity on the property, and everything at night, including the evening milking of the cows by hand, was done in the light of a Tilley pressure lamp. After a few weeks I moved to Culcairn to work with Jim’s younger brother, Darcy Roberson, with whom he was in close partnership at his property, named, “Ashleigh Park” a few miles out of town, on the Henty Road.
Very shortly after I left Mangoplah. there was a huge disastrous bush fire that started at the very edge of Jim Roberson’s property on the 23rd of January 1952, caused by the railway fettlers burning off grass along the local railway line. While the fire was quickly brought under control after burning out 150 hectares, it was re-ignited later on the following day, by strong 40 kilometre-an-hour winds and a temperature of 42.5 degrees (Celsius), and burned an estimated 300,000 hectares of country; destroyed 37 houses, 203 sheds and killed 110 000 sheep.
It was a fire that got everyone’s full attention on a very hot, windy, tiring day. Lots of burnt fences and trees, and the remains of burnt-out farm sheds, were everywhere to be seen, with heaps of dead sheep huddled in the blackened corners of the paddocks. Telephone poles, burnt off at the ground, were left hanging in the air, on the drooping wires, and smoking, glowing remnants of once large trees, were lying on the ground, in the deafening silence left behind after all the birds had flown away. Terrible long days afterwards, walking through the powdered grey/black fire ash, shooting badly injured animals and moving others into paddocks where they could be fed, left lasting memories, etched into time.
James Speed arrived in Culcairn in 1952, having sailed from Southampton in England, first arriving in Perth and then sailing on to Sydney, arriving in New South Wales on the ship “Asturia” on the 7th of April 1952. He nearly missed the boat, which might have deprived Australia of the services of an excellent young worker. James was initially scheduled by the Big Brother Movement office at 33 Macquarie Place, Sydney, to be sent to Griffth, a major district in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation area of the Riverina, but when this arrangement fell through, James was sent to work at M.H.I Jennings at “Eurunga” at Culcairn.
The property, “Ëurunga” was also situated on the Henty Road, but set a few miles further north from Culcairn, than “Ashleigh Park” was, and located on the other side of the main Sydney-Melbourne railway line on a better formed bitumen road to Wagga. As a very young lad, just out from Scotland, I found Mr Harry Jennings quite formal and correct when I used to meet him at the Presbyterian Church on an occasional Sunday morning. I played Australian Rules football with his son Gordon, who was about the same age as James and myself. Most work was done by hand and thus, everyone like James Speed, worked very long tiring hours, especially during shearing and harvest times, day after day, in all kinds of weather conditions.
Sometime in 1954, I went to work for another family named Dallwitz, of German extraction, at “Meryula”, Culcairn. The whole family were ardent workers, either in the kitchen, cooking for shearers or preserving fruits of all kinds from the 127 fruit trees in the orchard; or working in the gardens, or out in the paddocks working long hours with machinery or sheep. “Meryula” had large paddocks with access points, both to the back Walla Road and also to the west main road to Walla Walla out of Culcairn. This advantage, proved to be a real bonus when the levels of the Billabong Creek rose significantly, during periodic flood times, when substantial amounts of water and all kinds of debris, came down from the country, out the back of Holbrook to the east, and made entry to the property by the creek crossing impossible.
James Speed did exactly the same, moving to a property named “Roseworthy” owned by Mr Mervyn Schoff, just before Christmas in 1954; and situated along the same dirt back-road to Walla Walla as “Meryula”, where I worked. Mervyn Schoff was a family man with two young children. He was very community-minded and served on the Culcairn Shire Council.
Many of these hard-working German farming families, still operating their farms in the 1950s in the Walla/Culcairn/Henty Districts were related to pioneering families who had overlanded to the Riverina, from South Australia, by covered wagon, encouraged by the opportunities for land in the years 1866-1870. Many were North German Lutherans who had taken up land within fifty miles of Albury and worked hard on their initial selections of 300 acres. These families ardently supported their local St Pauls’ Church and School at Walla with dedication and commitment. It was a sight to see a working bee at the Walla church, with more tractors and men in attendance than at one of the early Machinery Field Days, and did they work hard.
Everyone living down that back road to Walla, knew each other well. and were often related to each other. The fact that every one of the properties along the road shared the same party line on the telephone, meant that everyone knew everyone else’s business after every phone call. We could always hear the click of the other telephone receivers being silently replaced on their cradles after the conclusion of every phone call. It was often hard to keep a straight face when a neighbour shared some new secret, that everyone on the line already knew all about. We had to dial up the telephone exchange on morse code to get a line. Telegrams too, in these days at the Culcairn Post Office were sent by morse code using a transmitter key.
James Speed left the Culcairn district later in the 1950s and went to work driving a rock buggy machine at the quarry for the Hume Weir project on the upper Murray River near Albury, engaged in the massive engineering task of raising the height of the dam wall to increase the water capacity of its storage potential. It was a significant undertaking. Unfortunately, James was involved in a serious, life-threatening injury, which necessitated a long period in the Albury Base Hospital., but happily, it was in that same hospital that he met his future wife and married her in 1958, some 66 years ago. Later James worked for the large hardware and general merchant business Permewan Wright & Company in Dean Street in Albury.
I too, had left Culcairn in early 1956 and had gone to live in Albury, in order to study Sheep and Wool (Wool-classing) at the Albury Technical College. I also completed a course on the maintenance of Sheep Shearing machinery. Albury was a wonderful place to live. Lots of activities and sports. I won an “A” grade hockey premiership in 1956 with Albury City Hockey club; and ran with the Olympic Torch for the Melbourne Games. I was the leader of the 5th Albury St David’s Wolf Cub Pack, and became involved with the youth group at the Church, where we played lots of after- work tennis, rode our bicycles to Bright etc, and went to local town dances. I too, worked for an agricultural engineering merchant, A. T. Jones in Kiewa Street, before leaving in 1961 to study in Sydney.
James and I must have passed each other in the street frequently. It was uncanny that our paths had followed such paralleled courses in Culcairn and Albury for a number of years.
Upon receiving wonderful support, following the publication of the April 2024 B.B.M. Newsletter, both from the B.B.M. office and from Cahrol, James Speed’s very helpful, daughter; clearing the way, for me to contact James, I rang him on the following day in Albury and we had a long conversation. You can just imagine how we talked enthusiastically after 70 years. We must have mentioned everybody in Culcairn in the 1950s who had touched our lives as young men, but realising with a sad awareness, that most of them were now gone, and that Culcairn had changed over the years from what it had been.
Apart from two very short visits to visit a couple of old sheep shearing sheds at “Kirndean” and “Walla Walla Station” some ten years ago, I had not been back to Culcairn. That is probably the reason why James Speed and I had such vivid recollections and memories of our earliest days in Culcairn and Australia. We exchanged stories as fresh, as if we had not met each other for a couple of days. I doubt if I shall ever talk to another human being in my lifetime after such a long gap of time, lasting more than 70 years, but if I do, I hope that our conversations will be as interesting and memorable as the one that I had with James Speed, my longtime friend, from Culcairn days.
BBM April 2024 newsletter featuring the story of James Speed.