Jack's Log: All at Sea in the 1920s & 30s

Jack went to sea when he was 17, as a newly qualified Radio Operator. It was 1919, just after the end of the First World War. There were still a few mines floating about.

They didn't hit any mines, but they did hit bottom a few times and had trouble with ice, fog, gales and fires. All part of the routine life, jobbing around the world for the best part of two decades, delivering cargo in a series of ships.

They were small ships by modern standards, mainly driven by steam piston engines, fuelled by coal and not very fast. Cargo was often in bags, loaded and unloaded by hand. A slow process made even slower if cargo had to be ferried to or from shore in lighters.

Jack kept a log - where they started, what the cargo was, where they were and when. It's dispassionate but every now and then the going was obviously tricky. This book quotes from the log and draws from it, to get a feel for what life was like, what the sea was like and what shipping was like, all those years ago.