Bob Servant (5 page)

Alf got all the boys together and reeled off these stories about going round the world and some of the sights he'd seen. He talked about how he'd been to islands where the local women wore grass skirts and Frank and I nearly keeled over when he described them. I mean, if you'd made grass skirts for some of the women that Frank I are were chasing in those days you'd be talking about rolling up bowling greens but the way Alf Whicker put it we were going to have a cracker of a wife in every port. ‘Hopefully not in Tayport!' I joked and Alf Whicker told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn't allowed to make jokes.

He was a tough guy, was Alf Whicker. He talked so much about foreign places that Frank and I used to say that he wasn't really Alf Whicker, he was Tony Whicker
²⁰
off the television but we always kept our voices down.

Things started not too bad for me and Frank at the Merchant
Navy. The first few weeks was rope stuff, learning the bits of boats and reading maps. It was when we had what's called the On Land Exam after three months that everything went wobbly. Guess whose fault that was?

Frank had promised me he'd been paying attention. After every day I'd say, ‘So you got that?' and he'd tap the side of his head and say ‘Locked down, Bob, locked down.' Soon I'd learn that if Frank taps his head and says anything at all it should be cause for alarm but back then I was still learning and probably enjoying the course too much to notice Frank was toiling.

Unfortunately for me, the two of us had been paired up and you had to sit the exams together. The night before the exam I suggested we go over a few things and Frank got a bit nervous. Then I started testing him and he folded like a pack of cards. He was crying and kind of hitting himself quite hard in the legs and calling himself stupid and saying he was hopeless and all this.

I have to say I didn't handle it brilliantly. For the first hour or two I was largely agreeing with him and suggesting other things he should call himself and other places he should hit himself. Then I realised that he was going to take me down with him and I suppose seeing any man like that does something to you, so I told Frank to pull himself together and we started revising. We were up most of the night and even on the bus to the training centre I was showing him knots.

Alf Whicker got everyone together and explained the process. The On Land Exam was one day and if you passed you got to do the Open Water Exam the next day at the Monikie Reservoir. If you passed that you were in, you got your uniform and you were off to the High Seas. ‘And you know what happens there, don't you, lads?” said Alf Whicker and gave one of those winks that weather forecasters do when they want you to know they're really talking about sex.

First up was the maps and I managed to sneak Frank a look at my sheet so we got through that OK. Then was the parts of boats which I had written right up Frank's arm and he managed to not make it too obvious he was looking. Then came the knots and Alf Whicker announced we all had to do a reverse rolling hitch double bend which, as some of you might know, is the Hitler of the knot world. It's an absolute bugger of a thing to do and it took me a good while to get mine together. By the time I turned round to help Frank it was all too late.

To this day I don't know how he managed to do what he'd done. The rope was in these big wild loops on the floor and then all over Frank. He'd got one of his feet tied up near his arse, his other leg had the rope wrapped round his knee and then his upper body was twisted to the side because the rope was round his neck. He was sweating badly, possibly because of the pressure of the exam or possibly because of the rope round his neck and was kind of whispering, ‘Help me, Bob, Jesus, Bob, help me,' over and over again.

Before I could sort it out Alf Whicker shouted ‘You!' and marched over to Frank. I was already starting to pack up my things and Frank, surprise surprise, had already started to cry when Alf Whicker asked ‘When did you go to Tahiti?'

It turned out that Frank had tied an arrangement that was an exact replica of something used by dolphin fishermen in Tahiti. Whicker told us they tied themselves like that so they're not thrown off their canoes when they hook a dolphin and that it had taken him two months to learn how to tie the knot himself. Frank was gibbering away, and his leg was clearly losing circulation, so I cleverly stepped in and said that Frank and I had learnt it together from a fisherman in Arbroath.

Alf looked at us both, said he'd never been prouder, and that he'd see us tomorrow at Monikie Reservoir. What a moment. Frank and I were singing on the bus home that night and the next day we rolled up at Monikie, one day away from joining the Merchant Navy.

_________________________

19
OK, disregard all previous references to the television presenter Alan Whicker. Bob was indeed referring to an Alf Whicker.

20
I think Bob is referring to the television presenter Alan Whicker.

One day, that's all we had to do. One day and we'd be in the Merchant Navy. Christ, even now I get hot and bothered thinking about that day at Monikie. I go up there sometimes, for a nice walk with skirt or to have a wee fish with a pal and every time I'll say, ‘Did I ever tell you when Frank fucked up the Merchant Navy for me here?' Usually my pal will say, ‘Yeah, you have.' Sometime the pal's Frank and if it is then I make him listen to it all over again.

We got there early and each pair was given a rowing boat and a map. There were all these buoys in the reservoir and you had to go between them in a certain route while Alf Whicker watched from the shore. We set off and it seemed we were doing OK. Frank did the navigating and I pulled away at the oars with my muscles and I have to say I was quietly confident at that point because none of the other boats seemed to be anywhere near us. Then we went round a buoy and Frank turned really quiet. He took out the emergency paddle and tied it to the side of the boat pointing outwards. I asked what he was doing and he stood up and passed me the map.

‘I've been holding it upside down, Bob,' he told me, and I saw that he had. I was angry but more confused and I asked again what he was doing. ‘I've let you down for the last time, Bob,' he said. ‘I'm walking the plank.'

Sometimes Frank does something so stupid that I genuinely don't know what to say and that was probably the first such occasion. Before I had a chance to stop him he said, ‘Let them eat cake,' stepped onto the paddle and upended the entire boat. The cold of the water was a bit of a shock but the truth of the matter is that we weren't exactly in much danger. I think that's what has always annoyed me the most
about Frank walking the plank, the fact that we were about five yards from shore at the time. Back when it was popular, walking the plank was one of the most dangerous things you could do at sea but you're not exactly going to get picked off by sharks five yards from shore. Not at Monikie.

Anyway, Alf Whicker pulled us out, called us a disgrace and sent us packing. I've had some depressing bus journeys in my life but that one has to be right up there, seeing as I was dripping wet, kicked out the Merchant Navy and sitting next to Frank. I didn't speak to him the whole way home and sent him to Coventry for a week which of course he misunderstood and his mum only just got to the train station in time.

I still call him Frank The Plank to remind him but to be honest I think that's lenient because what a start the Merchant Navy could have given me, both in my life and in becoming a Hero. It was my chance to see the world and Frank stole it from me. Don't get me wrong – I went to Newcastle for Tommy Peanut's Divorce Party, and there was a lot of talk in the nineties about Spain but it came to nothing after Frank lost his passport in a door-to-door confidence scam.

But that's not really seeing the world and even if I'd just gone round the world then came back to Dundee I'd have had a great reception. When Chappy Williams went to Canada to see his uncle people talked about him like he was Christopher Columbus and the guy only went because he got the tickets free with his Hoover. But that's what it's like in Dundee – people admire anyone from the city who goes on and grabs international glory because so few of us have cracked it. Off the top of my head I can only think of Brian Cox, Gorgeous George Galloway and that guy from Monifieth who throttled a waiter in Magaluf.
²¹
That's a gang that I should have been part of and I would have been if it wasn't for Frank The Plank.

The world would have been my oyster. More to the point, I might have made some black pals.

_________________________

21
See
The Dundee Courier
, 4 May 1987 – ‘
Shifty Spaniard Tricks Monifieth Man Into So-called Strangling'.

I'm going to put this one in here before I forget. I don't have any black pals whatsoever, and, let me tell you this, it's not through lack of trying. For longer than I care to remember I have tried like a bastard to get myself a friend who's a bit more exotic than the average and all I've ended up doing is running into brick walls. I won't hear a word said against Dundee as a city but there's no doubt that we don't have the exciting mix of other places. To be fair, things are getting a bit more interesting now but for years if a black guy popped up in Dundee it was like Beatlemania and we'd be all over him like a cheap suit.

In 1972 we were out doing the windows when Frank got hit on the head by a bucket. There was just the two of us there, and I was directly above him at the time but to this day I won't take any responsibility for insurance reasons. As I've told him over the years when these things crop up, there is his truth, my truth and the insurance form.

However it happened, Frank caught a bucket square on the napper and went down like he'd been shot. Considering how often he fell off the ladder it wasn't exactly a cause for concern so I patched him up using my spare vest but he whined away like he always does and I had to drive him up to Ninewells Hospital. We're talking about the seventies, when the NHS got itself into hot water and brought over a few boys from Africa to help with the waiting lists.
²²
Frank was away with the fairies from the bang on his head so I was having a bit
of fun with him, telling him it was Christmas Day and he'd won the Spot The Ball and so on, when this African doctor popped up.

Frank and I were gobsmacked and I have to say I was a little tongue-tied. I managed to get that he was from Kenya but after that it was really just business. I did get one joke in. When he was bandaging up Frank's face I told him to wrap the whole lot up because I was sick of looking at it. It was only a wee joke, just something to get the ball rolling really, but he didn't have the chance to come back with a joke of his own because Frank started playing up. He was an absolute disgrace – giggling away at everything the doctor said and then making sure to give his phone number to the doctor who said about five times that he didn't need it.

For the next week or two Frank was unbearable. Every time his phone went he said, ‘Oh, that might be my Kenyan pal,' and then he announced that he didn't want to watch
Zulu
on Sunday afternoons anymore because he had ‘split loyalties'. He was completely smitten and I suppose I should hold my hands up to a degree and say that he wasn't alone.

I had started secretly hanging about Ninewells looking for the doctor. When I write that now I'm fairly embarrassed but it was a decision that I made at the time and I just have to deal with it. The guy had got into my head and sometimes that's the way it is with new pals.

It took a few trips but eventually I spotted him leaving one evening. I followed him to the bus stop where he caught the 18 to Lochee. That's the wrong side of town for me but I wasn't thinking straight. The next night I got on the 18 one stop up so when he arrived I was ready for him with the old ‘Oh, it's yourself, I was just thinking about you there' routine. He was a bit surprised and I sort of had to remind him who I was but after that it wasn't too bad.

It became a daily thing and after a week or two we were running out of conversation. Well, I was anyway, he didn't really have much to start with. He was never up for a quick drink. I asked every night and started getting off at his stop to put on the pressure. He wouldn't even entertain the idea, even the day I said I'd lost my keys and it would maybe make sense for me to stay at his house. Fair enough, some guys don't like going for a drink but I still think it's totally out of order to just walk away when a man tells you something like that. Particularly when he's crying.

Luckily that night really shook me back to my senses and I left him alone afterwards. There's been bits and pieces with other guys over the years but nothing concrete. I put up a sign at Safeways looking for a black pal but they took it down because of discrimination, which didn't add up. There was a Turkish guy who worked at The Fort bar who I had a bit of a chat with on occasion but only ever as part of a larger group and it was never just me and him. Chappy's uncle came over from Canada for the Millennium and I got on well with him. He wasn't black though.

My point here, and it's an important one, is that I always think that I'd have traditionally been seen as more of a man of the world if I'd had black pals. I could have got some early doors through the Merchant Navy and that doctor would have been absolutely perfect but it didn't work out in either case and there's no doubt that's cost me. I mean, you look at the guys I've hung about with over the years and they're not exactly the Harlem Globetrotters.

_________________________

22
See
The Dundee Courier
, 15 May 1972 – ‘
Do We Ken-ya Face?'
and 26 May 1972 –
‘A Mala-wee Surprise for Local Woman
, (“I went in for my veins but felt like I was on an exciting safari holiday” said Dorothy Chambers, 57.)'.