Going home from Angola

In 1963 my father's three year contract in Luanda, Angola, was up, and though he was offered an extension (and expat terms were very good, as the salary included housing, and schooling costs) it was decided that we would return to the UK. My sister would be 12 later that year and higher education for foreigners meant boarding school in Rhodesia, something that some of the other expats did, but my parents were reluctant to send their daughter to another country for 9 months of the year!
Dad had been offered a very good job back in England with the company he worked for, so we booked a passage by sea back to the UK. We had travelled out in 1960 on a small passenger liner called the Thysville, but our return was to be on an even smaller tramp steamer, the SS Vikaren, which only had 6 passenger cabins, being primarily a freight ship. Tramp steamers are so called as they do not have a fixed schedule, though this one plied the route between Holland and Angola, but varied the stopping ports depending on the cargo.

The SS Vikaren at anchor

When we boarded in Luanda there was another couple on board already, but they disembarked at our first stop, Lobito (also in Angola), so from then on we were the only passengers on board. The ship was Swedish registered and most of the senior crew were Swedish, and with my Mum being Danish she was able to easily converse with them, and once the other passengers left we were invited to dine with the officers from then on. The ship had a small saloon with easy chairs and a record player, and I recall that Doris Day was one of the few English language records.
The main cargo was some kind of animal feed destined for Freetown, in Sierra Leone, but we did stop off at some other places on the way to unload cargo, and our first destination was São Tomé, a small Portuguese island off the coast of Gabon.

The ship anchored offshore 

Being a Portuguese territory we had no problems with language and booked a taxi to take us a short tour of the island.

Central São Tomé, I think

Washing day

Waterfall on the island - taxi guide on the right!

We were only moored for a day or so, then set off again towards Freetown, Sierra Leone, where the majority of the cargo - and, we found later, most of the sailors - were being "unloaded". As it was not a passenger liner there was not a lot to do on board, no organised entertainment (though they did occasionally raise a cargo hatch cover at night and project a film onto this makeshift "screen"), no pool, and so on, but as long as I was careful I was allowed pretty much carte blanche to wander wherever I wanted, and soon came across a group of sailors painting the deck. Apparently each voyage between ports, when there was not much for the deck crew to do, they did some maintenance, and it wasn't long before I was jokingly handed a paint brush and invited to join in - the officer in charge had no objection, and from then until Freetown as soon as I finished breakfast I would go and find the crew and help with the painting!! It made a strange sight - a small (9 year old) English boy working alongside burly African sailors, but I persevered almost every day until lunchtime! When they were being paid off in Freetown, receiving bags of rice, flour and salt as well as their final pay, they spotted me standing with my family - Dad was taking some photos - and they shouted to the quartermaster that he should pay me too for the work I had done!

Unloading in Freetown, and loading a new cargo

Berthed in Freetown

Drop net fishing in Freetown

We had noticed a lot of small fish milling around the docks in Freetown, and mentioned it to one of the officers as I was interested in seeing if we could do some fishing, so he dispatched one of the cooks with a drop net, and we caught a lot of small fish, which were then cooked for dinner later!
I had my 10th birthday on board, which I thought would be a very quiet affair as we were the only passengers, but we had a small party thrown by the officers and I received a few gifts, the only one I recall being a stamp catalogue (the Swedish equivalent of Stanley Gibbons!) by the Radio Officer (Sparky!), who was also a stamp collector and we had spent some pleasant hours discussing our collections! It was obviously in Swedish, which I didn't understand, but had a lot of detail about what to look for in "rarer" stamps (missing watermarks or perforations, design not straight, etc.) so was very useful.
Our next - and final stop before Rotterdam - was Dakar, the capital of Senegal - where some more cargo was unloaded. We again anchored offshore and the cargo, and us, was ferried ashore.

Approaching Dakar 

Cargo being taken ashore by barge and tug

Locals paddled out on canoes to sell produce

 As in many ports throughout the world as soon as you anchored or moored a flotilla of canoes would appear and mill round trying to sell, primarily, fresh produce, but here it was mainly souvenirs and local craft goods. They would throw up a rope with a basket attached and you would pull it up, inspect the contents and then haggle over a price - if you were happy you returned the empty basket with your payment in it!! The prices were, to me, ridiculously cheap, and far less than what you would pay in a stall on land!

More vessels, some with sails, unloading cargo

Railway Station in Dakar

We have travelled twice to Africa by ship - in 1960 on the way to Angola, and again in 1967 (though, of course, this was to come later) when we (at least Mum, my sister and I, as Dad had flown out earlier to start his new job) - and on both occasions my sister and I had been really ill with sea-sickness, especially through the Bay of Biscay, which is notorious for high seas. However by the time we reached the Bay this time we were so accustomed to the movement of the ship that we passed through with no problems, though the chairs in the saloon had been chained to the floor, though not before Mum went flying one day! I had also wondered why the mess tables had upstands all round, and the decanters had wide flat bases, and that also became evident in the rougher seas - though they had also placed some non-stick mats on the tables so we didn't lose our plates!
We were given an African Grey Parrot, Jacko, while in Angola and he accompanied us on our journey home. We had to get all the paperwork sorted out prior to leaving, but as he was not leaving the ship until Rotterdam, and then just between the ship and the ferry across to the UK, we were informed that he needed nothing special, but would be quarantined upon arrival in the UK (I do not actually recall if this was the case then, but research implies it was!). We had a large wooden "cage" built with steel bars so he could see out, and he stayed in the same cabin as my sister and I. He was generally a fairly quiet bird, but a good talker, though my father was the only family member who could handle him, but feeding him was not a problem. He chewed his way out of the wooden cage, though, en route and that did become a problem, until the crew managed to make some running repairs!
One thing we hadn't realised though was that when we landed in Rotterdam we had to take a train to The Hague to catch the ferry, and this meant that Jacko was technically imported into Holland, so subject to their strict animal import laws! There followed a long discussion between my parents and the Dutch authorities, and eventually - as long as we kept him in a covered cage at all times - they allowed us to make the train journey to The Hague, where it was quite a rush to catch the ferry. We arrived back in the UK at the end of one of the worst winters on record, and after the warmth of Africa it was bitterly cold for us.
Our first African adventure had been an amazing experience for me, and was probably the start of my love for travel and foreign places.

(Footnote: I may have some of the photos incorrectly captioned - my father took all these on a 35mm slide camera, and I later scanned them all digitally, but most were not labelled, so I have had to try and remember - 55 years later - which belonged where, and, especially the "offshore" ones, may be wrong, but were definitely from that trip!)