First Inklings

(or how I discovered my sea-legs....)

It all goes back to when I was about 9 years old because it was then that I was on holiday with my parents in North Wales and we had travelled from Rhyl to Llandudno to see the famous Great Orme, the rocky headland jutting out to sea and dominating the Edwardian sea-front and its cast-iron pier. As memory serves me, it was raining...........

The black & white easel at the pier entrance announced that the Liverpool & North Wales Steamship Company was operating two pleasure steamers that week. One was the little St Trillo, all of 150 feet long and 314 gross tons, while the other was the St Tudno, pride of the fleet at 2,326 gross tons and 319 feet long. They were both quite old ships by this time, however; St Trillo had begun life in 1936 as the St Silio, while St Tudno dated from 1926 and was already 35 years old. There were a number of excursions on different days and I think that because they had done it before on their own while I was away at school, the trip my parents were interested in was the one to Puffin Island and the Isle of Anglesey. However, it had been wet and windy all week and this was not to be. All excursions were cancelled because of the bad weather.

We came back the next day, only to discover that things were just as bad. On the third day, the weather had eased a little but not enough; all excursions were still cancelled. However, they announced that they were going to run the St Tudno to Douglas in the Isle of Man, as it had been a week since her last mail-delivery trip. This was not quite what my parents originally had in mind but it was the last opportunity we were going to get to take a steamer trip before our holiday was over and since I had set my heart on going on a 'big boat' for the first time, I did not want to be cheated out of it by something as insignificant as lousy weather! I was rather a sickly child at this time and my Mum & Dad thought that the sea air would do me good. And I suspect that they figured that the rough weather would quell my tantrums - somewhat in evidence by this time.

The trip from Llandudno to Douglas, Isle of Man, was 54 miles and was supposed to take about three and a half hours. It is a measure of the weather that my first sea voyage actually took four and a half hours, much to the dismay of my parents who, while not actually sea-sick themselves, were obliged to huddle on deck in the biting wind and spray, unable to bear the awful smell of warm air, wet clothes and vomit which greeted you at the top of the stairs leading to the comfort of the saloon below.

Neither could I really, but I was thrilled and raced back and forth, thoroughly excited by the power of the waves crashing over the bows as the steadfast St Tudno ploughed on through the grey and heaving sea. To me, this was the first 'real ship' I had been on and I had never previously 'been to sea'. The huge buff funnel belching grey smoke and the big round ventilators seemed to dwarf a little boy. I was captivated. Every few minutes, I would return to my parents to find out what else there was to eat from the picnic my Mum had packed for us. There was plenty for me, of course, because neither of them could contemplate eating under such conditions. But I was in my element, my curly ginger hair covered in spray and even more tousled than ever, my cheeks rosy for the first time in two years and not a care in the world.

I did venture below decks to explore but even I had to avoid the main lounges because of the stench of sea-sick. At one point, I found myself down an illicit passageway, quite lost. Well, what nine year-old boy is going to take notice of a little 'Crew Only' sign? I was befriended by a crewman, who must have taken a shine to me because he took my hand and showed me inside the engine room before pointing me back in the right direction. Such innocence; you couldn't think of such things today but then, this was 'The Good Old Days'.


By the time we arrived at Douglas on the Isle of Man, Mum & Dad were so relieved to be on dry land at last. Unbeknown to me, they were both dreading the return journey while all I was interested in was when we could get back to sea again! In fact, we were so late by this time that we had barely enough time ashore to find somewhere dry and warm, where we could get a cup of tea before we had to go back aboard. So I don't remember much about the Isle of Man. I do recall that the return trip was much calmer and not as eventful as the outward journey, for which my Mum & Dad were truly thankful. I remember too the wonderful sight of the twinkling lights of Llandudno and the silhouette of the Great Orme against the evening summer sky as we approached the pier at the end of our day out. I was hooked!


Sadly, the Liverpool and North Wales Steamship Company went into voluntary liquidation at the end of the following season in 1962. The little St Trillo was sold and continued doing excursions from Llandudno but the St Tudno was too old and too expensive to run, so it was sold for scrap at the hands of a breaker's yard in Holland.