LIFE IN THE MERCHANT NAVY
On leaving school, Ken’s ambition was to join the Merchant Navy. He tried to enter the Gravesend Sea School, but there was a waiting list and he had to seek alternative employment. He had a number of jobs: toolmaker’s apprentice, bricklayer’s labourer, stable boy, and milkman for the London Co-operative Society. Ken had turned seventeen and the war had ended before the Sea School accepted him and trained him as a cabin boy at a school at Sharpness in Gloucestershire.
It was some time after he had passed all the necessary tests that Ken was allocated a ship, the ‘British Hussar,’ which was to sail out of Gourock.
Ken purchased his first trumpet, a Selmer, and was able to practise regularly whilst at sea, something that was not entirely to the liking of his shipmates. Some help was forthcoming from the ship’s electrician, but Ken was not a good pupil and the electrician gave up. Ken tells us ‘I went on my rocky way, not knowing what key I was playing in. If I couldn’t remember a tune completely, I just invented bits to fit.’
After many adventures and a number of ships, Ken reached New York, where he was able to visit Eddie Condon’s club. He was overwhelmed by the playing of Wild Bill Davison, Pee Wee Russell and all the other men in the band. He also managed to hear Oscar Peterson in Montreal, considered by Ken to be ‘out of this world.’
Ken now had a guitar, which was popular with his shipmates, but trumpet practice continued to annoy them.
Bill Colyer, who had left the army and was now a fireman in the Merchant Navy, managed to join Ken for a couple of trips on the ‘Port Sydney.’ The two brothers had a lot of fun buying records in Buenos Aires and making their own music on the ship, Bill playing wire brushes on a suitcase accompanied by Les Mullocks, the second cook and baker, on banjo and, occasionally, the ship’s carpenter on guitar. They also had a ‘spasm’ band with kazoos, jugs and two guitars.
Ken came to realise that music, not the sea, was the greatest thing in his life, and knew that he would never be happy until he was leading a good jazz band. Ken’s playing ability had made steady progress and he was now ready to join the British jazz scene.
