Maritime volunteer, Julie Corbett interviewed John Wilkinson who talks about his career as a marine engineer.
I was delighted when Mr John Wilkinson offered to tell me about his time as an apprentice marine engineer. John began working at Charles D. Holmes. That was 1956. C. D. Holmes was a Hull-based general marine engineering company.
The company employed numerous people in the shipbuilding, marine engineering and boiler-making industry. C.D Holmes fitted out many trawlers including the Arctic Corsair. (read more about her restoration here)
Some of John’s family members worked in the trawling industry. John’s grandfather was a ship’s husband (arranging the hiring crew for trawl owners) and John’s father was a cook on a trawler. John sailed on the same fishing trawler with his father to Icelandic waters three times while still at school.
This was not supposed to happen but was not an uncommon practice within Hull’s fishing fleet. He was told to stay below deck while the ship left St. Andrew’s Dock.
His first trip was memorable because he was seasick for days. John spent most of his time helping in the ship's galley. John said how pleased he was to receive a share of a particular perk of fishing on these trips. I had heard of this custom and was delighted to hear about it first-hand.
As a catch was processed the cod livers were collected and the radio operator boiled them in an area at the stern of the ship. This process produced unrefined cod liver oil. This was sold on return to port and the crew shared the proceeds, including John.
As a fifteen-year-old apprentice, John began his work experience with mail collection and deliveries between the offices and departments of C. D Holmes. John's work experience included attending college.
As part of the apprenticeship, John became familiar with many activities in manufacturing parts for a ship. After about two years he then joined the drawing office.
While in the drawing office, John worked on the plans for the Arctic Corsair. Today plans would involve computer-aided design, printers, 3-D printing and maybe virtual reality modelling but in the late fifties, plans were first drawn on linen-based tracing cloth.
The Arctic Corsair was built for the Boyd Line, by Cook, Gemmel & Welton Ltd, Beverley. The East Riding Archive have a dedicated area about this shipbuilder here.
John explained the hull and deck superstructure plans are called ‘the general arrangement’ and those were on his drawing board for three months as all the fitting-out drawings were made. Every aspect of the build was detailed, and all these drawings were then transferred to tracing paper to be scaled up for the actual components.
The Arctic Corsair was launched sideways into the river Hull from Beverley in February 1960 and towed to Princes Dock, Hull. In the dock, all the additional fixtures including a Mirlees Monarch six-cylinder diesel engine were fitted.
John was invited to the Arctic Corsair sea trials. These were in the North Sea. There is a photograph of John during the trial on the deck here.
After completing his apprenticeship John joined the Merchant Navy for two years. He sailed on general cargo ships; he recalled taking washing machines to New Zealand and Australia and bringing fruit back in the holds.
After his time in the Merchant Navy, John rejoined C.D Holmes moving from the drawing office to work within sales and procurement. When he left in 1965, he went to the car manufacturing industry and moved away from the area. In the years before he returned to the area, he continued to follow Hull City Football Club making a round trip of around 300 miles to watch a home game.
