A Steady Job

When I applied for a job with Irish Shipping Limited in the aftermath of World War Two, I did not realise that I was about to embark on an exciting and eventful career. Despite the glowing description of the comparatively young State company given by the gentleman who interviewed me, I was merely pleased to be offered employment at a time when jobs were scarce. His assurance that I was very privileged to be chosen for a position, as he called it, in which my prospects of advancement were almost guaranteed, I accepted with a show of gratitude. I resisted the temptation to point out how fortunate Irish Shipping was to get me for the bargain price of one pound sixteen shillings per week. This included a cost of living bonus of sixteen shillings so that my basic salary was one pound per week. It was only in later years that I came to regard the term, "cost of living bonus", as odd, if not sinister. Although the "position" did not cause me any undue excitement at the time, I did feel a certain sense of achievement in having secured what was then regarded as " a steady job with a pension", the ultimate ambition of the less adventurous school leaver in the late 1940's.

I might have been more circumspect had I then known what I discovered very much later regarding "my prospects" and although ignorance was not exactly bliss, it certainly helped. It transpired that the Board of Directors had made a significant decision concerning staff salaries shortly before I arrived at Irish Shipping Limited. Four clerical grades with applicable salary scales were established, ranging from Grade 4 to Grade 1 and obviously I was consigned to the bottom rung of a very short ladder. The scale for Grade 4 was £1 per week plus cost-of-living bonus of sixteen shillings per week with no readily apparent springboard for advancement beyond that point. The Grade 3 scale was £1 per week plus cost-of-living bonus increasing by five annual increments of five shillings per week to £2.5s per week plus cost-of-living bonus. The top Grade 1 scale was £3.15s. per week plus cost-of-living bonus increasing by four annual increments of five shillings per week to £4.15s. per week plus cost-of-living bonus. In making their decision, the Board decreed that "The classifications and salary scales were not for promulgation to the staff". Of course, workers in those days were not exposed to radical modern concepts such as " freedom of information".

The company had been incorporated in March, 1941, in order to acquire and operate ships that would bring essential foodstuffs and raw materials from overseas to meet the basic needs of the Irish people. I cannot say I knew very much about that prior to being told that the company had vacancies for bright young men such as myself. Like most Irish people at that time and, up to the present day in the case of most Irish people, the fact that we live on an island and that well over ninety per cent of our imports come, of necessity, by sea, did not unduly exercise my thought processes. Shortages; sub-standard food, such as the abominable brown bread that was standard fare at that time; gas masks; air-raid shelters, Vera Lynn and the local defence force, largely dominated my wartime memories. My appreciation, even my knowledge of our merchant fleet was almost non-existent. However, my arrival as a valued staff member at Irish Shipping wrought a significant transformation in my maritime education and that education was to continue for much longer than I could have ever dreamed. Indeed, I remained on board for thirty-eight years and, metaphorically speaking, I eventually 'went down with my shipping company'. The voyage was both interesting and educational even up to its final dramatic denouement although, when I joined the company, the first very proud chapter in its history had already ended.

Before I joined Irish Shipping Limited, I would have regarded the term "deep-sea" ships as a good example of tautology since it would have been my innocent perception that all ships needed deep water to remain afloat. However, my new found colleagues soon put me straight by pointing out that we, the company, operated ocean-going ships whereas coasters and short-sea traders were only "boats". We were a "deep-sea" company and this realisation gave me a feeling of some superiority so that the glowing description of the company, which I was given at my original interview, now seemed utterly reasonable. I also accepted without question the veracity of the company's advertising slogan of that period which boldly proclaimed 'the world is our oyster'. However, some fifteen months earlier there was the Second World War, which was referred to by the quaint euphemism of that time as the "Emergency". It was this "Emergency" which had provided the "slipway" for the launch of Irish Shipping Limited.