John Delach

“Queen Soraya of Persia sailed with us. Married to Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, King of Iran in 1951; he divorced her in 1958 on the grounds that she was infertile. She would not dine in the dining room unless she could bring her two dogs with her. A compromise was reached where she and her dogs would dine at off hours when nobody else was there. That is except us. We would peek in at her to watch her eat.

“One time the head waiter took me aside and said, ‘John, you have a famous man coming on board. I’m sure you’ve heard of him, George Formby.’

“Of course, I knew who he was. George Formby was a British comedy actor, singer-songwriter and comedian who had been a star of English stage and screen in the 1930s and 1940s. I had seen his films especially; When I’m Cleaning Windows, back in Ireland when I was growing up. I remembered him as being a tall, slim fellow, but his movies were a bit old by the time I saw them. I was excited to see him until he came on board. He must have weighed 300 pounds and he was bald! Certainly not the same man I remembered and I was terribly disappointed.

“The Queen Mary had captured the Blue Riband in 1936 becoming the fastest ship to cross the Atlantic, a record the vessel held until the brand- new SS United States beat it in 1952 on its maiden voyage. We believed even after this happened that the Queen Mary could have re-gained the riband if Cunard would give permission to open it up. But management said no and abided by their advertising slogan: ‘Getting there is half the fun.’           

“When a ship arrived in New York Harbor, it would have to anchor at an area designated by Customs and Immigration as a “Quarantine Zone” until the inspectors were satisfied that the ship was disease-free and cleared the ship to enter the port. In the late 1950s, there was a bad case of the Asian Flu and several ships were not allowed in.

“A small boat came out to meet every ship. On board this tender were a doctor, immigration officer and the pilot who would navigate the ship into the harbor and to its dock. The doctor went down to the sick bay to see who was sick and what ailed them. If he determined there was disease on the ship, he would order the yellow flag to be raised quarantining the vessel. Once quarantined, the ship was forbidden to dock until the doctor cleared it. 

“The Queen Elizabeth was so large that once cleared, it could not enter the harbor unless the tide was flowing in. The pilot had to navigate the ship through a narrow channel in the center of the Hudson River. The ship’s boson actually steered the ship and he took his orders from the pilot and not the captain.

“One time, the tug boats that guided the ship from the channel and up along-side the pier were on strike when we arrived in New York. The captain announced that he would bring the Queen Elizabeth in himself without assistance. He did it, brought the liner in without any tug boats and successfully tied up to the pier without damaging either the ship or the pier. It was a great achievement. Of course, he would have lost his command if anything had gone wrong.

“Back in those days, my good friend, Paddy Reilly, had a bar on Spring Street called the Emerald. It was a hangout for “dockees” (longshoreman) and harbor pilots. The pilots’ office was next door and the pilots would tell the boys what ships were coming in and where they would dock. He’d say, “The Queen Elizabeth is docking at Pier 95.” and they’d all rush uptown. The docks were Mafia controlled and the “shape-up” guy would call out the names of the men who would be working that day. At that time, if you knew your way around, which I did, there was a place near to Pier 95 in Hells’ Kitchen called the Market Diner. At the back of the Market Diner there was a little room where you could go to buy bottles of whiskey, cigarettes and nylon stockings. Nylon stockings were a great thing which we used to smuggle back home because you couldn’t get them in England or Ireland.

“All of these products came to the little room thanks to the longshoreman who loaded and unloaded the ships. They would take a few cases of whiskey, cigarettes, nylons stockings, etc. The ship’s crew knew what was going on but they couldn’t do anything about it. If the dockees worked slowly they could keep the ship in port and cost the liner substantial overtime fees. The men in charge had no choice but to turn a blind eye to the pilfering.

“The movie, On the Waterfront, reminded me of an awful lot of things that went down at that time. The piers were a great place for ex-boxers, people who were punch drunk. It was sad to see these big, strong fellows working on the docks carrying heavy loads and some of them didn’t even know where they were. Their wives would bring them down early in the morning and they’d be there carrying loads up and down until the shift ended.

“One time after we arrived in Southampton, I went down to London to get film for a camera. The fellow in the shop asked me where I had gotten my camera. I told him, ‘I got it in Japan.’

“He asked, ‘Would you be able to get me a couple of those cameras?’

“I told him that I could and he said he would pay me well if I did. The next time I was in Japan I bought several cameras, but then I thought how am I going to get them home and off the ship? I had to strike up an idea to get them passed customs on the dock. I took one of the cameras out of its case and put it around my neck. Holding onto an envelope, I went to the agent on the pier and asked him where a post office was where I could mail it. He checked the bag I was carrying gave me directions and let me go. I went to a nearby train station, rented a locker and stashed the camera in the locker. I did this, three or four times when there was a different agent at the gate. And that’s how I made a bit of money on the side by smuggling the cameras.”

ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN will not publish on December 26, 2023 but will return on January 3, 2024 when I will send out Part 3 of Papa John’s experiences on the Queen Mary

Introduction and Part One

In 2011, I self-published my fifth and final anthology of pieces I had written from 2001 to 2010. I gave it the title, The Big Orange Dog and Other Stories. Shaun Clancy, the salon keeper of Foley’s NY Pub & Restaurant located on 33^rd Street offered me the opportunity to have a book signing in his sports bar.

Shaun asked me would I be willing to record and transcribe his father’s life-experiences, an amazing collection of extraordinary stories.

Of course, I agreed.

At times, it was like pulling teeth, but we finished our mission in 2013, when we published: Never Say: I Can’t.

 When John finished school, his father set him up to move to London and become an apprentice at a pub in London. Too young to serve alcohol, he was relegated to being the lowest of the low in the pub’s hierarchy. Essentially, he fell into being an indentured servant who was treated like a dog. Once he turned, 18, John made his escape by signing on as an ordinary seaman in the British Merchant Marine. Unfortunately, his choices were few and he picked an old dog to be his first assignment, the  SS Otronto. This passenger ship was built in 1926 and had been relegated to becoming aa immigration ship carrying failed Brits to Australia, only to return those Brits who failed in Australia back home again on return voyages.

John made three voyages between Australia and London as a steward because of his experience apprenticing in that London Pub. He was promoted from the Otronto to the modern Orcades, the Orient Lines first post-Second War liner completed in 1948.

John Clancy joined the Cunard Lines in 1957, first as a steward on the RMS Mauretania. Eventually, he was assigned to the RMS Queen Elizabeth.

RMS Queen Mary and the Elizabeth were two sister ships, that while different in appearance, were similar in size. The Queen Mary went into service in 1936 with a tonnage of 81,237 and a length of 1,019 feet (310 meters) while the Queen Elizabeth, which went into service in 1940, was 83,673 gross tons with a length of 1,031 feet (314 meters) that went into service in 1940, both Queens were converted to troop ships for the duration of the Second World War. When the war ended they were refurbished and returned to trans- Atlantic service. 

Cunard Lines demanded the same degree of service from the staff on both vessels. The Queen Elizabeth was the flagship of the Cunard fleet and its designation of RMS stood for Royal Mail Ship. All of the transatlantic mail was carried on the Queen Elizabeth and its sister ships which heavily subsidized the cost of operating them. This was a double-edged sword because the line was restricted in the amount of the profits they could make so long as they held these mail contracts. It was only when the contracts ended that the ships made serious money for the owners. But by then the two Queens were gone and the newer ships were mainly cruise ships and not transatlantic liners.

The service on board the Queens was unbelievable. The First-Class dining rooms had a restaurant manager, a station captain at each table who took all of the orders and a wine steward who, funny enough, had the title “Baths and Wine.”  In addition to being the wine expert who would describe the different wines and offer samples to the passengers, he ran the baths. Back then the Queens didn’t have showers or bath tubs in the cabins, even in First Class. The passengers had to share the baths and, to reserve a bath; they had to book it with this steward.

“We had to be experienced and well-trained to qualify to be First Class waiters. The menus were all in French, believe it or not, but we didn’t have to take the order; we had to serve the food. We would have to carve the roasts and serve all of the ingredients. The greatest number of guests we would have at the table would be 10 people. Each table would be served by a station captain, two waiters and a busboy.   

“The food was wonderful. Before we set out to sea on a new voyage, we would arrange a grand display of food in the dining room for the passengers to review. All kinds of fresh fish were set out displayed in ice flanked by ice sculptures carved into the images of mermaids and other creatures. Every type of food you could think about was displayed.

“Lunch was special too in the First-Class Dining Room. A passenger could order anything they wanted at lunch. If someone asked for Irish stew or something like that, you’d have it. It was the same at dinner. The chef would come into the dining room at 3 pm every day to meet with any passengers who had special requests so that he could start the process of preparing their special meal for that evening. There were also two restaurants for the first-class passengers as good as any top-rated restaurant in New York, but the passengers had to pay for these meals and they were quite expensive.”

To be continued

Little Richard passed in April of 2020 at 87. RIP: Richard Wayne Penniman.

In 1955, he exploded out of the Rhythm & Blues (R&B) backwaters of the deep South and crashed into the early days of rock and roll with his hit song: Tutti Frutti. Granted, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Bo Didley had previously crossed over from R&B to white rock, but Little Richard initiated a revolution and rightfully deserves to be called the Godfather of Rock and Roll!

As Tim Weiner explained in his New York Times obituary: “Little Richard, pounding the piano furiously and screaming as if for his very life, raised the energy level several notches and created something not quite like any music that had been heard before – something new, thrilling and more than a little dangerous.”  

Dangerous, indeed: Take my favorite Little Richard tune: Long Tall Sally. Most renditions muted the theme of the song that Uncle John was having an extra marital affair with Sally. The significant verse is:

Well, long tall Sally

She’s built for speed, she got

Everything that Uncle John need.

This verse was altered to:

Well long tall Sally’s

Kind of sweet, she got

Everything that Arkansas need.

Really! If it’s about Arkansas, then why did Uncle John have to duck back in the alley when he saw Aunt Mary coming?

But I digress. I was on my way home alone on a Friday afternoon at the end of another London business trip. (I made over a one hundred from 1976 to 2000.)

Seeking a hidden treasure, I stopped at the bookstore in the Heathrow’s Terminal Three. Luck was with me as I discovered a cassette featuring the mid-century R&B entertainers / song writers who became the roots of rock and roll.

Of course, Little Richard was one and the tape featured four of his songs: Good Golly Miss Molly, Lucille, Tutti Frutti and Long Tall Sally.

Pleased with my discovery, I made my way to the British Airways lounge to relax, have a bloody Mary and listen to my new tape as I waited for my flight to be called for boarding. When I saw it flashing on the departure board, I left the club and headed for my gate.

Back in the day, BA’s gates for flights to America were a long distance from the club. From repetition, I knew my gate’s location, so I strolled along the corridors listening to these great singers filling my headphones with songs like Long Tall Sally.

I was in the groove by the time I reached the gate. Cassette player off, I received my boarding pass. I thanked the agent and made my way on to the jetway. As I stepped onto the 747, I offered my boarding pass to the flight attendant at the door who examined it and directed me to my seat.

I began my usual drill to settle in for the long flight home. I removed the items I expected to use during this flight before I put my carry-on into the overhead.

Suddenly, I heard the following announcement: “Would John Delach please identify himself?”

I rang my call button identifying my location.

“Mister Delach, may I see your boarding pass?”

I handed it to the flight attendant. She examined it, then asked, “Where are you traveling to with us today?” (Got to love Brit-speak!)

“New York’s JFK”

“I see. The problem is the destination for this airplane is Boston. It seems that you boarded the flight at Gate 73. Our British Airways flight to JFK is at Gate 75.”

Fortunately, time was on my side, the correct gate was only one away and this crew had alerted the JFK crew that I was on my way.

“Long Tall Sally” had been my undoing but I wasn’t the only one asleep at the switch that Friday afternoon.