Halfway down the World!

... Just this minute, heard on the radio; a topic close to this old prospector’s heart – GOLD. The geology boffs reckon this united, ancient kingdom of ours is full of the stuff – red, raw and exciting just like we read about in the classic adventure stories (especially in Sons of Africa). For all these years, right there under our noses. Ireland is the place to head for with your donkey, picks and prospecting pan. A month’s grub-stake will see you into the Wicklow hills and don’t come back with less than a million – ‘cause thar’s gold in them thar hills!’

Okay, gottagrip; back to the real world. Offloaded all my stuff from the donkey and stuck him back in the field. Anyway, wouldn’t have worked, Ireland’s a bit far from where I live and Eeyore hates swimming. My wife’s a bit disappointed though, guess she was looking forward to the peace and quiet for a month and had secretly pinned her hopes on me taking up with   darlin’ Clementine for a year or twelve. Will put my ‘Miner, Forty-Niner’ T-shirt back on eBay. I’ll keep the picks and the pan though – you never know...

Now then... where were we? Ah yes, the equator...

... By the time we got to the swimming pool, Neptune, his assistants and other seabed dignitaries were already there. The ‘Crossing the Line’ ceremony was well under way and ninety percent of tourist class kids were howling abuse from the pool deck balcony – heads through the railings – ice creams half melted and splattering down on sunburned adults.

The ‘pool’ was sort of a square hole in the deck with a canvas liner slung inside – any kid under six feet tall who couldn’t swim would drown; the shipping companies hadn’t heard of shallow ends in those days so you jumped in, thrashed around like eels in a bucket of water then struck out for the side before exhaustion, choking spasms and first-stage rigor mortis set in.  More fun than you could shake a stick at – splashing around in wee from a hundred mucky kids and water salty enough to burn two hundred eyeballs blood red within the space of half an hour. Anyway, back to crossing-the-line...

At the pool’s side had been fixed the dreaded, ‘Neptune’s ducking chair’. Victims were made to sit, with their back to the water and face-on to King Neptune who would then dispense rough justice from some ancient script – nod to his assistants for the obligatory bucket of custard, fish-heads and God knows what else to be administered and then, like the last of Bodmin’s executioners, he would yank the lever on the tipping mechanism.

There was always a scream; the bigger the victim the bigger the splash and the bigger the roar of laughter from us kids on the balcony. The unfortunate candidate was seized by another trio of old salts and ducked three times, then everyone cheered, an official Crossing the Line certificate was handed over and the next victim strapped in for a repeat performance. The next week thundered past uneventfully, but the flow of ice cream never faltered. Then one morning – from out of a turquoise sea, rose Africa – two weeks out from Southampton we had reached the ‘fairest Cape in all the world’. With a warm wind on my face and fingers locked to the ship’s railings I stared up wide-eyed. A flat-topped mountain clothed in white cloud – my gateway to a lifetime of adventure...