the Manchester Liners8 so I’m not really sure if he travelled from Cardiff to Manchester or just left the ship there. Some Africans saw two World Wars with the Manchester Liners, but when they changed them over to oil burners9 they tried to get rid of the Africans. Somebody had the sense to get in touch with a London MP and he came to the Manchester Docks. A fellow dock worker called Horsfield turned round and said ‘Why are you getting rid of these men, some of who have served during two world wars, because of the changeover to oil burners?’ They replied with the excuse ‘well they don’t know how to work them.’ So he said send them to Liverpool and let them learn. The reality was that it was easy to learn within a couple of hours So they started taking the Africans on again, but by this time some of them were getting old and didn’t want to go to sea. My Dad was on a Manchester Ship when it got cut in two and was in Montreal for months to recover. Because he had lost all his property, clothes everything, he got a suit, overcoat, two sets of underwear, two shirts, shoes and when he got back home he had to pay for it! My Mum’s family originated in Bolton before they moved to Manchester and she got a job at Catenberrys in Southall Street in Cheetham Hill and Dad lived in Mary Street10 which was quite nearby. They started courting and got married on the sly. She was still going home to her family but eventually she had to tell her Mum and Dad. She really went through it and eventually was disowned by her parents but not her sister. I think they were married about 3 or 4 years before I was born in the 1930s. To my Aunty I was part of the family, there was no ‘you’re coloured or you’re black’ you know what I mean! While Dad was at sea we moved to Henry Penwick11 Street, I don’t know how she got the house as there were no coloured people there whatsoever. On Bury New Road side there was, but on the Cheetham Hill side there wasn’t. Dad came home from sea and together they built their home and family with Leslie, Billy and me the eldest. 8 A cargo and passenger shipping company, founded in 1898, based in Manchester, England. The line pioneered the regular passage of ocean-going vessels along the Manchester Ship Canal 9 As an example the S.S. Hartlepool was converted in Hong Kong in in 1917 10 http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=1042 11 No reference
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