Special delivery, one flat piano ...

BaCK in 1961, I was a purser on the Chinkoa, a British India Steam navigation Co. cargo ship plying between London’s Royal Docks and east africa. On one memorable occasion there was a strike by dock workers that meant we left London with one of our holds empty — except for a crated Rolls-Royce aero engine consigned to Britain’s RaF base in aden and a crated piano for the officer commanding the base. When we arrived at aden, one of the first people aboard the ship was that RaF officer — excited to be taking delivery of the piano, the arrival of which he had been eagerly anticipating for many months. He and I stood together looking down into the hold as unloading commenced. The first item to be lifted out by our onboard crane was the aero engine. Unfortunately, as it was clearing the hold, it caught on the hatch coaming and we watched as (it seemed at the time almost in slowmotion) the crated engine fell into the hold, which was completely empty except for the officer’s precious piano. With almost uncanny accuracy, the falling crate landed with a tremendous crash, directly on top of the piano. The stunned silence that followed this disaster was broken only by the twanging of piano wires in the depths of the hold and the sobbing of the officer who was down on his knees next to me, beating his fists on the deck plates! nor was the situation improved by the fact that I had been unable to stop myself from laughing hysterically until tears rolled down my cheeks! more than half a century later, the image of that tragicomedy remains as fresh and vivid as the day it happened.

Robert Readman,

Bournemouth.