Vic remembers life onboard HMS Duncton

The only camera on the mess deck belonged to the HSD. He was an amateur photographer and used to develop and print in the Asdic deck. His name was Arthur Rigby and was a lace designer in civvy street from Nottingham.

A series of crew photographs taken by Arthur Rigby (Left) Stoker Smith with HMS Duncton & mascot(Middle) Two other Stokers with the ship's monkey.(Right) Five of Duncton's crew in West Africa Vic Feltham is seated at the front and to the left of the picture.

"...a feast in the mess deck!"

We quite often went ashore in Takaradi & Secondi. At one place we would order jug red wine, and roast chicken & chips. The proprietor would then walk over to the chickens in the yard and ask us 'which one do you want?', he then would catch it, ring its neck, pluck it, clean it and cook it. It ended up on your plate in just over an hour!

Whilst on the subject of chickens, we formed a football team and during a visit to Lagos, played a local team. When we left we acquired half a dozen live chickens between us and took them back to the Duncton we must have forgotten to pay for them and the owners paid us a visit and complained to the Captain. He did know of this exercise and offered to allow them to search the ship. There was no trace of chickens on board, we had hidden them in lockers under the bunks! On leaving Lagos they were transferred to a potatoes locker on deck which was not in use. We fed them on mess left overs and they were allowed out on deck. The time came when we had to dispose of them, when they had put on weight. I had the job of killing them and cooking them, I sent the largest roast chicken to Wardroom, the rest gave us all a feast in the mess deck!

Coaling Ship

I remember coaling ship was quite an exercise for us all onboard Duncton. A coal barge came alongside and local workers would fill canvas bags, walk up planks and tip the coal into port and starboard bunkers. This exercise would take the best part of a day and we would finish like a coal ship ourselves. Then it was all hands to clean ship while the stokers would have to go into the bunkers to trim the coal.

We eventually brought HMS Duncton back to Plymouth after the war was over and most of the crew went on leave. Half of a dozen of us remained as ship keepers we the took the ship up to Rosyth and tied her up in the Firth of Forth. I was the last onboard owing to a mix up and I was eventually brought ashore by a passing fishing boat! I was then later transferred to Lochinvar and drafted to the minesweeper MMS 1061 for five months in the North Sea. I left the service on the 8th September 1946.