# Sweet deal-Chelsea sugar



## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

Google nz herald/sweet deal to read about this member of the Colonial sugar company in Auckland .
The shipping berth may be familiar with some members and the sugar barges, horse drawn drays and sugar in hessian bags are all within my memories .

Bob


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Went there several times with sugar from Queensland and Fiji. Not enough recuperation time between Fiji and Auckland! 

Saw it from the harbour bridge and noticed it was bright red - I thought it looked better painted white.

John T


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## tsell (Apr 29, 2008)

spongebob said:


> Google nz herald/sweet deal to read about this member of the Colonial sugar company in Auckland .
> The shipping berth may be familiar with some members and the sugar barges, horse drawn drays and sugar in hessian bags are all within my memories .
> 
> Bob


You have this habit of dredging up old memories, Bob. Keep it up!
Sometime in 1958, after we finished on the bridge, a mate and myself answered an advert for a couple of riggers to paint the gantry at the refinery. It was one of the worst jobs we took on as we had to heat the steel before red-leading it, as it was the middle of winter.
While we chatted with the foreman inside, one wet day, I mentioned that I had been on a ship loading sugar in Barahona and the thing that intrigued us was that gangers from the prison ship, trimming the raw sugar down below, never came up for toilet breaks from dawn to dusk. He replied that they could refine everything out of sugar, except kerosene and all sorts of stuff came up through the chutes.
Don't know whether or not he was pulling our legs, though!

Cheers

Taff


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

Just sounds like sweet talk Taff.

Bob


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

tsell said:


> ...... I had been on a ship loading sugar in Barahona and the thing that intrigued us was that gangers from the prison ship, trimming the raw sugar down below, never came up for toilet breaks from dawn to dusk.


In 1961 I was on a ship that loaded sugar in Durban, destined for discharge at Tate & Lyle's, Huskisson Dock, Liverpool. Sugar arrived in sacks by rail wagons and were slung aboard and dropped onto metal gratings laid over gaps on the hatch tops where hatch boards had been strategically removed. Dockers then slashed the bags with 'pangas', letting the sugar fall into the hold where a large gang of Zulu trimmers worked all day to level and distribute the sugar evenly around the hold. The empty bags were slung ashore for disposal.

We were there loading for 8 days, during which time I only ever saw the shore crew leave the hold for their midday lunch break and at the end of their shift. Either those big black men had marvellous control of their bladders and bowels, or they let nature take its course amongst the cargo, down the hold.

Some years later I used to amuse myself by relating this tale to people that were into natural, healthy foods - brown rice and the like - who proclaimed the overwhelming health advantages of non-refined food over such things as white sugar. Had some funny reactions, especially from women.


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## tsell (Apr 29, 2008)

Ron Stringer said:


> In 1961 I was on a ship that loaded sugar in Durban, destined for discharge at Tate & Lyle's, Huskisson Dock, Liverpool. Sugar arrived in sacks by rail wagons and were slung aboard and dropped onto metal gratings laid over gaps on the hatch tops where hatch boards had been strategically removed. Dockers then slashed the bags with 'pangas', letting the sugar fall into the hold where a large gang of Zulu trimmers worked all day to level and distribute the sugar evenly around the hold. The empty bags were slung ashore for disposal.
> 
> We were there loading for 8 days, during which time I only ever saw the shore crew leave the hold for their midday lunch break and at the end of their shift. Either those big black men had marvellous control of their bladders and bowels, or they let nature take its course amongst the cargo, down the hold.
> 
> Some years later I used to amuse myself by relating this tale to people that were into natural, healthy foods - brown rice and the like - who proclaimed the overwhelming health advantages of non-refined food over such things as white sugar. Had some funny reactions, especially from women.


Hi Ron, you describe the process exactly as it was in Barahona, except that the prisoners below, from the prison ship, were dropped bags of food and didn't make it topside for lunch or for any other reason!
While I also have had fun with the story among the purists, it was not so funny for us aboard, as we ran out of food and lived off the fruit, etc., we brought aboard and sacks of weevil-infested flour for bread, sacks of haricot beans, cooked every imaginable way - and some totally unimaginable ways - supplemented by the poaching of the cargo, to give us a bit of energy. We scraped it off the top, boiled it and made toffee out of it, so survived - just - until we got into the Thames, where the union negotiated three-pence halfpenny a day, for every day we were without food. We told them to stick it! I posted the story on here somewhere, long ago.

Cheers 
PS. We caught the bosun with a huge tin of Olida Ham... but that's another story!

Taff


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

#5 . Loading was the same in Fiji, Ron. We went to Suva and picked up the labour (loads of 'em) then sailed round to the loading ports. The dockers lived on deck, cooking on open fires, drinking kava and playing their ukeleles. It took about three weeks to load. An OHS man's nightmare. I was doing the Articles at the time and there was no way I was signing that lot on. Bula bula.

John T


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## Les Gibson (Apr 24, 2004)

Memories!
Loaded sugar in the same way at anchor off Pimentel (Peru) slitting the bags and pouring it into half opened hatches. There wasn't even a grill, it was just tipped over the edge of the hatch cover. For Auckland on Stevie Clarke's 'Blanchland'.
Same story, never thought about the sanitary arrangements until now.


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