Oral History Recording with Magnus Malcolmson

Digital sound recording in six parts

Subject: Merchant Navy; Deck Department: Ordinary Seaman, Able Seaman, Bosun, Carpenter

OHY/6/95/1 – 2.3 GB; 01:47:22
OHY/6/95/2 – 2.2 GB; 01:41:16
OHY/6/95/3 – 2.1 GB; 01:37:05
OHY/6/95/4 – 2.2 GB; 01:40:09
OHY/6/95/5 – 2 GB; 01:30:39
OHY/6/95/6 – 1.9 GB; 01:27:57

*This interview contains language and opinions that may cause offence. All views expressed are the interviewee's own.

Magnus Malcolmson was born in Shetland in 1894. This interview contains a rich social history of life in Shetland at the turn of the 20th century where, Malcolmson states almost everyone was a fisherman or seaman of some variety – his father worked in whaling ships.

Malcolmson left school in 1919, worked in the croft for a while and went to sea in 1913 with his father on a coasting collier where he worked as an ordinary seaman. He moved on from coasting vessels to deep sea ships becoming an able seaman, a bosun and finally, from 1935 a carpenter. He remained a carpenter until his retirement in 1958.

During the First World War he served in the RNR on an armed liner and also talks about working in boom defence. He says he remained in the RNR for 25 years.

His interview covers a vast range of subjects mostly relating to his career in deep sea vessels and includes: unions, pay, living conditions, personal items taken to sea, duties and working life, food (including a tin of beer on Christmas Day), international crews, practical jokes, crossing the line, insects and rats, illness and accidents and deaths (they still drunk lime juice to prevent scurvy), hobbies, sailor craft and shanties, captains bringing their wives to sea, sailing in the Amazon (including a female ship owner he encountered there), relationships between ranks and roles, corporal punishment at sea and the challenge of finding work during the Depression.

Administrative / biographical background
Oral history with Magnus Malcolmson conducted by Campbell McMurray