WORLD WAR 2 broke out and Herbert Percy Cheeseman was called upon to make his contribution on the waterfront, commonly known as The Wharf.
Men of valour were not only needed to fly aircraft, man ships and submarines and go into the battlefields, they were also needed to keep the rolling by ensuring a supply of food and water to those countries threatened by hostilities.
Herbie Cheeseman was one of those. He never took up a gun or shot a man.
Herbie recalled: “I was at Robert Thom and we dealt with importing and exporting. I remember one evening going up to one of the attorneys whom I happened to know as a boy on the beach and saying: ‘Excuse me sir, this is a war on and I am prepared to help in the circumstances’.
“On one occasion I worked for a week before going home. Bathing and things like a haircut or shave were a luxury. Robert Thom sent you aboard the ship so they didn’t have to pay for that.”
He recalled: “The first month that I was at Niblock when I opened the envelope; I went to the attorney and drew a mistake he had made to his attention.. I said ‘you have made a mistake; I should be receiving $10 and packet contains $12.”
He replied: “Don’t worry about that; we see the work that you give us and this is in appreciation.
“At the end of 18 months my pay had gone up to $40 from the end of the month. Men were getting married on $40 a month in those days so that tells you how cheap a Scotsman was. He is not cheap; he just wants value for his money.
“I will give you a joke; an Irishman, an Englishman and a Scotsman were in a pub drinking beer. A fly went into the Englishman’s beer and he threw away the whole glass of beer. The Irishman blew off the top with the fly in it and drank the beer. The Scotsman squeezed the fly and said ‘I want all of my beer; you can’t get any.
”Reflecting on some of the time saving measures he introduced, Herbie said: “These were the war years; you had no time to play around. I had a warrant which I wanted signed. So I went to the Customs Officer and he told me: ‘No you can’t do it that way; it has to be signed by the Comptroller. My response was: He is the same man as me; are you afraid of him?
“I went to the Comptroller and I told him what it was all about and I told him what I wanted to do and he looked at me and enquired are you Percy Cheeseman’s son? I said yes and he replied: ‘Alright, I will sign it.
“Then he said: ‘I have done you a favour, now I want you to do me one’. I replied: Yes sir, if I can. He said: ‘When you go back you tell the people up there that I say to give you a signature so that I can get these things done.
“I went back to the office and in about five minutes I had the letter. From there on in I could sign warrants.
”Continuing to reflect on things prior to the construction of the Bridgetown Port which he had all his life. “There was also the time when if you had two ships, one was supposed to discharge her cargo and the other to load that cargo.
“By law it meant that although the ships were next to each other to unload was interpreted by law as touching the dock first. So I went to the Comptroller, explained my position and what I wanted. I put two ships side-by-side and shifted the goods from one into the other. It saved about three days time.”
NEXT: Wedding bells for Herbie and June.
