74. 1921

There is no indication in F.A.I.'s collection of memories that tells me where he was living or what he was doing that year.
However, there are 2 pieces written in his book that he took with him to sea.
To me that tells me he was away in January and April of that year.

This one is called Ex - Service dated 8th January 1921. Again I am not sure whether it is his own words or those taken from somewhere else. Either way it shows the disheartened state that the veterans of WW1 found themselves in after they gave their all to fight for King & Country and free the world.

(Ex Service) 1921

Your hands have held the sword

That kept our country free

What now is your reward?

Who gave us victory?

Why you can draw your unemployment pay today

A land for heroes meet

For each his decent home

A heaven on earth complete

And the millenniums come

While rosy light fulfills the everlasting hills

Nay for the vision passed of which our statesmen told

And there remains at last

A cruel word and cold

Where weary of strife

You battle still for life

Your comrades of the fight

Who come again no more

Victors in death despite

Rest on an alien shore

In honour and in peace

Shall you never envy these

FAI

8^th January 1912

73. 1920

Post WW1 F.A.I and granny set up home in Liverpool. They lived on Cornwallis Street not far from the docks. It is uncanny because my mother’s family also lived in a nearby street in the 1860’s. They were sea farers too who came across from Belfast, Ireland in the 1850s.

In the 1920’s Europe was crippled by the after effects of the War, physically, politically and economically. It was a different tale across the Atlantic were America was seemingly unscathed by the events of 1914-1918.
The 20’s saw the first public radio station, the Flapper’s, prohibition, organized crime, the Model T Ford, not to mention the rise of Charlie Chaplin and movie theatres. It was an age where anything and everything happened.

In February 1920 F.A.I was off again on the liners. This time it was on the R.M.S Orcoma.

He sailed out of Liverpool on the 28th February onward to the West Coast of South America. He returned to Liverpool on the 29th May.

The Orcoma was commissioned in May 1907, she was a luxury liner capable of carrying 1,150 passengers and the first class accommodation was built to an exceptionally high standard. She was also the fastest and largest vessel in the South American Pacific coast route at the time. In March 1915 The Orcoma served as an armed merchant cruiser fitted with 6 six-inch guns and 2 six- inch pounder guns.

She was released in 1919 and returned to the Pacific Steam navigation Company from Liverpool to Valparaiso via the Panama Canal. In 1933 the Orcoma was scrapped

It is obvious from family tales and what I have discovered researching F.A.I. as much as he loved dear granny he couldn't stay still. He had a wanderlust. His siblings had all emigrated, whilst he remained in the UK. The thing that kept him going was his trips away. Early days it was the sea that drew him away, later it was hotels around the UK.

Whether he sailed gain that year I don't know, I doubt it as the record in the National Archives only shows the Hildebrand 1919 and the Orcoma 1920. I know he did sail again in 1927 but I won't know if there are any more sailings in between until I visit Kew again later this year. I feel that he may have had two discharge books as the one I have stops in 1920 and has the 1927 sailing as the next entry.

I mentioned some time ago that my mother came up with a nugget of a find. She had assumed I knew about it!!! It was a box of hotel menus dating from 1920 and odd years up to the 50s.
It has enabled me to track F.A.I.s work path post sailings.

In November of 1920 there is a menu for the 'Yachtsmans Lodge' Banquet 3rd November at the Exchange Station Hotel, Liverpool.
He was a member of a lodge himself but I think this is a menu that he was actually contributing as a chef.

I just love the food that is on offer
~Huitres Royales au Citroen (oysters with lemon?)
~Hors d'oeurves Varies
~Petite Marmite (meat broth made & served in a small earthernware cassarole)
~Creme Portugaise (Tomato veloute soup, finished with cream and garnished with diced peppers and rice)
~Supreme de Soles Normande (the fish course?)
~Contrefilet de Boeuf Richlieu
~Pommes Rissollees
~Chouxfleur au gratin (cauliflower cheese?)
~Faison en Cocotte (pheasant in a pot)
~Savarin aux fruits (light sponge with fruit)
~Pailles au Parmesan (straws of parmesan?)

What a menu !!!!