So, the vaunted ET fails to elicit any information on the strange case of the Wizard of the North. It therefore falls to me, unworthy custodian though I be, to expound as best I can on the matter. Fitting it is that this be the time of year for tales of the supernatural ....
I'm minded of a Liverpool bosun I sailed with on the west African coast – aha! Jim-lad – and who had done time on the north Atlantic with Cunard. He would be my primary source but remember I'm having to rely on half-remembered conversations in other times and places. During my own sojourn on those waters I also seem to recall the odd passing mention of the legend.
The way
I think I heard it, it went
something like this :
The vessel was the
Queen Mary and the time the early 1950s. Apparently there was a painting routine for funnels and accessible superstructure set up westbound to satisfy the New York superintendentcy. On the passage in question the painting had been satisfactorily completed on the understanding that she routinely went x-side-to. However, to the Chief Officer's consternation radioed advice came that she was going y-side-to. And it was now too late to retrieve the situation.
Throughout the last night at sea the lightning flashed and the thunder crashed. On docking morning it was found that the contingent asymetric painting deficit had been mysteriously made up, apparently overnight! According to the deck crowd such a serendipitous intervention could only be attributed to a phantom entity – the
Wizard of the North.
That is the gist of the story as
I think I heard it. But what can be the true origin of this bizarre legend?
At this distance I can only conjecture that it might have had a disappointingly prosaic origin in an old-fashioned overtime dispute! The deck crew were in fact turned out in full strength to make up in short order (by floodlight presumably) what would otherwise be several days' work. I doubt there was any electric storm that night.
Probably due to an oversight in the deck office the augmented painting gang was simply not credited with the commensurate overtime payment. The upshot of all this would have been that on arrival back in Southampton they would have paid off 'in dispute'; no doubt facetiously and vociferously proclaiming to all within earshot that the
Queen Mary had been touched up overnight by – you've guessed it – the Wizard of the North. And all within earshot noised it abroad throughout the taverns and alehouses of the town. Howsoever the dispute may have been resolved, the aforesaid Wizard of the North thereby passed into western ocean legend.
As to why that particular appellation was chosen and as to whether the Wizard was a recognised ethereal entity before this dispute I'm not able to say. The 'north' in this context would refer to, and is an abbreviation for, the north Atlantic. Why the more alliteratively mellifluous 'wizard of the western' was not aspired to – 'western ocean' being the seafarers' preferred appellation for the north Atlantic – might be a matter for passing regret; but then BOT pay-offs were not normally known to be triggers of prosodic excellence.
The true answer may thus lie on some dusty shelf at the Registry of Shipping and Seamen.
Whatever may have take place, time is passing and perhaps this post, inadequate though it be, might go some way toward retrieving the Wizard of the North from those mists of obscurity into which he has evidently slipped
.
I'm grossly over-extended here and I now fully expect some lurking Cunard veteran to crawl out of the woodwork and knock everything I've just said into a cocked hat.
Now.... For those of you who might be homing in on the Ambrose, should you catch a whiff of 'cunard red' on the crisp night air, reflect that it just might be the Wizard poised on the ether, paint roller primed and presented, waiting.... ever waiting.... for the right set of funnels to haul up from the east. And, if you get the chance, you might tell him he's needed in Long Beach!
Noel
