Cape Breton's Magazine

Newman Dubinsky Esther Dubinsky Capt. j.gTPottie • we used to entertain a lot • singing with the merchant marine. Newman: This was their home. They had no home, we were their ages then • 25, 30 years old. On my 30th birthday there were three or four different nation? ality ships in, singing every kind of a song. Our theme song today • Ta mo delekah • it's a Yugoslav merchant marine song* It's a song for every seaman far away from home, regardless of his flag. He's left his wife and young family and he can't get back there. His heart is there. You know, I joined the navy to see the world and what did I see • ?I saw the sea. Duncan MacLeod, Boulardarie: I joined the merchant marine around September, 1941. (Was it actually an organization?) No. They started to give out pins. Merchant Marine or Merchant Navy • but there was nothing you paid into, didn't give you any privileges of any kind • there was no organization. The pin was more of an identification, that you were on a ship, that you wouldn't be picked up for the army, I think. I tried to get on a ship before • but by the time I got down there the ship had left in convoy, and I was very lucky because she didn't get very far out of Sydney Harbour • she was an am? munition boat going overseas. So it was around September that I got word there was a vacancy on this coal company boat, the Lord Strathcona. We were hauling limestone and iron ore. It was two different routes. The fall I started we hauled limestone up till freezing time to Port aux Port, New? foundland. But when you went for iron ore you went the other way, by St. Pierre, in- Q '1 In One Building Three Separate Businesses Contribute to the Progress and Shopping Enjoyment of Baddeck and Surrounding Areas Stone's Drug Store Baddeck Home & Auto Stone's Clothing Centre Cape Breton's Maga2ine/28 Your Mini-Department Store in Baddeck, N.S. N.D. Beaton, Prop.