The first thing you notice when you meet Roger Carter for the first time is that he has a wooden leg. And that he’s old. But it becomes abundantly clear that to define Roger by his disability would be both ignorant and short-sighted. Roger is much, much more than an old-boy with a peg leg, and has led a life wealthy in captivating experience.
Roger Carter is the type of bloke that makes a mockery of elderly stereotypes. It doesn’t take long in Roger’s gregarious company for you to recognise that you’re quite blessed to be in the company of a man of fierce intellect, sharp wit and wicked humour.
Born in 1932, in West Bromwich’UK’shortly after his mother arrived in the sidecar of a motorbike, Roger became a man who wanted to experience all that life had to offer. He can list over forty occupations from seaman to estate agent, museum curator to lecturer, armed guard to smuggler.
‘Everything is interesting to me; some things only fleetingly, but everything is interesting.’
Roger spent his youth in the family corner shop (which he likens nostalgically to”Open All Hours”Arkwright’s), the setting of his first memory of wartime air-raids: hiding under the overturned settee in the middle of the night, waiting for the all-clear.
At just 15, Roger became a Boy Seaman in the Royal Navy, having trained aboard the HMS Ganges training ship, and values the discipline it instilled within him, recalling the refrain”we may not make you sailors but by God, we’ll teach you discipline’.’Roger observes that he was at sea aboard the battleship HMS Duke of York at an age where the youth of today are still children, yet to learn the value of independence or indeed many useful skills.
Roger joined the Merchant Navy in an effort to see the world.
‘Yes, I wanted to protect my country against Communist hordes, but I also wanted to see the world at somebody else’s expense, which I did.’
One of Roger’s secondary responsibilities was that of ship’s Postman, which led directly to another of his roles as a Smuggler. As a naval man, Roger was able to purchase cigarettes and tobacco at a discounted rate. He quickly worked out that he could utilise the heavy envelopes primarily used for ship papers, to smuggle cheaply purchased tobacco aboard, and sell them on to the Postman in the sorting office at a 300% mark-up. Roger proudly adds”real life pirate”(complete with wooden leg) to the exhaustive list of jobs he has tried his hand at through the years.
During his ten year service, Roger’s travels took him from the Mull of Kintyre (Scotland) to HMS Concord in the Korean War, and then on to Singapore aboard a small minesweeper. He has no regrets over his time in the navy, and credits the formative experience for teaching him the valuable character trait of self-sufficiency.
‘Make the most of what you’ve got. If you can better it, do so, but if not – just accept it, get on with it and make the best of what you have.’
Roger met and married Jean, a Petty Officer in 1957 after a 10 month courtship. He fondly recalls how he met her at one of the regular cocktail parties ran by a mutual friend, and it is clear that he had a tremendous depth of feeling for Jean.
‘If you can explain love, it’s not love. It’s mystical.’
Upon leaving the navy for the final time, Roger eventually secured a job on a tanker, travelling the River Severn, the second fastest river in Europe.
It was at this time that Roger’s brother wrote to him from his new home in New Zealand, singing the country’s praises. In 1966, Roger managed to secure an interview with the Wellington Harbour Board via a connection of his brother. Incredibly, Roger travelled aboard the Southern Cross for five weeks, at the substantial cost of”80 for each family member, before arriving in Wellington for a job interview he may not even have passed.
Upon arrival, Roger’s brother promptly whipped him around to Queen’s wharf where following a 20 second job interview, he secured a position with the Harbour Board, where he was to stay, in various capacities, for the next 35 years.
Roger was watch foreman on the morning of the Wahine Ferry disaster, and the first man to raise the alarm on that fateful day in 1968, after losing radio contact with the vessel, immediately waking the Harbour Master to report the situation. He recalls his shock upon waking to the news that the Wahine had sunk and the scale of the disaster became apparent.
Not surprisingly, Roger takes a pragmatic approach to life’s challenges, insisting that rather than’slipping into the”slough of despond”it is best just to get on with things and accept matters you an’t change. The regular 18 hour shifts of manual labour, performed on a wooden leg, bear testimony to Roger’s’fortitude,’both physical and mental, qualities which no doubt helped him through the period of nursing his terminally ill wife.
Roger is a man of action and experience, and a tremendous individual with whom to share a Sunday morning. He counts seeing the night sky in Singapore filled with fruit bats, and the view from above of the Swiss Alps poking through the clouds like snow tipped islands as fine examples for others of what life is all about. Finally, to those who are lacking for inspiration, he has a last word of advice.
