While drafting a recent post, ‘The Worst Journey in the World,’ I was conducting a final edit of the piece when I remembered that I possessed an old ring binder containing my father’s mementos of his Russian Convoy Club membership.
I knew the folder had included an assortment of relevant press cuttings, and suspecting that these may be useful to the post, I delved into the loft in search of the file. And sure enough, there it was.
As I riffled through the documents, I saw there was indeed a good deal of useful information regarding the WW2 Russian Convoys, and that I was now facing a substantial rewrite. That was okay, I thought. It would be worth the effort. And indeed it was, for the file contained a great deal that would otherwise have been missed.
The file also contained several illustrated newspaper articles featuring a Great Dane. But this was not just any Great Dane, for I’d seen a picture of this one many years ago. It had been in a ‘dog-eared’ album containing photos taken by my father with his old box camera whilst serving aboard HMS Shropshire during World War Two.
The picture was this one:
The caption beneath it, in my father’s neat, block capitals simply said:
‘NUISANCE AB’
When I’d browsed through the album as a youth, as I often did, this was a picture that had always piqued my interest. All I remembered from my father’s brief explanation was that Nuisance lived in Cape Town, South Africa, and was a mascot of some kind.
I was therefore delighted to discover the small batch of press cuttings as these would finally give me the opportunity to learn more about Nuisance.
Who was he? Not only that – how did he, a Great Dane, attain the rank of Able Seaman?
The story was an interesting one.
October 21, 1943. It was late at night and the young seaman making his way back from Cape Town to the naval base at Simon’s Town was decidedly worse for wear.
As he stumbled through the railway station a massive Great Dane loomed up, grabbed his sleeve and pulled him aboard the train just as the whistle blew.
The sailor slumped in a heap – and like numerous shipmates who could relate similar experiences – was happy to be taken into custody by the self-appointed saviour of the lower deck ratings: Just Nuisance, the only dog ever to hold a rank in the Royal Navy.
In addition to the prestigious rank, Nuisance was the only dog to wear a seaman’s cap, to draw navy pay, (2d per day), receive generous rations (which included several pints of beer) and have a bed of his own in the barracks.
He could often be seen on or around Cape Town station, almost always in the company of matelots, countless numbers of whom he had escorted back to base by train, following periods of liberty, spent ‘on the town.’
Such was the frequency in which Nuisance travelled the Cape Town to Simon’s Town line, a special arrangement was agreed between his naval mentors and South African Railways, by which he was given a special travel pass. This was attached to his collar, enabling him to use the trains at any time.
The canine celebrity-to-be was born on April 1, 1937 in Rondebosch, a suburb of Cape Town, to highly-pedigreed parents, Konig and Diana. The animals were owned by breeder, M. Bosman, who gave the gangling pup the grand name of Pride of Rondebosch.
Pride of Rondebosch was sold a year later to Benjamin Chaney of Mowbray. The dog’s new owner had recently been appointed as manager of the United Services Institute in Simon’s Town, a place frequented mainly by sailors of the Royal Navy’s Africa station. For the young Great Dane, this conjunction of events was to set in motion the wheels of destiny.
It was not long before the lumbering pup with a sweeping tail could often be seen with his shipmates, lowly – often homesick – matelots; young men – many of who, like my father, were away from their homes, villages and families for the first time in their lives.
It was, perhaps, inevitable that they took to the friendly animal and bonded with him. They played with him, teased him, talked to him, cried into his coat and treated him like their best friend.
By the outbreak of WW2 in 1939, the Great Dane, already christened ‘Nuisance,’ had become so much a part of the naval scene at Simon’s Town that it was decided that he should be enrolled formerly into the Royal Navy.
When he ambled into the recruiting office to enlist, the rating holding his lead was asked, ‘What’s his first name?’ To which the rating replied:
‘Just Nuisance, sir.’
And that’s how he features on his service papers:
- Surname: Nuisance
- Christian name: Just.
Nuisance was given the rank of Able Seaman. His registration papers, now in the possession of Simon Town’s museum along with other memorabilia such as his collar, show that his trade was given as ‘Bonecrusher,’ and his religious denomination as ‘Scrounger.’
He was posted to HMS Afrikander, the Royal Navy’s shore establishment at Simon’s Town and was quartered at Froggy Pond, where he had his own bunk. And from the date of his official enlistment, Just Nuisance became a celebrity, his activities making news wherever he went.
Despite Nuisance’s conduct record showing a fair number of transgressions, such as going AWOL, losing his collar, sleeping on sailor’s beds without authority and resisting eviction from pubs and clubs at closing time, he was much-loved by the many lower-deck ratings whose lives he touched.
Not only was he an exceptionally intelligent animal, he possessed a warm, larger-than-life personality which did a great deal to boost the morale of visiting sailors during the war.
The degree to which he was affectionately regarded was reflected in the outpourings of grief when, on his seventh birthday, in 1944, the gentle giant had to be put down, due to a crippling paralysis with which he had been afflicted following an accident.
Many sorrowing sailors attended his funeral at Klaver Camp, above Simon’s Town, the ceremony conducted with full naval honours, including a gun salute. Here, the Great Dane’s huge body was wrapped in a White Ensign before being lowered into the grave.
The site was subsequently marked by an inscribed granite headstone which remains today.
In 1998, it was decided that Nuisance’s life should be honoured, and a life-size statue was commissioned.
His proud profile now adorns the quayside on Jubilee Square, overlooking the harbour – a permanent reminder of Simon’s Town’s most famous, and much-loved canine.
RAVEN MOON 