‘Conditions for seafarers were appalling - raising standards was my life’s work’: Port health chief Laurence Dettman retires

MARITIME HEALTH PIONEER: Laurence Dettman, who is stepping down as Chief Port Health Inspector at Hull and Goole Port Health Authority

Now & Then, a column by Angus Young

Port health boss Laurence Dettman looks back on his remarkable career

Rats are a recurring theme in our conversation as chief port health inspector Laurence Dettman looks back on his remarkable 55-year public service career.

The main man at the Hull and Goole Port Health Authority is retiring this week having started there as a slightly naive 17-year-old student port health inspector, way back in 1968.

“What immediately first struck me about the job were some of the appalling sanitary conditions I came across on my daily ship inspections. Black rats and cockroaches were everywhere while unfit drinking water was commonplace. The average seafarer’s lot was pretty bleak.

“There were regular cases of various infectious diseases among the crew on ships arriving from around the world. It quickly became apparent to me that the dreadful conditions on many vessels had remained virtually unchanged from the days of filthy sailing ships and fishing smacks which had so graphically been described by my grandfather. As it turned out, improving those conditions became my lifelong mission.”

His grandfather had worked as an engineer on the ‘dry side’ of the city's trawler industry. Before him, his German-born great-grandfather had come to Hull in the 1880s to skipper his own fishing smack before the days of steam.

“I never knew him but he was quite a character. During the First World War he was interned on the Isle of Man and remained there for quite a while after the war ended. 

“When he did finally come back to Hull he took up fishing again as a skipper. It was a tough life and he wasn’t afraid to discipline his crew when he needed to. There’s a record of some of them being given three lashes each for stealing food on one of his early trips.”

His own father opted to join the Merchant Navy, working as a boiler room engineer. “He found it pretty horrendous and could not stick it. He ended up getting a job at the Blackburn aircraft factory in Brough instead.”

As a teenager in the Swinging Sixties, young Laurence was unsure of his own career path.

“It was a toss up between becoming a hippy or knuckling down and getting a real job. The only problem was that I had no idea what I wanted to do.

‘A BAD SHIP WAS BLINKING AWFUL’: Laurence Dettman

“I briefly thought about getting into the TV industry but that required going to university and studying something like electronic engineering and I wasn’t keen on leaving home. 

“Then, during the summer holidays, we went to stay with my uncle in Whitby. He was a public health inspector and he took me out and about on his work visits and I was hooked, it just seemed such a varied job. It was like being with James Herriott on his rounds as a vet.

“When I got home I saw an advert in the paper for a student port health inspector so I applied, not really knowing what it actually entailed.”

As it was, he quickly found his feet during a four-year apprenticeship before qualifying as an environmental health officer.

“I remember it being starchy, almost Dickensian. Even so, I knew it was for me straight away.

“Back then, St Andrew's Dock was still in full swing, the town docks were still mostly open and the Old Harbour in the River Hull was always full of vessels. 

“Because of my family background, I thought I knew what to expect in the fishing industry but the conditions even by then were still shocking.

“I know a lot of people look back at the industry through rose-tinted spectacles and quite rightly talk about the employment it created, but the reality is that for most people who worked in it, it was sheer hell because it was inherently unsafe and dangerous. 

“We had to deal with all sorts of problems because the basic safety rules of today just didn’t exist back then. When I started in 1968 we had just had the Triple Trawler Tragedy and Lil Bilocca and the wives were campaigning for change. They were absolutely right to do so.

“Our job was about ensuring good health and hygiene onboard the ships but often you would struggle to find either. A bad ship was invariably blinking awful.”

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Founded in 1887, the authority’s archives include volumes of hand-written registers spanning decades recording the number of rats found during each inspection.

“I think the record is around 400 rats on one ship,” says Laurence with a smile. “My own record is 270 when we went out to fumigate a ship on a Boxing Day one year.

“It wasn't really until the late 1980s that things started to improve. Gradually, awareness of basics like food hygiene and hand-washing have become the norm.”

He was an early pioneer in both initiating and delivering the earliest basic food hygiene courses for catering staff on the passenger ferries sailing in and out of Hull, recognising that education was the way to tackle alarming levels of food poisoning at the time. He later was part of a national working group which developed much-needed guidance for the management of norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships, which is still in use today.

Another speciality he developed was the control of air pollution from dockside activities, taking part in many government initiatives to introduce proactive prevention measures rather than relying on reactive enforcement sanctions.

Covid and Brexit – the latter triggering no fewer than four postponements by the government on new food import controls – have been more recent challenges. He admits the continuing uncertainty over government policy on post-Brexit import requirements has been one of the reasons behind his decisions to finally retire. 

“I almost feel as if the last year has been wasted because of the repeated delays and the timescales being kicked down the road every few months. We recruited staff to deal with the changes but then had to make them redundant when it was all stopped. That was very tough, for them and me.

“It’s got to the point where everything is having to start from scratch again so I decided it was only right if someone new is in charge.

“I can look back now and say my proudest achievement is having played a small part in raising the standards of health, welfare and sanitation for the average seafarer. Rats and insect infestation are thankfully seldom seen on ships these days and both the food and environment for crew and passengers are now generally hygienic and safe.”

His successor is Sally Johnson, the first female chief port inspector in the authority’s history.  She said: “I feel honoured to have the opportunity to lead a strong team into a new, post-Brexit era for the authority, and will strive to provide a strategic vision to enable us to continue delivering a quality, effective and efficient port health service to the three councils we represent, the public and the trade who rely on our services.”