Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 183
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[Page 183]
Part 5.
After two days in St Lucia the Sydney left again for Jamaica, and arrived back at Headquarters on the 2nd November. The Comedy Party in the ship had for some time been preparing a show to be put on in Kingston in aid of the local Red Cross. There was quite a lot of low music hall latent in the ship, and a few were first rate actors. Much of the programme of course, while suitable for a concert aboard, had to be heavily censored before being presented to a shoregoing audience.
Still the Kingston people were not hypersensitive, and the performance went off well. In two nights we made £100. The writer was business manager of the concern, and the chief duties of the office were to lend ones dress clothes, opera hat and any other part of ones wardrobe that happened to be needed.
The Sydney at this time possessed an institution known as the HOBO band. For some reason we had no official band tho' the Melbourne had quite a good one and the sailors who dearly love music determined not to be outdone. Some of the hardest citizens in the ship collected together, and with instruments mostly home made, which varied from mouth organs to one string fiddle, contented to make a more or less melodious noise.
This was in great demand for concerts. Every member of the band dressed for the part as his fancy [listed?] and a nastier collection of stiffs was never seen outside a waxworks.
Some of the members of the band performers were so fashioned by nature that the assumption of a horrible disguise was like painting the lily.
Still we used to raise money, and in the islands where any sort of show was scarce a luxury, the people flocked to see the fun.
While in Harbour this time we heard