Anyone who has encountered the British National Health Service (which is advertised by its own supporters as the "best in the world") will have realised that is chiefly manned by people who communicate in languages other than English.
Australians and New Zealanders wishing to work in this estimable public health body will find that they have to pay to take an examination to demonstrate their English language skills. Romanians, Italians, Estonians or Hungarians – in fact anyone who is an EU citizen – do not.
My marriage of some 46 years to an English speaking, medically qualified New Zealander, who is rendered speechless with rage when she hears about such insane and life-threatening regulations, equips me to emphasise the sheer madness and political correctness surrounding language.
Patients and doctors communicating in sign language may be one thing. Urgent instructions reverberating around a ship's bridge in the heat of the moment should be understood by all. So it is good to see the Australian Transport Safety Bureau making some serious comments about the importance of comprehensible language when analysing the situation which prevailed on the bridge of a large bulk carrier just before she swam out the channel and onto a shoal off Gladstone last year.
The pilot had been concentrating on the job in hand, when he suddenly became aware of loud bursts of Cantonese around the steering pedestal, where the rest of the bridge team had gathered. The conversation was not about what they wanted for dinner that night, but the fact that the steering had failed, and sadly, the pilot was the last person to be made aware of the situation, and only after he had inquired politely as to the substance of their debate.
There really is not enough thought given to the matters of language and communication in the marine industry, with our desperate efforts to find sufficient numbers of cheap hands to take modern merchant ships to sea. I know it is not an altogether fair comparison, but who would ever take to the skies aboard passenger aircraft in which the captain and co-pilot could communicate only by gestures, or perhaps shouting very loudly in their own language? Why should shipping be different, just because things tend to happen rather slower and the regulatory regime is more elastic?
Sure, shipping is slower, but there often is not time to send for the translator, when some dynamic situation off a berth or in a narrow channel starts to go pear shaped. There are complex situations which demand more than monosyllabic explanations. And we all know that "everyone panics in their own language".
But we sweep all this under the carpet in the cause of expediency, as shipowners and managers scour the known world looking for people who are prepared to go to sea for the money they are prepared to pay them. Let's face it, the crew might be qualified up to its ears, every finger a marline spike, but if the answer to every crisp command is an incomprehensible grunt, accompanied by an expressive shrug with hands spread widely, it is not much point having them on board, when push comes to shove.
At least we seem to be seeing rather less of "polyglot" manning (where none of the crew can understand each other) and probably end up psychologically damaged at the end of a long voyage. Instead we see more of the dual or single nationality crews, where they can communicate admirably among themselves but often appear, to outsiders, as speaking no known language, with the ship's English speaker inevitably down in the engine room when he is wanted on the bridge, and vice versa.
In the UK, which is one of the more efficient flags of convenience these days, it is not unusual to see whole foreign crews, but with a couple of British cadets, who are supposed to imbibe the sea experience they need to progress their careers, from mentors whom they may be completely unable to understand. This is regarded as perfectly acceptable practice, although some deep thinkers have managed, at last, to associate this with the alarming wastage rate.
It would be good if the occasional port state control inspector would test the adequacy of crews to respond to situations that require more than monosyllables. But there was a terrible fuss a few years ago when a zealous inspector detained an enormous car carrier belonging to a blue chip company, when nobody seemed to be able to understand either him, or each other.
He had asked the crew to demonstrate their ability to use a lifeboat and he described the experience as the sort of act you see in well-run circuses, when the clowns roll in their exploding car. Indeed, he thought that the crew members, if they ever decided seafaring was not for them, could make an excellent living in the sawdust ring. The reaction of the owners was not to promise to do better in future, but to utter threats to re-register their Red Ensign fleet under some more accommodating ensign. There are plenty of them around.
But it is all rather depressing to think that maritime language – which, for better or worse is designated as English – is regarded as something that is an optional skill. But if it's not thought important to be able to communicate with your doctor, you may as well go to a vet.
Michael Grey