First Trip

[Tim Parr]

Attachment 28951
I’m absolutely sure that we all remember our first trip.
This is my story.
1973, finished Engineering apprenticeship wrote off to different shipping companies (there was plenty to choose from) received an interview from Ropner Mangement in Darlington.
Turned up at the interview, the guy asked me a few rudimentary engineering questions, then offered me a position Junior Engineer and a ship MT Thirlby.
Absolutely gob smacked, flying out to the Persian Gulf in a matter of weeks.
Couple of weeks later (get this) a telegram arrives, “JOIN CREW MATES AT HEATROW I was only 20.. STOP. FLY TO KUWAIT . STOP. TRAVEL WARRANT TO FOLLOW STOP.
“Heathrow, Kuwait, (different planet)
Arrived in Abadan after travelling 24hrs. MT Thirlby registered in Hartlepool (bit of a rust bucket 30,000 tons) is ready to leave Abadan (where?) for somewhere else at dawn.
2nd Engineer had to drag me into the Engine Room, boy was it hot, ship had no proper cold tap!
The ships engine was the size of a semi-detched house, a Doxford.
Day two all stop, top piston nuts need tightening, so myself and Ernie (from Manchester, sat next to me on the flight out) stars to tighten the top nut, sledge hammer job, everything is roasting, can’t touch metal with bare hands.
Ernie keels over from heat stroke, despite everyone’s best efforts Ernie never regains consciousness.
Ernie was buried at sea at 4-00pm the same day, a sack cart carrying the body, chains around neck waist, knees and ankles.
I paid off in Falmouth five months later £3,300 richer, oh yes and a hell of a lot wiser.
Tim Parr

[Captain Kong]

Hi Brett,
I doubt it made any news back home. I never heard of anything.
Different world 64 years ago.
Cheers
Brian

[Harry Nicholson]

First trip and first port. Trooper BI's Dunera 1956:
I'm 4th r/o, aged 17, and extremely green:
We are running to Kure in Japan (the Commonwealth base that serviced the recently finished Korean War). On route, we will call at the British bases at Cyprus, Aden, Ceylon, Singapore and Hong Kong. Shortly after we enter the Mediterranean we make an unexpected visit to Algiers in the French colony of Algeria. This will be my first experience of foreign parts, so I'm excited at the prospect. However, we are to be in Algiers for just a few hours, and the chief gives Third and me strict orders not to go ashore; instead, we are to service the lifeboat batteries and otherwise make ourselves useful. I'm starting to realise Third's hot-headed irreverence. But I'm easily led. After a quick check of the battery system, he says, 'Bugger this for a game of soldiers. Come on. We won't be missed.' We slope off ashore; long, navy-blue bridge coats hiding our uniforms.
***At the dock gate, French soldiers stand guard inside a sandbagged redoubt, with machine guns mounted. There is rebellion in the colony and France is fighting a bitter war with the independence guerrillas. Under the circumstances, we are surprised to see a straggle of British servicemen also heading ashore. But there's no obvious sign of danger. As soon as we leave the dock a shifty looking man appears and offers to buy my bridge coat. Then a car draws up and two alluring French women, and a swarthy chap in the driving seat, try to persuade us to go with them to some place or other. The third sparks, after he chaffs them a bit in Clydeside Scots, says we don't have time and hurries me off to town whilst I ply questions as to what the women intended.
***We climb the hill, take in the spicy scents of Berber and Arab cooking, and dive into a maze of overcrowded narrow streets, jabbering foreign tongues, minarets and Moorish arches, kohl-eyed women … and some kohl-eyed men. Gendarmes are on patrol. We try icy French beer in gloomy bars and try more at tables in shaded yards out of the fierce sun. We don't realise that this ancient huddle under the walls of the Kasbah is a base for resistance to French rule. All motion freezes at the sonorous blare of a ship’s whistle. The Dunera prepares to sail! We leg it back to the dock at top speed.
***We rush through the gates and along the jetty. It's obvious that the pilot is aboard and the ship about to cast off. The rails are lined with troops and crew all grinning, it seems, directly at us. I cringe with embarrassment. Third shouts a pained, 'Bloody hell!' We reach the foot of the gangway just as loud cheering erupts from the troops. We are in trouble. But the cheers are not for us – they are for a Royal Navy matelot who weaves through the gates, beneath the machine guns. He carries his inebriated comrade across one shoulder. We slink up the gangway, relieved not to be the ultimate cause of delay. But there, at the top, glares a pair of piggy eyes set in the grim bulldog face of the chief radio officer. He's beside himself with fury. We are now banned from all shore leave until Singapore. So Cyprus, Port Said, Aden, and Colombo are not to know our feet this trip. Even so, we got to the Kasbah!