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Article: Compulsive Liar.

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    Compulsive Liar.

    36 Comments by Peter Copley Published on 20th January 2021 08:58 PM
    My wife and I have just watched a film on Netflix called, ‘uwantme2KILLhim?’ I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone but basically it's about a boy who fantasies (tells porkies) to impress the teenage boys and girls at his school. Well, that set me off telling my wife about compulsive liars I had either sailed with or known socially or have worked with.

    Sometimes called pathological liars, they are also known as mythomania, they tell porky pies for no apparent reasons. I’m the most gullible person and tend to believe what people tell me.
    Anyway, here are three mythomaniacs I have known over the years.

    One was a fireman (No names no pack drills) who boasted that he had climbed up to the top of Mount Everest, had shot dead dozens of Mau Mau terrorists whilst serving with the British Army in Kenya. He was about 12 years old at the time of the rebellion in 1960! If anyone said they had done something extraordinary, he would trump them by saying he’d also done that, but faster, higher, and more often.
    His wife apologised saying, “He tends to exaggerate.”

    But the two most compulsive liars that I met, were a third-mate on a ship I sailed on, the other was an officer in the sea cadets. Both these men were what you might call, nice friendly men and both were very intelligent.

    The 3rd mate, I’ll call him Cyril. Back in the mid-1960s, he must have been nearly 60 years old, he was by far the oldest 3rd mate I’ve ever sailed with. Standing out on the bridge-wing one day, he pointed to a vapour trail high in the clear blue sky, it must have been a jet plane flying at about 35000 feet.
    He said, “That’s a VC10.”
    I could only just make out a shiny image in front of the vapor. I said, “How do you know that you can hardly see it?”
    He said, “My mother is a pilot, She fly’s jet planes. She has a pilot’s ‘B’ licence, meaning she can pilot passenger jets.” I thought at the time his mother must be getting on towards her 80th birthday.
    Anyway, a few weeks later, he showed me a photograph. “This is a photo of my mum.”
    I took the photo, studied it for a moment or two, turned it over, and said, “She’s in a coffin!”
    He said, “Yes she’s dead, that’s why.”
    I looked at the stout old woman, who’s sickle-shaped mouth, obviously devoid of dentures, had caved in, her nose resting on her chin. She looked like she had been shoehorned into a coffin two sizes too small for her.
    I said, “This is the airline pilot!?”
    “Em, yes. She was before she died.”
    I thought if she’s a jet pilot I’m an astronaut.
    Cyril was a hypochondriac as well as a mythomaniac, constantly dosing himself up with antidepressants (barbiturates I think) while on these drugs he told one porky after another, each one getting more outlandish.
    During the war, he said he was manning an Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun firing at a Heinkel bomber attacking his ship. He said the plane was so low, he could not depress the gun sufficient to shoot at the aircraft because of the handrail, so he got a hacksaw and cut away the handrail.
    One day he said, he’d ‘served his time’ as a cadet sailing on tea clippers on the New Zealand coast. A week later he said, he’d served his time with Elder Dempster Lines on the Narvik and Murmansk Convoys.
    But the best tale was when we were sailing through the Bay of Biscay in a gale on our way to Petit Couronne in France. The sea spray was actually breaking over the bridge. He staggered into the radio room and said to me, “Bloody hell, sparky, I nearly got washed overboard.”
    However, writing home to his wife from Rouen, he told her that he’d been washed overboard by one wave and then deposited back on the deck by another wave. We left the River Seine for Liverpool. When the ship docked at Liverpool there was a bevy of reporters and press photographers waiting to interview Cyril on his astonishing saga of being washed overboard and then being washed back aboard again. Cyril’s wife had told the press about his adventure.

    The next man, I’ll call him Ted, was a Lieutenant (SCC) RNR with the Sea Cadet Corps. Ted was a manager with British Aerospace, a family man with a lovely wife and two kids. For a long while, I believed all the exciting things he had done. Shortly after joining the cadets, he said to me, “I passed over your house yesterday.”
    I said, “you should have called in for a brew.”
    He said, “I would have, but there was no place to land the plane. I was flying over your house.”
    I had no reason to disbelieve him, he said he was on a jolly flying solo from Preston to the Isle of Mann and back. Others in the cadets warned me to take what Ted said with a good pinch of salt. He did not have a pilot’s licence and could not fly a kite, never mind a Cessna. Although I did take what he said with a pinch of salt, because he was such a nice bloke, I never challenged him on his adventures.
    He said he was doing a sea cadet officer’s navigation course on HMS Brighton (F106) that had just undergone a multi-million-pound upgrade to a Leander Class Type Frigate. Sailing from Glasgow down the Clyde (At night) the skipper said to Ted, “Right, Lieutenant ***** I’m going below. You take over conning the ship out to sea, while I get my head down!!!”
    Ted said, “I was really nervous being in charge of this newly refitted warship taking her down the Clyde at night.”
    I had to laugh at that, seeing a skipper, in his right mind, handing over command of a major warship in the River Clyde to a sea cadet officer.
    Next, he told me he was a fighter pilot in the Korean War and that he was the only pilot of a turboprop aircraft to shoot down a MIG jet. (He got that idea from the CO of Holyhead Sea Cadets who, while serving with the Fleet Air Arm, did actually shoot down a MIG jet with a propeller-driven aircraft.)
    Ted said he was related to one of the VC winners at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in the Anglo-Zulu Wars. That may have been true of course, although I suspected he just been watching the movie Zulu.
    And so on, each story more unbelievable than the last one.

    I won’t bore readers further. I was just wondering if this article sets off a thread of similar experiences.

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  3. #21
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    Default Re: Compulsive Liar.

    #19 Theres one good thing about that hobby Des , a good excuse for collecting whiskey and Rum bottles , and then having to empty them to get the ships in, bet you never thought about leaving any residue in so as to make them appear to be floating. ?
    Shore people to me are a different species altogether and there are times when I just shut off altogether when they start complaining about insignificant things. Cheers JS.
    Last edited by j.sabourn; 22nd January 2021 at 01:17 AM.
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    #20 Remember one ship was on cant remember which one, where we had to do the usual and hang the anchor off and put the cable on the buoy. either Kobe or Osaka, We lost over the side the tapered pin for the joining shackle over the side , and had no spares . I think out of the 7 engineers on board only one had the know how to set up the lathe as to do the taper correctly. I found and I may be prejudiced , that the practical engineers were more inclined to be time served in the shipyard. This prejudice I admit may of come from cousins who were all marine engineers , and the ones I knocked around with were also the same, and if any excuses needed I will blame them for telling me so. Cheers JS
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    Default Re: Compulsive Liar.

    Out here in Australia is a bit unlike the UK I knew in the Marine World. It is assumed if you have a licence for the job then you can do it. In the UK you were usually asked to describe your history going back to your great Granny. My 11 years of working life out here consisted of working on various and a menagerie of ship types. Apart from supply vessels and anchor handlers , Safety vessels and survey vessels , Drill Ships and Rigs, was expected to bring an assortment of vessels down from their graveyard in Singapore and take them back to their graves on completion of the terms of their charter, one of these vessels was a trench making vessel. Also you were expected to go master on a rig under tow as Australian law insisted on a marine crew on any rig being moved.
    I started this progression through the ship types when after a couple of years out here I was asked if I had ever done seismic work , I said yes which was true , but not the full story, my total experience had been towing a single streamer from the stern of a supply vessel for about 6 hours. I just did not elaborate on the truth. So I found myself 6 weeks on and 6 weeks off on a seismic survey vessel towing 8 streamers about 3 miles in length. Not a particular hard job compared to shifting a semi-submersible but one had to keep up with modern day science. Have been all round Australia and more than likely visited parts that the real Aussies dont even know exist. I really enjoyed my working life out here , and came very close to being as enjoyable as the 4 years on charter to the MOD. So that was 15 years of Bliss. The other 35 years is where all the bad things happened, not all bad , it also had its various good moments, like going home at times. Cheers JS
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    Default Re: Compulsive Liar.

    Funny thing John when we arrived here we found work within about three days.
    Both with Myer but in different departments.
    The human resources section said they preferred overseas workers as they had more experience than the locals.

    Not quite sure which kind they were talking about.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
    World Traveller

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    Default Re: Compulsive Liar.

    I had the maritime union to get past and accepted . Better known as the Guild. Too many unions however in the maritime industry , There was the deck officers , the Guild. The Engineers Union,the Seamen’s Union , and the. Stewards union. They spent more time arguing amongst themselves. However as previously said have nothing against them as kept me worthily employed for 11 years . Think there was also a fireman’s Union. ? JS
    Last edited by j.sabourn; 22nd January 2021 at 07:30 AM.
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    Default Re: Compulsive Liar.

    One difference out here John was in most ports unlike the UK they had walking delegates, these blokes visited the Aus ships as they arrived to see that everything was OK. On the NZ coast every ships delegate put in a list of things that needed fixing ei the fridge, toaster etc to the mate, who got them done before sailing. Maybe it was easier to do here, but once a month we had stop work meeting in every major port in NZ where the union would inform everyone about what was what. Maybe that was what was wrong in the UK
    Des
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    Default Re: Compulsive Liar.

    Des over here in WA the Guild had its meetings every 4th friday in the P and O hotel in Fremantle and if at home you were expected to go. The first meeting I went to the Delegate who was shore based and an ex fisherman had to stand up and explain why I had been accepted into the Guild. The truth was I had to bulldoze my way in and use my UK membership as a crowbar. The first barrier was getting through the door as a small grill opened up and asked what I wanted , after gaining entrance I was told they had plenty of people to fill all the jobs, my reply was I wasnt there for a job, I was there to join the Union. If no jobs I was quite well enough to go up to Singapore and find my own. The next barrier put in my way was qualifications which were British and not Australian , I asked for 30 minutes grace , went and saw the head Federal Surveyor in Fremantle and he issued me with the written authority of the Australian equivilant . Going back to the Guilds office , the next barrier was that they couldnt put me on the A roster but on the B roster. I said ok good enough, at the time I didnt really know what he was talking about . That same evening I had a phone call from Total Marine of Fremantle offering me a job . Apparently they had been keeping their ear to the ground to see how far I got. The next day had a call from the Guild saying at great trouble they had found me a job, which of course was the same one, so I went along with the Charade. On joining the Pacific Dart up in Dampier to relieve the master he was very short and wanted to know how I had gained membership to the Guild, he was Danish and had been master on the sheep carrier running from freo.to the Middle East, he said it took him 4 years to gain membership , so I told him that was his problem and should have done what I did and threaten them with court action , as a union should be open to anyone with the right qualifications, whether that was true or not dont know and still dont know but wasnt going to get messed around by a bunch of zombies. However the conditions that the union got for its members was to me used to lousy standby north sea wages more than 4 times better and with the leave ratios taken into account more than 6 times better. So in all fairness I cannot complain about conditions at that time. Out of all the Unions and their pension lump sums on retiring the Seamens were the best. I saw ABs walking away with 25 service with $500.000 pay outs . You compare that with anything UK seamen got from the NUS ... When the intergrated rating system came in similar to the General Purpose of the UK . The seamens union put all its members at various times through the Launceston College for either a 4 or 6 weeks course and paid all the monies out of union funds. Dont know the actual numbers but was the total of the offshore group at the time. They put their money where their mouth was. However all good things come to an end and dont think things are the same today somehow. Cheers JS

    A ROSTER Permanent employment with company and get all benefits such as pension pay outs . 5 % Salary goes into Union Funds.
    B ROSTER TEMPORARY employment , 26 % loading on top of salary , nothing paid into pension pay out . 2% of salary into Union Funds
    Leave in 1991 was 1.1 days for every day on. Changed about 1995 for 1 for 1 . with an increase in salary . Always have to give something away to get something new

    JS
    Last edited by j.sabourn; 23rd January 2021 at 05:56 AM.
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    Default Re: Compulsive Liar.

    Hi Everyone,

    I have to relate my experiences with a compulsive fantasist who kept us enthralled for at least 6 months of a two year trip on my first trip to sea as an Apprentice. Frank was 3rd Engineer on our ship SS Marabank. Those of you who have served in the 'old ' MN will remember that you would congregate in one or other's cabin to spin a story , play Scrabble or even to play cards. Initially we young sprogs would gravitate towards Frank L.'s cabin and he would keep us amused (?) and entertained with story's of his life.

    Story No1. Frank was one of the British Paras dropped into the Suez Canal area to ......... well we never did find out his apparent heroics.

    Story No2. Frank was a Freestyle wrestler in his home area of Derbyshire and because of his slight stature he was billed as Derbyshires "Great Big Little One"

    Story No3. We arrived in Melbourne in 1956 just before the opening of the Olympic Games. Frank claimed that he knew one of the British Team Olympic cyclists, so Frank (accompanied by 3 very naive Apprentices) went ashore with Frank, who on this occasion was dressed in a smart suit and an American Cowboy hat. We went to the Olympic Information Centre and the conversation went like this:-

    Frank (In an American accent) "Excuse me Ma"am can you tell me if the British cycling boys have arrived yet?"

    The Australian young lady on reception "I'm not sure Sir, but I will find out... could you tell me why you wish to know?"

    Frank "Yes, I am a Cicus Promoter and I've heard these boys are the best in the World,and I have this fantastic idea for these British boys that will make them loads of money and fame.

    Receptionist Oh yes Sir and what is that?

    Frank "THE WALL OF DEATH ON A PUSHBIKE!"

    Exit the rest of us in embarrassment.

    Story No4. We went to Corpus Christie in Texas, Frank said "Tell you what Boys, let's put on our epaulettes and whites and visit the US Naval air station. The US boys will make us welcome and perhaps show us around." Which we did and sure enough we were made very welcome but only saw some hangers at a distance and their PX quite close up. One of their personnel questioned us about equivalent ranks in the British armed forces and I guess from our answers they didn't think we posed much of a threat to the US of A!

    We only found out after we had left US waters on our way to Oz. That Frank was a card carrying member the Communist Party ....... But there again, that might have been a lie as well!!!!

    Having said all that I will always remember him ...... He was about 23 years old .... but his story and tales made him 50 or 60!

    Keep Smiling and safe.

    Chris Hurren

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    #28.... Thats a good example of someone testing out the Theory that B......t baffles Brains. Theres always some true believer in any group. That one then carries the message forth and it multiplies. Just like the old saying in the Bible go forth and multiply , when you are caught doing that however they class you as a sex maniac. Its not a fair world by anyones thinking. JS
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    Default Re: Compulsive Liar.

    Think we have all met similar when at sea, and a few ashore.

    We have a lot here in Oz, most sit in our various parliaments and can tell some of the most fantastic tales of what they have done but of more importance what they are going to do.

    Frighten the life out of any God fearing man, or women for that matter.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
    World Traveller

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