where did your passion for shipping start - for the non seafarer ?

[Bryan Portwig]

Often wondered what spark your interest in shipping ? This is more for the folk who did not have a sea faring life . Mine started at the age off 6 when i picked up my first book out of the school library - i was 6 - it was the story of the sinking of the titanic - 59 years later i am still at it ! reading that is ! i wanted to become a pilot - till i found out i was scared of heights - still am - then i went on my first cruise - only to find out that mel de mar - wanted to kick that out of me - and my interest fell faster than the titanic sunk !- i did my national service and applied to the navy - that did not happen as i was sent to the parachute battalion ( ? ) ! instead ! over the years i have collected books - magazines -models and other shipping memorabilia - have done 4 cruises and collected thousands of foto's of ships thru the years - including from the internet - which has widened my contact base throughout the world and even to the extent of getting back in touch with people i last saw 30 - 40 years ago - so yes though i never sailed as a crew member - i can count myself as an old salt !old salt.jpg

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Brian.
You maybe one of the lucky ones who plumped for reading that book. I have met men here in Country Aus who had no idea that the ships they saw on Tv were so big. I took my photograph albums to one old peoples home and they were amazed at the size of what is now a small tanker 12,000tons. I used to be sea sick often, never put me off, looked on it as getting rid of the rubbish I had drunk ashore. But for the time you have been on site, you have put in more sea miles than many LoL
Cheers Des

[Tony Taylor]

When I was ten I was a awarded a prize at school, it was a book called "Cadet Alan Carr" about a deck cadets first trip down the West African Coast.
The clincher for me was a trip down the Clyde on the Waverley when I was thirteen, staying with relatives in Helensburgh. After going down that engine room, I can still smell the hot oil and steam.
I can still smell my first trip down the West African Coast as well and thinking that the author of that book was a damn liar.

[j.sabourn]

#3 The only book I can remember winning was when I was about 7 and was for good attendance at Sunday School . It was Called “ Tommy’s Little Grains Of Sand “ ,what it was about I can’t remember but had pictures of Donkeys in it. I had to wait another 8 years to meet the human ones , usually wearing coloured Rosettes in their lapels going around kissing babies. JS.... what has this got to go with going to sea, well what sane person wants to live alongside such people, the sea was escape number one. JS

[Doc Vernon]

Cadet Alan Carr by Percy F. Westerman (goodreads.com)

May be a good read. I may even get it who knows!
Cheers

Here are a few more on Alan Carr , the Unfinished Voyage looks to be interesting too!?

Alan Carr Books.JPG

[Alan Blyth]

For me it was learning from hostilities-only dad about the uncle lost on the Murmansk run 20 years before I was born.

[john hancock]

Building model boats from the age of 9 yrs old.
Exhibited my police patrol launch at the Eagle comic Olympia show , won a trip to the Vauxhall factory in Luton with a Dark Class MGB.
Watching , The Cruel Sea , The ship that died of shame , The sea shall not have them , fabulous 1950's films.
Enthralled by the tales of a girl-friend's father who was sunk with bombs on the Empire Ranger and rescued by a German destroyer.
His lovely daughter was killed by receiving contaminated blood from South Africa.
Then I went to sea.
By co-incidence , my father-in-law was born the day Titanic sank. 15/4/1912
That same day a Trimmer F Shillabeer on the Titanic died.
Forty years later , 15/4/ 1952 ,my now ex-wife was born.
In 2004 , she would re-marry , a Shillibeer.
Fate ?

[John Swan]

In 1949 aged 12 I went on a school trip to Paris, yes 4 yrs after the war. We crossed the Channel via Newhaven / Dunkirk, returning the sea was quite “ choppy “ the old ferry was shipping seas over the bow and we kids were ducking down behind the bulwark in front of the bridge, and I was hooked by the excitement of it all, my parents idea of me becoming a doctor like my uncle were shattered.

[j.sabourn]

#8 John I have the feeling and the name strikes a bell maybe have already asked were you at the Prince Edward pre sea South Shields course in 1952 ? As may have communal people we both knew at that time . May have asked this before and forgotten , ain’t life wonderful ? JS
If so did you follow through at a later date at Nellists . Cheers JS ....

[John Swan]

Yes I think you have raised this before. I was at S/ Shields 1952/3. Ken Langton was senior cadet, small world, I worked with him later ashore with Shell. Joined Common Bros 53. Eventually got 2nd Mates ticket through Nellists in 59. Names are now a problem but I will try to peer through the fog of old age and see if I can come up with any.