Wives at sea

[j.sabourn]

My one experience with female passengers was in 1967 was when we were running around the West Indies from Montreal , they were 6 weeks round trips . Most female passengers were the likes of retired school teachers and what I would of called matronly in those days when I was 30. Today I would say beautiful how ones attitude changes with age. However on coming up the gangway in Montreal their attitude seemed to change and caution was thrown to the wind they seemed to lose all inhibitions. Similar with the males. I had to go ashore sometimes before sailing and drag them out of the brothels . One particular bloke came into my cabin after sailing as I had to particularly almost fight with the mama san to get him out of the bed before the ship sailed without him. In my cabin he used the excuse his wife had died recently , on checking up found she had died 20 years previously .He owned a drugstore in Canada somewhere. Must have had plenty of money as in 1967 a passengers fare in a double bunked cabin was $100 US a day and if wanted a cabin to yourself was $200. passengers was one way of paying the crews wages and still make a profit. The crew were Trinidadians and were paid British wages with no overtime the master mates and engineers signed Liberian Articles and were paid substantially above British wages so were no complaints. Those were the days some might say , I found it more lucrative to be where I was at the time , especially as it was recently after the fiasco of the British Seamans strike which was blamed wrongly for the downfall of British Shipping. 5 years later on return to British Shipping I was asked to attend a Seminar in London attended by the equivilant of the BOT and all various Depts in the shipping world . it was a week in a London hotel.
It was a comparison of various conditions at the time of all Shipping flags in the world. The Greeks were the cheapest ships to run, running very closely behind them and only coppers a day were the British . I never saw any reports of the findings of these findings not even in Union papers. The Seamans strike proved nothing . JS

[happy daze john in oz]

On UCL it was common practice for wives of senior deck officers to be allowed one voyage a year.
Most were fine and caused no problems.
But one voyage on the Windsor the Chief officer brought his wife on.

Always some doubt about him as the officers steward in charge kept him as his personal charge, it was said that on many occasions the steward was seen coming out of the officers cabin in the early hours of the morning.
then the voyage with the wife.

The steward was not allowed any where near the cabin, she took total control of it, but upset a number of other officers when she attempted to 'tidy' them up as she called it.
Thought they did not keep their uniforms in the best condition along with a few other problems only she could se.
But the voyage ,as with all UCL was only 6 weeks, 6 weeks from hell as the steward said.

[happy daze john in oz]

There were many "wives" on the Kiwi coast and a few Maori Princesses!!.

On UCL there were many ' wives' and some who thought they were a princess all looking for love.