A cold day in cornerbrook

[Ivan Cloherty]

Funny thing is, saw the cars go in but never saw a driver come out, must have used a side door.

Used to have a mini bus (10 - 12) inside John to take them back to the marshalling yard, or bring them back, (too far to walk) depending whether loading or discharging, sometimes did both at the same time Renaults out - Fords in for example at Southampton (that was fun!! ), marques depended which route you were on.

Beam winds could give you a two degree list.

[John Arton]

I was mate on a geared bulker discharging packaged lumber, loaded in B.C.,in Jacksonville and the stevedores were driving us mad with their antics, smashing packages of lumber with the fork lifts used to get the packages out from under the wings and wrecking the fork lifts with their non existent driving skills, they nearly started a fire when one of the fork lifts driving wheels dropped into a gap in the stow and instead of using the crane to lift it out the driver just kept it going full ahead with its wheels spinning, eventually the tyres started smoking and eventually caught fire, the stevedores were Mike Tyson look alikes so telling them to stop only got a load of abuse and violence threats against us.
The next day a huge new car carrier was berthed astern of us and the same stevedores were engaged in discharging high end German cars, Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Porsche, all driven at high speed and without a single scratch or damage to any one of them. Eventually discharge ended so we expected the ramp to go up and the ship to sail but nothing happened for a couple of hours. The captain and myself decided to go and have a look see inside but just as we approached the ramp a single Mercedes came down the ramp and they started to lift it up. Speaking to a stevedore we asked what had caused the delay. The single car was apparently parked in the wrong place on board, there were about 10 decks and she was capable of carrying around 4000 cars and there were still a couple of thousand Mercedes etc. still on board and they had been searching all the remaining cars until they found the correct one.
Rgds
J.A.

[Roger Metcalf]

Hi Roger.
You are right there was no booze allowed in St John, had to get a card from the police to buy a few bottles, but i think you had to be over 21 at the time, we still got pissed and ended up in the lockup, but they didn't lock the doors otherwise we would have to have gone before the beak.
PS.
How is Whangarie these days? hope the Covisd isn't there, we left there nearly twelve years ago, lived in Onerahi.
Des

Hi Des . Onerahi is still the same and not changed at all. I do not even think that any of the shops have changed. The pub and airport still there.
We have not had any covid in Whangarei at all so feel very lucky. We have had a very slow roll out of the vacination which is a shocker. I served as an apprentice engineer and junior with Trinder Anderson Avenue and Australind Shipping. Met my wife in Dunedin on my first trip as an apprentice. Keep well Roger

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Roger.
Had a few mates on the Australind in the 50s, all on deck I missed out on signing as the bus never came.
Des