Arthur Cannings,

You look to be dressed for an English summer Vernon, John in Oz always seems to be dressed in shorts, and Japanese safety boots, has summer deserted you ?, lol

#11 No but the driver of the train has , he just got out for a smoke and decided to go on strike and take the rest of the day off. JS

#1. Very similar to myself Arthur re discharges as Mate. I knocked back a masters job at least twice as believed in those days the masters job belonged to a mate who could not get around the decks anymore and didn’t consider myself old enough to qualify. Anyhow got more job satisfaction as mate. Apart from filling in for master twice once for an old retired master on a FG flag vessel in South Korea who jumped ship there and went home , and took the ship to Japan on the understanding they got a relief master for arrival there , and another time stood in for a sick master, I preferred to stay mate. Until I saw some of these young spunk trumpets who I considered were in Dads Bag when I was in Baghdad . With the intelligence to go with it. Went as permanent master and was then well into my fourties But was not too happy about it. if deep sea ships were still on the go would have stayed as mate for another 15 years at least . Can see where you are coming from , think it is best to stay in the job you are most happy in doing for as long as possible. Cheers JS

The state of undress by Vernon was because he had to do it hurriedly in order to get to the station, These summer winter days makes it hard to decide what to wear.
No summer here so far Keith I'm still wearing thick jumpers, and my wife has just put the Aircon on to warm up, maybe there will be no more summers.
Des

Well Des with Vernon’s case of a broken zip on his jeans his shirt hanging out , answers the question why. ? It’s to hide his fur lined drawers. JS