UK Customs Checks

[Brett Hayes]

I did a six-week trip on my first ship, the ST William Wheelwright, from Fredericia, Denmark, to an offshore oil pipeline off Tripoli, Libya. We could not go ashore. On paying off in Middlesbrough, I cannot remember if Customs came aboard to check us out. What I’d like to know is if UK Customs officials would come aboard after every voyage or would it depend on whether the vessel landed or not on foreign soil.
Brett Hayes
EDH R863743

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Brett.
All the time I was at sea the Customs came aboard and searched, depended where you had been to the extent of the search.
Tell you one such search and this is true. . They called up one of our Cardiff Paki\Indian fireman and said we have found your cigarettes under there, pointing to the gap beneath where the ropes left the ship. No No boss he said those are not mine , mine are over there , he said pointing to the other side.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Southampton customs were as hot as hell.
No god trying to hide any contraband from them.
Having seen them at work I often thought that there were some crew members who worked for them.
Thye found smokes and grog in places we never even thought of hiding them in.

[Ivan Cloherty]

They even came aboard coastal vessels which sailed to/from Continent, no one was safe

[Tony Taylor]

I did a six-week trip on my first ship, the ST William Wheelwright, from Fredericia, Denmark, to an offshore oil pipeline off Tripoli, Libya. We could not go ashore. On paying off in Middlesbrough, I cannot remember if Customs came aboard to check us out. What I’d like to know is if UK Customs officials would come aboard after every voyage or would it depend on whether the vessel landed or not on foreign soil.
Brett Hayes
EDH R863743

I was in Tees regularly when on lightening ships and customs always came aboard, Not so much rummage gangs but there was one guy who just came for the drink, namely how much he could neck before he left.

[j.sabourn]

Used to be in uk that customs came on board anytime they thought fit. They have/had more power than the police who needed a search warrant a customs officer didn’t. If the ship had not entered into a foreign port maybe just the boarding officer would arrive on board and as for medical clearance this would be done if practible what was called radio pratique . If the ship had been blacked in the past where someone was caught smuggling the probability of frequent rummage squads for a lengthy period could be expected a customs officer had right of access this included your home as well. There maybe ex customs officers on site they may dispute this , but is what I was lead to believe. In fact is what I saw happening as well. JS.

[Michael Black]

If the customs came on board in their boiler suits you knew they were going to do a rummage. Usually just a quick look depending on where the ship had been.
Paid off in Hull once, where I believe they had a training base, we got a good going over though I think it was more a training exercise than in the expectation of finding anything.
Regards Michael

[Keith Tindell]

In the early 60s i was on one of McAndrew fruit vessels, short trips down the Med, and did not usually see customs down in the accommodation , this particular time, one of the customs came down aft, and had my customs form, and others, and opened my locker, and i had purchased a pair of those fancy Spanish boots. He immediately said they were not on my customs declaration form, i said they are for personl use, he then started to tell me that everything purchase had to be declared. I then told him, ah well ,so have my underpants that i am wearing !!, oh, ok he said, anything else ?, and wrote it down. At that point i decided that a closed mouth was the best bet. But nothing ever came back on it.

[Johnny Kieran]

Not customs, but the blokes on the gates in London docks.
We always got a taxi home, and the driver would always ask for a few shilling off each of us in the cab to give to the geezer on the gate, this was so he didn't search us and hold us up.
I met a girl, who told me her dad worked on the dock gates. It turned out she lived around the corner to us, and she had told her dad that I had mentioned dropping them a few bob at the gate. She told me that he'd denied ever doing such a thing. Anyway, she asked me to go in and meet her parents one night. As I went in, I saw her dad was the big ginger bloke we often met at the gate and grabbed the money every time. He asked me how on earth I got the idea he was taking money, I told him I'd seen him often enough, but he wouldn't see me in the cab. He wasn't very happy with me being there and seeing his Daughter, and when he saw me again at the gate, he'd search us all.
I did see him again, but he always took the money without searching us, although he would always give me a snide look.

[j.sabourn]

It was usually word of mouth among the crew that the rummage squad were all the one ringers . Boarding officers were higher up in the hierarchy and two ringers, the promotion of the one ringers depended a lot on their findings , whether true or not , but was the simple sailors view on customs searchers promotions depended on successful finds and fines or in some cases imprisonment . But there are a lot more depts to the custom service my sons mother in law was a high ranker , and even in retirement used to act as a drug mule to detect any weaknesses in the control of drugs into the country. Dont think she would have given away any state secrets in any case. JS .