REGRETS? I've had a few.

I must admit if I get chatting to a guy in a bar or where ever it dose'nt take me long to suss out the guy is an ex-seaman,he may pose the question first or I may "Did you go away to sea" its just a way that we have in making conversation.At the same time I would not write all "Landlubbers off as being uninteresting ,dull and lacking in coversation and are not aware of what is happening around them." A story I always think of is a cook I sailed with always used to say,the Orange Lodge were marching in Liverpool a woman was heard to say "Here they come ,our Billy is the only one in step".This makes me think that if there were 20 guys in a room with just one seaman amongst them are 19 of them dull and uninteresting and the seaman is unable to converse with any of them.This sounds a bit strange to me and points to the seaman being the odd ball.
Shoreside guys are on a different wavelength to seaman,their interests could be football,cricket,rugby,darts,snooker and many other sports.When seaman meet they talk about ships and places,thats all they know about.Imagine bricklayers,joiners and plumbers coming into the pub and telling you what job they have been doing today,they would sooner have a game of dominos and talk about how their football team are doing,maybe they are the normal ones and the seaman after a lifetime at sea"Are a bit odd"
Who was it that said "A man who spent a lifetime at sea was good for nothing else"
Regards.
Jim.B.

At 77 i can say that I have no regrets about anything done in my life.Certainly I wouldnt have swopped my 7 years at sea for anything else.When I went to sea I had come from a barnados training school and at 15 new nothing about life.What I learned in the following 7 years stood me in good stead and helped keep me in work.After leaving the sea I went to Canada and as an ex deckhand I had to utilise my aquired skills.Someone was looking for steepljacks.I flannelled my way into the job
Needed a lift accross Canada as I had heard there was work in the Alberta oilfields.Flannelled my way into a free lift most of the way there.Someone was looking for bridgepainters.Right up my street.
Someone was looking for interior decorators.Joined the union and got the job.Someone was looking for roofers.flannelled my way into the job.Failed.Lasted one day.
Someone was looking for roughnecks.Flannelled my way into the job and became a "stud hand" 2 years of a great job.
On the rigs my painting skills were useful.I was the only guy on the rig that could splice a rope and for certain jobs I would have to be available in case a rope broke.
I could work heights.
I could drink
I could fight and I could tell a good story.
At the time(1957) I was the only Englishman working on the rigs in northern Alberta and my nickname was" English"
In later years and other jobs my seatime helped me through even through my years of boatowning the seamanship I,d learned was a boon
john sutton
no regrets

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim Brady

Who was it that said "A man who spent a lifetime at sea was good for nothing else"
Regards.
Jim.B.

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Jim

That was my Dad, who had spent a life at sea, said that to me when I was twelve and a half when I joined sea school. Turned out it wasn't true, men who go to sea, especially on deck can mostly turn their hand to anything, there was no corner shop to go to, or DIY store, when we were short of something we had to improvise, made us think on our feet.

We can mostly hold a conversation with anybody because of all that training we had in the bars in foreign climes where we tried to chat up the birds who didn't speak English, again we learnt to improvise, mostly we were successful!

My experience of most shore wallahs is they talk about things they wished they had done, whilst wanting the comfort of 9 - 5 planning their holidays three years ahead, the very thought of that makes me go cold

Absolutely 100% totally fully without exception in agreement with you there,Ivan !

I'd rather be an 'oddball' who's been to sea rather than just a face in the shoreside crowd who's done precious little else in life-and if one didn't necessarily have an exciting life at sea,you could always make it up,because you knew somebody who did,and it probably did happen !:D

Gulliver

When I had paid off and went to my local alehouse I had loads of shore fellow mates, I was a millionaire for a few days, everyone got a pint then another and so on. Then towards the end of my leave when I was broke,all the Chesterfields had gone, rolling my own, The pub was very quiet hardly any one in and very lonely..
Shore people do not enjoy the company of skint Seafarers,
Amongst Seafaring men, if you are skint then they have a Tarporlin Muster and everyone carried on drinking.

Regrets, yes, that my time at sea didn't last longer. Proud, very that I was able to serve with seamen, the likes of whom the world will probably never see again and on ships too, the likes of which will never be seen again. Proud too, to have been a part of the worlds maritime history during its hey day.

Chris.

If you do or did nothing else in your life you can at least say I did go to sea and did somthing worthwhile if only for part of your life. You can hold your head high and say 'I made an effort to make my way in life and to do it better than some who did nothing with theirs'. It turned boys into resourceful men who could cope with all that life threw at them.

Unable to make it today to Chloe's for domestic reasons some of you lads know about, I thought a trip to the local Returned Serviceman's League for an hour might serve if a service for our men who gave their lives was on. No way ! I will try to do some thing in regard to this next year.I promise.

Since starting this thread I have read many of the inputs of the memberships and I am convinced that nostalgia and sentimentality are inversely proportional to time actually spent at sea. Whilst my views of ships these days is limited to about 10 minutes once a month on visiting my daughter who lives on the Wirral, I take detour on the way home and drive the length of Harrison Drive and that is about it. Do not recognise the companies and do not think to pack binoculars. Did I stay too long? Perhaps I did.

Bill

I have no regrets about going to sea, spent from 58 to 2007 at sea British and FOC ships. Great life the bad times were overshadowed by the good times.

Ray