Soap Drama

[Evan Lewis]

No Bout adoubt it! Glan. 6 bars would have probably given one a Harem in those days.

La Spezia,was more upmarket.Twenty ,Senior Service cigs.

Best bargain I thought,was Cuidad Trujillo. In exchange for a La Plata,calfskin Belt. 8?Pesos.
For two, Hombres+a flask of Rum.

Course I'm only listening,to" what the Sailors say"!

[Lou Barron]

what i can remember about washing we used a liquidcalled ATLAS and the soap we bought through the slop chest was carbolic red but when i done my time as peggy i use to scrub the tables down a mixture of hot water and lime juice mined you that was on the old ships i know that the messrooms and the crews quarters did improve alot

[happy daze john in oz]

Wingers on UCL had to provide their own soap and my dear old mum gave me a bar of that red soap every voyage. As for officers they had to provide their own on boat deck, but senior officers up on bridge deck were supplied.
On NZSC we were giveb bars of green soap to use in the salt water showersl, awful bloody stuff.

[Doc Vernon]

In the period i was with UCL we were given small Bars of soap,but i cannot recall what type it was,all i do remember was it was just White Soap,could have been the Standard stuff used in Cabins as well, as it had the UCL Logo on it!
Not too bad either!
Only found that getting a lather up seemed a bit of a pain,especially if there was no Hot Water around!
Cheers

[Glan Phillips]

No Bout adoubt it! Glan. 6 bars would have probably given one a Harem in those days.

La Spezia,was more upmarket.Twenty ,Senior Service cigs.

Best bargain I thought,was Cuidad Trujillo. In exchange for a La Plata,calfskin Belt. 8?Pesos.
For two, Hombres+a flask of Rum.

Course I'm only listening,to" what the Sailors say"!

Evan..........dont think one would have got much for that in the Grand Hotel, Port Talbot.....even in the 1950's lol

[Keith Tindell]

That brings back long forgotten memories, lime juice unsweetened, as a peggy we used it to scrub wooden trestle type tables in the mess, also helped to clean the brass, ah memories when i was young!!!! regards Keith Tindell

[Ivan Cloherty]

That brings back long forgotten memories, lime juice unsweetened, as a peggy we used it to scrub wooden trestle type tables in the mess, also helped to clean the brass, ah memories when i was young!!!! regards Keith Tindell

Hi Keith

Remember it well

Lime juice for taffrails (did all wooden rails come from Wales?)

Yardleys soap for favours ashore on the WC South America

[John Arton]

Continueing on,
there was on brand of soap, believe it was lifebouy, that the bum boat men in Suez used to want above all others when you were bartering with them for their fabulous, genuine Eygptian artifacts or stuffed toy camel.
Going slightly Aaway from the original start of this thread.
When our Asian friends started to be employed in CP I could never figure out why they never seemed particulary clean, despite us going through fresh water in the bathrooms like it was going out of fashion.
It was only when it came to the first crew change that I found out when we were doing a baggage search and discovered that they had all been saving up there weekly soap rations to take home with them!!! expecting the Company to pay their excess baggage!!!!. Again I believe it was Lifebouy they treasured as it had a higher exchange rate back home.
The baggage search also revealed why we were constantly short of wiping rags on board, they were sorting through the rags when they came on board and picking out the best and packing them up to take home!!!, I swear there was one guy with a big box of rags that he had compressed so much that even a hydraulic press could not have made a better job.Solved that problem by only ordering industrial size paper towels, much to their disgust.
The strangest thing we ever found were bits of a very old radar set that one of them was taking home, saying he would be able to fix it up for his fishing boat. No screen, just the odd bit of circuit board and some framing......god only knows where he was going to get the rest from.

rgds
Capt. John Arton (ret'd)

[Graham Payne]

Best Soap, very easy, C. P. ships in the '60s or at least on their cargo ships supplied us with,
( wait for it ) ,
" ASTRAL " cream soap which had a very nice aroma or smell/stink whatever, the whole ship seemed to smell of it.
Hairy arsed ABs or Stokers had never smelt so fragarent in their lives
Still can't find it ashore, it was really good gear

[Evan Lewis]

True !
Unless of course one knew CINDY. Very popular Kindest,and friendly .A legend.
Though most likely to be found at Wil Hocks .Cafe? near rhe Walnut.Hotel

The many Middlesborough (,where the ships were built) crew members, at that time.had a saying." Houlders are naming the next Iron ore carrier after Cindy"
.