Dominion Monarch

[Colin Pook]

Hello John The short answer to your question is--YES and NO! Beautiful ship, lousy food, lousy accomodation , fabulous run, no ovies, too many men who sit down to have a pee. Don't bend down to pick up the soap in the shower, etc, etc
Got the sack after one trip for asking the bosun if he went to his parents wedding
Colin

[Stuart Henderson]

I did a trip on Dominion Monarch back in fifties had a good run ashore in Cape Town and over indulged on the local Cape Smoke. Returned to the docks to see rear end of DM departing eastwards at speed. Night time and only authoraties round were a couple of Customs. Dont worry they said,the agent will put you on train up coast to next port. I said Fremantle ? Ooops....... Next three weeks in illegal immigrants " hotel"..... Then some poor chap off Braemar Castle got arrested for cohabitation and I got offered his job as crew pantryman, Dock St pool suggested I resign on Braemar Castle to clear discharge book of the VNC which I did and went on sailing till late seventies.
Stuart

[Colin Pook]

Very lucky there Stuart! The first, and only time I missed a ship, (in Immingham), I was suspended for 3 months and ended up working on the railways in Preston.
Nice to meet you
regards
Colin

[alf corbyn]

I enjoyed my time on the DM. plenty of shore time and I don't remember any gays being on board. the food was very good as it was a one class(first)ship. with regards to the decline of the MN. yes! joining the common market led to its demise as we abandoned our former colonies, oz, nz, sa, Canada, etc with no consideration for the thousands of tons of meat and other goods they were left with, so lots of shipping companies were left with nowhere in Europe to unload goods, so they sold their ships.

[robpage]

We entered the Common Market in 1973 , I think some trades , the Union Castlke passenger one as an example was killed off by the Airlines

[robpage]

We entered the Common Market in 1973 , I think some trades , the Union Castle passenger one as an example was killed off by the Airlines , as was the many of the other passenger liners , The Boeing 747 first flew commercially in 1970 and wiped out the incentives to travel by sea , on time and cost . Container ships carry 90% of the non bulk World trades , In Clan Line a 15% loss on a Spirits cargo from Glasgow was not unknown , one broken bottle is a damaged case of twelve , so one dockers lunchtime tipple strained through cardboard meant twelve bottles did not get landed , Container ships turn around in hours what took us on general cargo ships weeks to do , I have spent five or six weeks at a terminal port unloading and reloading . The container ships are back loading for a second run in that time . So Passenger ships were killed by Boeing , Cargo Ships were killed by Containers , Freezer ships were killed off with containers . It is easy to blame Europe , but I don't think all the blame lies at the door of Brussels . When I started the Big tankers were 60,000 tonnes that grew five fold in size , bulk carriers similarly . They had the same crewing , so that was four crews ,of 35 men saved , Every VLCC put 140 seamen out of work , every container ship the same . Then BP among others flagged out of the UK , all that tonnage , not affected by Europe at all , so why did they leave these shores when it came to flags was ours expensive , our rules safer , our manning more sensible ? Europe has many failings , without deeming the loss of World Wide shipping as being laid at its door too . I cannot edit the above post , the edit button i malfunctioning

[cappy]

wot no gays ......there must have been lots of big closets

[alf corbyn]

hi rob. I was not blaming Europe for the MN demise, I was blaming the UK for abandoning our colonies to join the common market. I bet a few MP's made a killing on that, just as they made a killing on the change to metric, especially the money side. changing to pounds and pence was disastrous for a lot of people.

[robpage]

Unfortunately Alf we voted overwhelmingly for it , we were probably conned and turned over by Harold Wilson , in the 1975 referendum , oh for hindsight .

[Captain Kong]

I did not vote for it Rob, I dont know anyone here who voted for it. I think it was rigged.
We traded with the whole world and THEY stopped us with all kinds of restrictions.
We saved them from a Dictatorship in 1945 and now they are the Dictators.
Merkel has achieved what Kaiser Bill and Adolf Hitler failed to do, control europe. including us.
Great Britain is now reduced to a small province of europe.
Cheers
Brian.