My First Trip

[Captain Kong]

On some Starvation tramps in the 50s, on your Pound and Pint, the Chief Steward with his thumb on the scales, belly robbing berstereds, you would eat a Scabby Cat live.
The `Nicholas K`, of Kyriakides of Athens, the Captain, Mate and Chief Engineer jumped in Port Lincoln, Australia, it was so bad.
I came home looking like a skeleton. more fat on a racing snake, when we paid off we walked six abreast down the gangway. hollow cheeks. Mother didnt recognise me.
Cheers
Brian.

[moktay]

POs Peggy on Warwick Castle first and last trip on a passenger vessel.

[happy daze john in oz]

Eat anything, if I recall there was a female artist who every morning ate grass in Hyde Park London.

Now of cause they smoke it and get into strife.


But Vernon Whitery Grubs are not bad, bit like chicken and you can now get choclate covered ones, great with Biltong.

[John Arton]

Sept. 21st 1967 13:00ish
Stagger up the gangway of the "Lord Mount Stephen" in Tranmere, lugging a huge suitcase full of gear supplied by Greenbergs of Liverpool, % of which is absolutely un-necessary, who the heck needs dress whites on tanker! but Greenbergs say as you are joining the Canadian Pacific as a officer cadet you will need dress blues, dress whites, tropical whites, battle dress and blazer plus anything else they could throw at you, sou wester etc. included.
Some guy looking a bit like a sergeant major who called himself the mate< that's nice I think already got a friend, shows me a cabin and throws me a boiler suit and work boots and tells me to get dressed. After 5 minutes he comes barging back in yelling "not ready yet", 5 minutes come and see me in the cargo control room.
Struggle into boiler suit and wonder what the hell a cargo control room is.
5 minutes later, again, same guy "my mate" appears and drags me off down this stinking hot and noisy room called the "pumproom", 50 feet down some almost vertical ladders where at the bottom are 4 huge centrifugal pumps screaming away and loads of pipes and valves all over the place. Hand signals tell me he wants me to open/close this valve and that valve. After sweating ******** swinging all these valves it back up them ladders and off up the deck again swinging valves. Eventually we make it to "cargo control room" with me knackered. It is then that I am told that "my Mate" is not actually my friend but is my boss, the Chief Officer. This goes on for the next 6 hours up and down this dam pumproom, up and down the deck, swinging valves all the time. Eventually told I can knock off and get changed for a meal in the saloon. All I really want to do is collapse in the corner and fall asleep but hunger drives me on so after showering and changing in my own cabin with its own shower, I wander around and eventually find the "Officers saloon" where a very friendly Spanish guy shows me where to sit and offers me a menu full of incredible food items. Thinking that I could only have one of the items on the I point at one only to find out I could have as much off the menu as I wanted. After filling my boots I eventually get back to my cabin and unpack and fall into my bunk absolutely knackered, wondering if I haven't made the biggest mistake of my short life to date.
06:00 the next day, rudely awakened by someone banging on my door telling me to get dressed and report again to the control room, where again I spend the next 12 hours up and down the bloody pumproom and deck, again swinging valves, all done at a pace that would put Mo Farah to shame, but at least I get fed 3 times!
Fall into bed again knackered to be woken up at 04:00 and told to get dressed in uniform and report to the bridge as we are about to sail. At last thinks I, proper Officer stuff. Spend the next 3 hours or so making tea and coffee for the Captain and Pilot whilst being told by the 3rd Mate to write all sorts of weird comments such as "Dead Slow ahead", "let go aft" etc. in something called a "Bell Book".
Eventually after passing someplace called "The Bar", I never saw anyone serving beer there, this guy called " a Pilot" clambers down a ladder, very scary that, into a small boat and off we go heading out to sea. It is then that "my mate" gets hold of me and gives me a tour of this bloody huge ship, explaining all different things to me and what my duties are going to be. I am then left to my own devices to wander around and meet the rest of all on board. Apparentley all the crew are Spanish whilst all the Officers are English but some of them are Welsh and "Scouse"!!! The ones in the dirty boiler suits seem very pleasant but a bit crude, asking me all sorts of questions about girlfriends and am I a poofter or what. Eventually turn in after again being fed 3 times thinking this is not to bad.
06:00 next day, rude awakening and told to report to the bridge where a bucket and mop along with tin of brasso and a rag are thrust at me and I am told to get on with cleaning the wheelhouse and polishing all the brass, which again I think "this is not too bad" as I can look out at the sea and all the other ships around and the Officer on watch actually points out such strange things as radar screens and steering stands with something called a gyro compass. I am told to polish this brass tube labelled "Captains Cabin" so I industrially put on the brasso and start polishing the thing, first removing the funny looking cap on the top of it. Whilst I am polishing away the Captain appears on the bridge wanting to know why he had been called as he was having a kip. It was then explained to me by a rather irate captain that the tube I was polishing was actually a speaking tube the other end of which ended just above his head in his bunk and that by removing the top the wind blowing through the wheelhouse had gone down the tube and set off the whistle at the other end, waking him from his slumbers...whoops!!!
Next I am told to go onto the "monkey island and polish the brass up there. Bloody hell, monkey island, do we have animals on board? But no its just the deck above the wheel house with the magnetic compass situated there.
This goes on for the next 48 hours or so coupled with terrible bouts of sea sickness as we cross the "Bay of Biscay" but at least by now I have got to know all the officers and crews names and arnks and am being fed 3 times a day.
Eventually we get into warmer climes and we start "tank cleaning" which again means going up and down that bloody pump room swinging valves like a whirling dervish, humping bloody great "butterworth" machines around that jet huge jets of scalding hot water around inside the cargo tanks.
This goes on for about a week by which time its getting stinking hot as we are in the tropics. Next thing I'm down these tanks scooping out all the remaining sludge from the crude oil cargo and dumping it over the side meaning that after a few hours of this I emerge from the tank looking like I had been swimming in the stuff.
This goes on for the next week or so as we make our way round the Cape of Good Hope, stopping there for stores and mail, on our way to the Persian Gulf. After completing the tank cleaning, apart from my cleaning and polishing duties daily, I am introduced to the joys of chipping and painting, greasing and oiling valves etc., learning to tie knots, splice ropes and wires, lifeboat maintenance etc. etc. with weekends being spent studying learning basic navigation, reciting the "Rules of the Road" to the Captain every Sunday as well as learning to speak passable Spanish and drink warm Harp lager and Orangeboom.
We eventually arrive a some godforsaken Island called Halul Island in the middle of the Persian Gulf where we load more crude oil which we take back to Gothenburg for discharge where I get to visit the "British Grenadier" and see how the other half supposedly live and a right poncy lot they are too.
This goes on for the next 11 months with a very pleasant 14 days spent in Dry Dock in Lisbon before I eventually pay off in Shell Haven in London, one year older, a lot wiser and with 0% of that gear in the bloody suitcase foisted on me by Greenbergs still unused.
Would I do it again, dam right I would, I'd be off like a shot.
rgds
JA

[vic mcclymont]

John, I had the opposite experience, advised to buy all the passenger gear (No. 10's, White Dinner Jacket etc.) as I was sailing with U.C. a year later transferred to Clan Line and never wore the passenger gear again.

[Chris Isaac]

When you're hungry Doc, you'll eat most anything, spent long months at a time over four years in Ethiopia on famine relief aid and distribution, when you're hungry believe me you'll try anything

Absolutely right, sometimes I even tried to eat Tourist Class food................... never doing that again!

[robpage]

It was not too bad Chris , if you got sentenced to eat there , you had to fill in a questionnaire , about how nice it was , the nice Head Waiter used to like filling them in for you so much , he put a couple of bottles of Gran Moussec Vin Doux on the table if you let him fill in your paperwork , the wingers were a bit strange though , they were straight

And John , dirty Boilersuited guys Crude , No they effin weren't !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[vic mcclymont]

Never had the pleasure of Tourist Class. The VAAL was Hotel Class.

[robpage]

I was on the Pendennis Vic , I had forgotten , the one class Vaal , you had a stewardess service there to as opposed to the usual system , if I remember

[vic mcclymont]

Correct Rob, and you didn't want to get on the wrong side of them, they were rough and ready.