Originally Posted by
John Arton
John
When I did my taster trip with Blue Star at the age of 14, the 2nd Mate on the California Star was the medical man and he used to get his kicks reading the Ships Captain Medical Guide, especially the photo section on Venereal Diseases etc.
Mind you he was not alone in being weird on that ship. The Chief Officer was gay and always trying to entice me into his cabin, the Sparks used to talk to lifeboats and bathe in a tin bath in his cabin bringing water from the bathroom opposite his cabin. He also had a bicycle that he used to go and fetch the daily papers on when in port and after every cycle rid would strip the bike down completely, clean it and then put all the different parts up on peg board fixed to his cabin bulkhead. The Captain never went deep sea, only ever did the coastal relief voyages as his wife would not let him go deep sea claiming that as he was one of the senior masters he should be the company's coastal relieving man. This did not stop him from joining with a full steamer trunk full of every uniform dress under the sun including tropical whites and a BLOODY parrot, who's upkeep he foisted onto the senior apprentice, who after a week found the parrot dead in its cage and was in fear for his job. Little did he know that myself and the junior sparks had killed it by feeding it welding rods as it sat in its cage on the boat deck, squawking away and annoying us in our bronzy time. We thought that by playing with it using the said welding rods it would amuse it and keep it quiet. Well it did for a few days until the stuff it digested from the welding rod caused it to be permanently quiet .
The sparky by the way ended up cycling straight into the Royal Docks one morning coming back with the morning papers and drowned.
rgds
JA