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Thread: Pets on ships.

  1. #11
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    Default Re: Pets on ships.

    On the same ship, Good Hope Castle, I found a Chamelion on a bush in Mtwara, Tanganyika, green with big bulbous eyes, I called him Charlie and took him back to the ship.
    He sailed with us for the next two trips, even taking him home between voyages, He was excellent at catching flies, with his very long sticky tongue, I used to take him to the ale house with me, and place him on the bar, and dipping my finger into my pint I would drip the beer into his mouth, He loved beer, but he would soo get drunk, His singing was awful.
    [joke]. We took the ship to Hong KONG breakers and were flying home on an old Dakota, chartered by the company, it was Owner/Driver, the Pilot was a Big Texan. there was just the crowd, about 30 of us, We landed at Calcutta and I left Charlie on the curtain by the port hole style window. and we went into the shed for egg and chips, the owner/pilot was paying, When we got back on theplane after the cleaners had been on, we were running down the runway picking up speed for take off when I noticed that Charlie had gone. Just as it was about to lift off I shouted , "Charlie is missing"
    Our ships Captain ran to the Pilot shouting one of his men was missing.
    The Pilot slammed the breaks on, the plane skideed to a halt tipping its nose to the ground and the tail up in the air.banging down with a huge bang.

    I was on my hands and knees under the seats and found him clinging to a stanchion shivering and covered in bruises, [ off the cleaners], I picked him up as the Pilot walked up and I shouted, "I have found him"

    The Pilot was going mad about it, so was our Captain, and called us a bunch of crazy Limies, a Plane stopped almost in flight just for a lizard,
    We got home OK after a tyree and a half days flying, During my leave one of the lads, Dowie, wanted to borrow Charlies and take him home to Birkenhead, for a couple of weeks, I went to pick him up later, and was told, Charlie was Dead. Shock, Dowie told me he didn't have any flies to feed him, he went to all the Pet Shops but no one had any tinned flies and so Charlie died of hunger. Very sad. he buried him on a building site. so I saw the little grave.
    Brian
    RIP Charlie,
    Last edited by Captain Kong; 14th August 2019 at 10:57 AM.

  2. #12
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    Default Re: Pets on ships.

    In Toronto on the beaverfir, morning smoko, all the crowd on the poop. Suddenly pilot and Jacobs ladders going over the side and a.b's climbing down to rescue a small kitten that had been thrown into the harbour. Got it onboard and it adopted the bosun, sleeping curled round his head in his bunk every night. During the day it would lie in the alleyway up against a warm Spot on the engine room bulkhead, lying in wait for any unsuspecting person to come along and it would leap out and attack your ankles. On arrival in the lock for the royal docks it was over the side and away for shore leave. As our berth was in Vic. Dock we never expected to see it again but two days prior to sailing it came trotting up the gangway. This happened every trip afterwards. It only ever went on the bridge as we were going up the saint Lawrence seaway. It never went ashore anywhere else but in the royal docks. It even had its own miniature discharge book made for it by the crew and one trip they got the purser drunk and got him to add it to the crew list to be handed to the shipping officer who would be doing the signing on. He was a grumpy old git who used to transcribe the typed crew list handed to him onto the articles in beautiful copperplate script and would then call you individually forward to sign on. The last name on the list was the cat and when he called out its name the bosun put it on the table in front of the shipping officer he didn't see the fun in this and in a fit of anger tore the articles up and stormed off, only returning 24 hours before we were due to sail with a new set of articles.
    Another trip in London, the cat, now fully grown, caused mayhem when it returned early one morning with its provisions for the voyage which was a bloody huge seagull that it had captured and dragged on board half alive, squaking and flapping its wings as it did not fancy being the cats food nor have a trip to Canada. There was blood and feathers all over the alleyway and it took a right fight to get the bird off the cat and throw it over the side, the half dead seagull that was, not the cat. The cat was still there when I left the ship 6 months later, still enjoying voyages to Canada, still only sitting on the bridge watching everything as we went up the seaway, never going ashore in any port beyond its shore leave in the royal docks.
    Rgds
    J.A.

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    Default Re: Pets on ships.

    I have seen several pets on board from Parakeets and monkeys on the South American line, but the one pet aboard a ship i recall most, i think it was the Jalasilton Hall on the run to India.As most will remember, Bombay was basically dry ship, i think it was rationed to 6? beers, anyway later we were round in Calcutta , where there was no limit, and a heavy night followed on the bevvy, i remember turning in as usual well lissed, and awoke at about 4 o'clock in the morning, pitch dark, but what had wakened me was the sound of really heavy breathing, i very slowly reached up to my bunk light, not knowing what to expect, and there lying on my settee berth was a bloody great big stray dog, and he had bit of a glare in his eye, when i opened the door and told him OUT!! i got a little growl, at that point i went into the messroom, rooted about in the rosie, and found something that looked like meat, then waved it in front of him, and eventually tempted him down the gangway, and threw the food on the quay and legged it back to my cabin, all this with me in my underkacks . Next morning found out it was my two drinking shipmates having a laugh at my expense, kt
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    Default Re: Pets on ships.

    Extracted from my book, LIFE ABOARD A WARTIME LIBERTY SHIP.

    The date was early January 1944 when I was on the Samite.

    I left Beni Saf with 7lbs of dates, 4½lbs of figs, 14lbs of oranges and 9lbs of onions. Others had invested their ill-gotten gains in caged birds. Harry had bought a bullfinch and the PO Gunner had bought a canary for 500 frs. Another fellow had got one for 300 francs, but the PO justified his exploitation by insisting that he had a much better bird! Harry and the PO allowed their birds to fly about their cabins and the PO demonstrated how to catch them to return them to their cages when it was dark. You fixed your eyes on the spot where the bird was sitting, put out the light and grabbed it. The birds were pampered; not only did Harry put a swing in the cage, but he wrapped string round it to keep its feet warm.


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  6. #15
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    Default Re: Pets on ships.

    Extracted from my book, LIFE ABOARD A WARTIME LIBERTY SHIP.

    This was after the Samforth had sailed from Pernambuco on 1 August 1945.

    On the evening prior to departure, I bought two birds in a wooden cage. They were believed to be canaries and, as the weather was fine at sea the next day, I hung the cage in the open air on the small deck aft of our cabin. During the evening, however, Caro came into the cabin to tell me that both birds had gone. I was naturally angry, as the birds could not have escaped without someone opening the door of the cage. The following morning, Arthur said to me, "I see one of your birds has escaped." "What do you mean one?" I asked, "They've both gone." "Well," said Arthur, "there's one there now." and, when I went out to look, there was a bird in the cage. I could not believe it, but the mystery was solved when the DEMS sergeant explained that he had caught it sitting on the stern rail and returned it.

    I was cleaning out the cage the next day when the bird escaped again and this time I caught it taking a stroll on the bridge. And, although I christened it Joe, its name was promptly changed to Houdini. During the next fortnight, when the bird uttered only a couple feeble chirps, I gave it to Arthur. Arthur was always cheerful and, when he reported to me about the bird's welfare, he stressed that, under his care, Houdini was singing beautifully!

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  8. #16
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    Default Re: Pets on ships.

    I was on the ESSO YORK in 1975,
    a AB who had a Budgie was going on leave for a month.
    He asked me and Paddy to look after his bird and left a bag of seed, I looked in every day so did Paddy, the Seed bin was always full, the bird singing, then just before the lad returned from leaver the Budgie was Dead on the bottom of the cage. I checked the food that was always full, No seeds just the shells off the seeds that the bird spit out after eating so I thought Paddy was feeding it and Paddy thought I was feeding it, so it died of starvation.
    So we got some glue and stuck its feet on the perch It kept sliding over and hanging upside down, so we had to hold it in position until the glue set. The lad came back and he thought it was asleep, for a couple of days. Meanwhile I paid off to go on leave, so I wasn't there when he found a dead budgie glued to a perch.

    Brian

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    Default Re: Pets on ships.

    When I was 14 Blue Star offered me a trip round the coast to give me a taste of sea going life. I joined the Gladstone star in London, visiting Dunkirk, Hamburg and returning to London where I transferred to the California star for the run from London to Liverpool where I went home from. The California star was created by the weirdest bunch of officers I ever sailed with. Never got to know any of the engineers as they all seemed to spend there times fixing the main engine which was constantly breaking down, however that ship had made it from Australia fully laden was a mystery. The radio officer was an old guy who kept a bicycle stripped down and pegged up to his cabin bulkhead and when in port would daily assemble the bike, pedal off to buy the morning papers and on return would strip down the bike, clean and oil every part before pegging it back up on his cabin bulkhead. He also used to have long conversations with the lifeboats. The mate was as gay as a bunch of fairies who I had to lock my cabin door against as he took a shine to me, the 2nd mates favourite reading material was "The ship's captain medical guide", especially the pages with photos of the various stages of venereal diseases but the strangest of them all was the captain who since being promoted to captain not long after WW2 had, on his wife's orders, never done a deep sea voyage, instead being the permanent coastal relief Captain. This did not stop him joining every vessel with a steamer trunk full of every uniform from winter blues to tropical whites and also a caged parrot which he immediately foisted on the 4th mate to look after it. As it was warm weather he had the parrots cage hung in his open porthole where it would sit quietly until anyone passed by when it would then start up an almighty squarking racket. I was pals with the trainee sparks and we would sit on the deck outside the cabin catching some sunshine whilst the parrot was constantly loudly squaking away. To shut it up the sparks pushed a welding rod through the cage bars and the parrot immediately latched onto it and started to chew the end off the rod. This went on for a couple of days until the inevitable happened and the parrot died from poisoning from ingesting welding flux. The 4th mate on discovering his charge dead on the cage floor was high on in tears thinking he had killed it by failing to look after it properly and was terrified by what the captain would do when he reported his parrots death to him. On doing so, apparently the captain's reply was " good, it was the wife's parrot and he never liked the damm thing".
    Rgds
    J.A.

  10. #18
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    Default Re: Pets on ships.

    In the latest from Bill Miller which I have forwarded to several members there is a section about pets on ships.
    Cunard still carry dogs for passengers on the QM2.
    Interesting photo of a Chimp in there as well.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
    World Traveller

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  12. #19
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    Default Re: Pets on ships.

    My favourite Pet on our ship was `Charlie Kakatoa` [Cockatoo]
    I was in Java at Tanjong Priok on the Euryades, a Blu Flu Sam boat, 1960 we were on the coast there for Six months. I wrote about it in my Spice Islands Story;
    I bought Charlie for a few Rupiahs, He could speak a few words of Javanese and I taught him some English and a few words of Spanish.
    He went everywhere with me, took him ashore everynight and he would get drunk in the bars and fall off the end of the bar, He would get drunk in my cabin as he had a tin on the end of his perch full of Javanese brandy, he would drink it and then fall off his perch, clutching his head with his claw muttering , `Tidak Bagus`, .
    He always sat on my shoulder when I was working on deck, he would never leave me, even when I was on the wheel Charlie was always there sat on my shoulder.
    We eventually got orders for home after six months , I couldn't take Charlie home, I couldn't afford to keep him in booze so I took him to a bar in Padang, Sumatra, and left him behind the bar, the barman gave me a bottle of brandy, A tear ran down Charlie`s cheek, he just uttered one word, `Bastard,` I ran down the steps with a tear running down my cheek, I felt like Judas, One of the saddest days of my life. He was a good mate and I had dumped him.
    Cockatoos live to around 80 years, I may go back one day to find him.
    Brian
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    Last edited by Captain Kong; 16th August 2019 at 03:16 PM.

  13. #20
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    Default Re: Pets on ships.

    Good photo Brian, where did you get the skirt?
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
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