Just gossip

[happy daze john in oz]

Remember the first time I bought a beer in a pub in Melbourne back in about 64.
Gave the bar man an English pound bought the beer and got 1 pound Australian and about 20 pence back.

Great times then, now it is going down the tube at a rate of knots.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

I got drunk in Aruba, as I staggered across for another rum found out I had won the dance contest.
Des

[Colin Wood]

Captain Wallace, an examiner for masters and mates formany years in London used to say, Regulations for the prevention of Collisions at sea, Rules 1 to 32, '" I don't expect you to know them by heart, but don't leave anything out or put anything in. Rule 1 go ahead".
Got 2nd. mate and Mates out of him, then the bastered died shortly before I did Masters.
Did the oral exam for Mates at Dock Street, and at the end he said,"You are laughing at me, you think ifhe fails me I can go back to sea, so I am not failing you and I am going to hold your ticket so you cant. Go away, do not go near the college or other candidates and study. Come back at 1500 friday, not before and not after"
Hid in doorway across the road to the entrance till 1459 and then ran across road to entrance. In the office, the clerk said, Captain Wallace is looking for you. Ran up to his room and knocked on door. No reply, so knocked louder, Voice says"Don't knock door down , Come in Go In usual Name Wood Sir, come here, Rule 9, started to recite when just says, take this to the clerk, and there was my pass slip.

[j.sabourn]

Same when up for 2 mate in Newcastle you were however expected to repeat them word for word and put the commas and full stops in , got as far as Rule 7 when he stopped me, however went straight onto taking the errors out of the sextant. Sargent was everyone’s nightmare in 1957 knew someone who stuttered cost him 6. Months seatime , when he put his papers in 6 months later , he failed the orals again the first time,and managed to ask a different examiner if it was because he stuttered, I couldn’t care less if you stutter or not was the reply, you didn’t give the correct bloody answer. Every examiner had their own foibles. Cheers JS.

[j.sabourn]

When up for certificates. And you did your short spell at a college establishment the likes of Nellists in Newcastle, Billy Nellist used to try and profile various examiners in the. Questions they asked. He did this by asking every candidate after they had been examined what questions that particular examiner had asked. So. If you knew who you were getting for orals, your last chance was to look up the questions he could maybe ask you. At one time one of our eastern brethren was profiled and his favourite question was believe it or not , was how to discharge a Rolls Royce at one of the Surf ports down the west coast. You had no 40 gallon drums to build a raft or suchl like The answer he wanted was to sew the car up in a new tarpaulin air tight , and tow it ashore with the ships motor life boat. Pleased I didn’t get him as would be unable to give that reply for laughing at my own response. JS...

[j.sabourn]

Ref. To another post on ship spotting and Cable and Wireless. In 1966 after the seamans strike and was obvious what was in the cards which was going to be a sharp decline in British Shipping, which today we are seeing the final results of, so must have been a long term policy view.
I applied for a job on the cable ships as was married by this time with 2 small children , a mortgage and a dog, who all had to be kept in the manner they were accustomed to. The reply came back I was too old. I was 29 at the time, but their cut off time was 28. So I wrote back that I had all my certificates so didn’t need any seatime or anything else detrimental to employment, forgot about it for a short time and continued looking for employment.Applied to the College of Fisheries in St. John’s Newfoundland for a teaching job and had to send them 3 referees of whom my family doctor was one, he told me straight away that he had been approached and he suggested I was on the short list. However my wife refused to go. My third option was made through John Kilgours of London who were recruiting for Saguenay Terminals of Montreal of which I accepted as the third chance of earning any money. However shortly after accepting , Cable and Wireless came back and said in my case they would wave the age barrier and where did I want to be based , the choices were Gibraltar , Fiji, Hong Kong, or the West Indies. It was too late for me however, but remember the conditions were very good for a married man, as lived ashore with family house in whatever part of the world you were based , your children’s education was paid for , and just for a little of what I remember if you ever reached the exalted title of master you were addressed as Commander so probably followed in the paths of the Royal Navy as regards discipline . All our lives could have been different but for Kismet. If anyone catches him wring his bloody neck will you. JS..

[j.sabourn]

Best place to put this query as may not be acceptable in other posts.
FUNERALS .... As there are restrictions now on funerals with the amount of people allowed , etc. has any cost come down on the estimated outlay for such. May be a bit more in the legacy , and don’t want to leave too much JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Not according to the adds we have on the radio for them.

Some of the most depressing adds doing the rounds , bets one tells us,
'We are cheaper than the multinationals and are local'????????????
You can get a good one from, then they come out with some fancy figure.
Not my sort of add.

[j.sabourn]

Hawthorn Leslie’s in winter time.
I think one of the most depressing times on a ship , was not when the the ship was at sea but in Dry Dock.
Being the sole person apart from shipyard workers , for 3 days on and 3 days off on a dead ship with a small cabin heater which had a very low output. Living on subsistence which allowed for a pie and a pint just outside the shipyard gates , was no where near Butlins Holiday camp. This was in 1959 .Finally after a few weeks the ordeal came to an end , the new mates and engineers arrived , and I caught the shields ferry home..The following morning I was lying in bed in my parents home, when I was rudely awakened in bed by someone shaking me , to my amazed sight it was the personel manager from the office. Come on get up you have to get back to the ship she is moving out of the dock to a buoy on the river and we need extra hands as the Riggers are on strike. When I finally came awake I asked my mother who let that creep into the house he could have been a murderer or something, her answer was he seemed such a nice man and spoke as how he knew you. Some say the good old shipowner , others tell the truth. JS.

[John Arton]

See
Regards #12
Bit similar to my experience in the hauf brau house beer hall in Newcastle, was there with the staff from the MN hotel in Shields where I was living at the time. Drunk as a skunk, coming back from the toilets staggered across the dance floor and found I had won the silly walks competition, prize... more ale!!!
On the coach back to shields the plan was for a bunch of us to go to the shoreline nightclub. Bus stops, I get off thinking we had arrived at the club, only to hear,as the bus pulled away, "shoreline next". Looking around I was that drunk I couldn't figure out where I was so staggered into a nearby park and fell asleep on a bench. Only to be woken up by a policeman wanting to know why I was sleeping on a park bench. Itold him I had been dropped off in a part of the town I was unfamiliar with after a night out drinking in Newcastle. He asked me where I was staying and I told him the MN hotel. Taking me by the arm he gently led me out of the park and pointed out to me the building about 50 metres away , "that will be it then" he said. Mumbling apologies I staggered across the road into the hotel and up to my room. 4 hours later suffering from a queasy stomach and terrible hangover I was undertaking the fire course fully suited and wearing breathing apparatus dragging hoses around in the mock up ships accommodation putting out fires in smoke filled rooms, not a good idea whith a Dodgy belly and hungover.
Rgds
J.A.