Just gossip

[j.sabourn]

#50 mores the pity. As I say and will to my dying day I had and never will have any regrets about emigrating to Australia for numerous reasons, and only one, such as the equality and fairness in wages and such , would have been enough to make that decision. If Australian seamen were overpriced it didn’t stop the industry going ahead. Only a change in government changed that. I still have occasional contact with what little Seafarers are remaining and think the same as when in uk , what a loss to the industry they are. Any worker of whatever industry is the driving force for profit. Which the owners of such use to their own advantage. Today I saw petrol at the bowser down to 81 cents a litre, just watch it shoot up when travel restrictions are lifted. Taking one from the post on old sayings, “ A sprat to catch a mackerel “. Cheers JS

[j.sabourn]

The British Navy post after the Anzac Day one, should of been on this gossip post and was put on other by mistake. However to continue with to people who write about history , wasn’t there an act of Parliament enacted between the two world wars setting out the size of the R.N. By such methods as I have suggested. At a similar time that Germany was restricted to her naval power building , thus bringing into being the pocket battleship to circumvent the restrictions placed on them ??
JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
The second officer Jenkins might have been from my tribe; but not from my family, they would have put her ashore closer to home so that the rest of us could do a bit of scavenging.
Des

[j.sabourn]

I put his name there just in case he was of your tribe Des. He was Mate when I sailed with him think I was 3 Mate. He in later years went out to Oz and became a Barrier Reef Pilot , think he married an Ozzie girl. If still alive would be into his nineties now. To become a reef pilot in those days you had to do seatime on that part of the coast for so long and he did that by going 2 Mate on some coastal vessel, this was after being master for a number of years on British vessels. A very quite and unassuming man when I was with him , made a pleasant change from the master and second mate , the old man was called Watson and the second mate was Graham who was later the master who dispensed about a bakers dozen of double DRs in one go. Cheers JS

[j.sabourn]

There were always bonds between certain people in those days. The small account just mentioned , the master and 2 Mate had sailed together during the war, and were as thick as thieves , your namesake think according to the newspaper report went to sea in 1948 , so him and myself were not in the self congratulatory clique.
The Director of the Company was a personage,was a person called believe it or not Blackadder who was known by nickname as the Negro Accountant , the personel manager was a buddy of his who had been his tail gunner when he had been flying bombers during the war. Politics although not invited on this site , was certainly practised in shipping. cheers JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Like you John no regrets about coming to Oz.

Last Australian shipping line I recall was the ANL which I think vanished in the mid 80's when Hawke was PM.
All we have left here in Victoria is the ferry to Tasmania.

[j.sabourn]

What happened to TNT? Not the explosive but the mainly supply boats which turned up in the North Sea, werent considered too flash, but believe they were Australian owned. Did they crumble as well ? JS

[happy daze john in oz]

John, TNT, Thompsons Night Transport, not seen any of their trucks on the roads for years.,
Maybe they did go missing or most likely taken over.

[Tony Taylor]

John, TNT, Thompsons Night Transport, not seen any of their trucks on the roads for years.,
Maybe they did go missing or most likely taken over.

still on the go here, their local depot is in Washington

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
BHP Iron boats seemed to just up and disappear, I never realy noticed their going, probably all clustered in some small port up the Spenser Gulf like Wyalla.
waiting for a crew to come back from the pub.
Des

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