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8th April 2021, 10:35 AM
#21
Re: todays vessels
Originally Posted by
j.sabourn
Ditto on that.. but will take time.. I still had some old picture of old family mostly women selling fish outside the fisherman’s cottages in Cullercoats , believe they have all been pulled down by now. I remember my grandmother just after the war when I stayed in Kingston , she was only about 58 but looked about 98. Most of it was brought on I think by the second youngest son who was MIA when Singapore fell and she didn’t find out whether alive or dead until 5 years later in 1947. Cheers JS
same here my uncle of whom my brother was named after was taken at singapore .....northumberland fusilier.....after getting back from dunkirk ......he was home in oct 45 i month after his father died ....i have a small card saying i am well from the camp injapanese hands ,,,his bestmate from whitley bay died there.....my uncle stayed at my grans who was in such a state during his capture ...if she saw the telegram boy coming up the street she shut the curtains thinking perhaps it was a message to say he had passed those were hard times ......he was 8 stone when he got back .....cappy .....any way a lot better times now ....
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8th April 2021, 11:43 AM
#22
Re: todays vessels
Originally Posted by
cappy
same here my uncle of whom my brother was named after was taken at singapore .....northumberland fusilier.....after getting back from dunkirk ......he was home in oct 45 i month after his father died ....i have a small card saying i am well from the camp injapanese hands ,,,his bestmate from whitley bay died there.....my uncle stayed at my grans who was in such a state during his capture ...if she saw the telegram boy coming up the street she shut the curtains thinking perhaps it was a message to say he had passed those were hard times ......he was 8 stone when he got back .....cappy .....any way a lot better times now ....
Similar story with a relative of mine, Harold Moore; was under 8 stone wen he got back, so weak his mother had to bath him. Ended as a steward with, Royal Mail Lines?
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8th April 2021, 11:46 AM
#23
Re: todays vessels
#20 I don’t teally know Michael as never did my fathers mothers family tree. In fact never really did any family tree, just what various people told me. Think my kids and grandkids may have done that side but up to now haven’t mentioned it, they have with the other family name , and most of the info.I have is from them. I seen to remember an Aunt of my fathers who lived in Hill Heads May have been a chandler before she married her Christian names were Aunt Mary Ann ,she had a son a grown man at the time he seemed a bit simple at the time, but was told he had been lost in the desert in North Africa during the war. Aunt Mary Ann was a 101 when she died . That’s my total knowledge at present. Cheers JS
Last edited by j.sabourn; 8th April 2021 at 11:48 AM.
R575129
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8th April 2021, 12:48 PM
#24
Re: todays vessels
Ah! Nostalgia. I remember joining my first ship in Singapore and being surprised it had electricity and I had my own cabin.
Things went downhill from there, had my sub stopped and all sorts of great fun. Not bad for a 16 yr old apprentice from wales who only went abroad to England.
I really do not yearn for the good old days, sharing bathrooms, primitive laundry conditions (after I left Houlders), One movie a week, etc. I enjoyed all the friendships, right up to my retirement 4 yrs ago.
What I noticed, in the last 25 yrs any way, was that the youth did not wish to behave like I did all the time. I can only rally talk about cadets. Slowly, they were studious and attentive. Had a firm plan of their future (ashore) and in the main were disappointingly decent. They still had their moments though. Due to the short turn around some were told ashore or work, so the lucky ones still had time to explore. Like most things, if you haven't had it, you don't miss it.
Life at sea cannot be compared with days gone by. The whole skill sets have changed. Whats a derrick? a tank cleaning hose? Gas freeing fan? Jumbo? Spent the last few years with fishers, a supertanker there was 15,000t. The cadets did look ahead to deep sea when they finished, at least they were well experienced in their job by the time they migrated. Feed back was anything from how simple it was on big tankers to 'getting seatime for being a deckchair attendant, jobs boring but view great' .
I suppose the thing now is get qualified then have fun.
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9th April 2021, 02:06 AM
#25
Re: todays vessels
H John S.
Must have shot a lot of rabbits down here, as there are no Sabourn's in our telephone book.
Des
R510868
Lest We Forget
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9th April 2021, 02:25 AM
#26
Re: todays vessels
They would probably have been barred from NSW Des too many poachers among them. JS
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9th April 2021, 05:45 AM
#27
Re: todays vessels
Cappy, message from Vernon, his computer is ratshit but asked me to tell you he got your message
Happy daze John in Oz.
Life is too short to blend in.
John Strange R737787
World Traveller
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9th April 2021, 08:53 AM
#28
Re: todays vessels
i think going away to sea in our day was a profession now its a job simple living by the seaforth terminal and can see the ships coming in of a morning and departing the same night we had a month around exotic ports sight seeing and understanding how the other half lived a family friends son is a captain sailed into aus four times and never got ashore that to me says it all? jp
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9th April 2021, 12:39 PM
#29
Re: todays vessels
I retired in 2013, shore leave had all but vanished after 911 in the USA. You were certainly not encouraged to go ashore. That and the threat of the breathalyser be it at the dock gate if you did get ashore or as you came up the gangway D&A policy killed the social life on & off ships.
My latter years (well last 15) my job was such that I never got the chance to go ashore as Cargo Eng on Gas carriers. Only time I did get a run ashore was while alongside in Karratha , Western Australia.
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10th April 2021, 09:38 AM
#30
Re: todays vessels
I don't think many from my time, let fifties, early 60s would have stayed long if there had been no shore leave, does not bare thinking about. Used to say you could always tell a seaman by the way he walked with a *western roll*, and for a few on UC with the mince !!, now with stablisers , who knows lol, kt
R689823
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