seamans mission

[cappy]

some62 years ago and twice after that i sailed from shields with a set of brothers they were a hard family and best watched out for ....i was young and new them from stories from a certain area of shields ....they fought amongst themselves also and some injuries were pretty bad etc .....but there was one story that always made me feel that sometimes in life good things can happen
some of the brothers there was 6 of them sailed together but another two sailed alone at the time .......they had not seen each other for 4 or 5 years .....one was on his ass in new york but none of them new that at that time ....living rough and in the seamans mission illegaly in the US......an other brother got on the booze in new york and not wishing to go back aboard went to the mission.....this bit about xmas eve is never verified .....the rest is true ....the brother going to the misssion came across his brother he had not seen for years ....it is a true story verified by one of the brothers to me .....they were a big family all seafaring from shields ...there was always trouble from them .....JS will know the name ......sadly all gone now but the kids and grandkids still about......strange world .....cappy

[j.sabourn]

Think I know who you mean Cappy.. JS.

[j.sabourn]

There were a lot of characters out of Shields. one of them was a mate in Runcimans who was an ex master out of Salvessons and had at one time been the working mate on the Harvester and Venturer , after being demoted for thrown one of the office staff off the bridge on one of their transport ships running down to South Georgia. I was an apprentice with him as mate one time on your favourite ship the Avonmoor. He wrote a book called the Deep South in longhand and I had to proof read for him and point any spelling mistakes he made. This book was later published but was too expensive to buy for me. There were over 800 men on those factory ships . But would be too long to go into other info.on what I had to read. His name was William McCoughlin and he went on to write other marine fiction books. He lived in Shields for years before going back to Scotland and finished up across the river from Leith . Think he was a chufter originally. About 5’4” in height and 5’5” in the beam but saw him one time in NZ take on 3 big men from Stornaway , they woke up later. I later sailed with him as his second mate when he had been promoted back to master. He had the bad habit of going off course in port and hitting the bottle hard, maybe had to do with his wartime experiences , but the shipowner was oblivious to such excuses I tried covering for him in Italy but the agent reported him and it was back to the drawing board. Another character once sailed with never forgotten. I learned a lot from him , maybe the most important thing of all never give others an opening to do you harm, in other words never expose yourself to give someone a chance to get at you , that may have been shown to me when he laid out 3 x 6 footers , he was that quick they never knew what hit them. Cheers JS

Just had an afterthought it may have been Septimus Kincaid who was bosun , so will have to let the memory simmer on that one, he came up to Mac as was his nickname , and said the three would not turn to after smoko. Seppy himself if it was him would have been quite capable himself of doing it ,but was of a much nicer disposition, so did the correct thing. Must have caught Mac at the wrong time of day as would have been about 1100 hrs. And the sun was well over the yardarm , so Mac invited them back to work the only way he knew. Cheers JS

[cappy]

interesting about the southern harvester and the venturer john ..... a good mate in shields was a year older than me and did his ist trip up the baltic on a small vessel which was sunk in a collision with another vessel in thick fog ....they were lost in the fog for three days or so in the lifeboat ..us still at school were saying prayers for them and singing the salilors hymn in assembly .....anyway he got back safely and off to the pool .....iether the harvester or venturer.......of course 17 or 18 months then heading home ......but the payoff was mega.....he did so long on the vessel and so long on the island ....this all in 1955 or 56 .....in 61 im in auckland and in a seamans bar we met up ..we had a great night ...i recall he was in the chilean reefer saling next day...and introduced me to his bonny maori lady who stayed aboard with me for some two weeks or so...sadly he has now gone beyond the sun ...but when the whalers paid of the ladies of the night congregated as rich pickings were at hand ....no females in south georgia and contrary to some reports them penguins can really scarper on hearing the dulcit tones of someone shouting .....here pengy pengy .....here pengy pengy....lol ...cappy R683532

[j.sabourn]

Those butchers and flensers had no scruples Cappy . JS.