Cruise Ships Maiden voyage

I can never remember the street names in London due to my to my roaming childhood , but can remember Great Ormond Street children’s hospital and think it was Leadenhall street and others where I went for interviews for various jobs in later life . John I Jacobs , Saguenay Shipping had agency’s there , and even their name slips me at moment when owned the Danish ferries but also had money invested in various other company’s and even airlines like the national carrier for Hong Kong. London really at one time was the centre of the shipping world as we knew it.Today it is a mockery of once what it was. However my biggest memory are as a small child and the solid sense you had of the London population who I would think took the biggest brunt of the blitz. But today someone said it is like a foreign city to anyone revisiting it and expecting different sights . Anyhow London is still the centre of the universe if you are born British. Just a pity about some of the Honourable members of certain establishments . Before flying out to Canada to join Saguenay Terminals I had to go round the corner of some street to a Harley Street Doctor , and round another corner to a pox doctor with a manservant who opened the front door , it was surprising the upper crust quality of those seeking assistance nearly everyone had a room to themselves , possibly to prevent any scandal. JS

john with ref to london ...iwas on the way to visiting some old freinds from shields who now live in banstead in surrey ...i was diverted due to a road accident through central london and out to banstead ...there was one period for at least 40 to50 minutes where i only saw foriegn black people ...it was not a good scenario ...i really felt i was in islamabad or bangladesh or anywhere but my countries capital .....i have no wish to see london or its suberbs again ....i felt as if i was not in england .....i presume it is even worse now....the traffic was at a standstill with the M1blocked .....no more for me now ......cappy R683532

hi cappy #22
good afternoon, just think about it, by the 2011 official census there was forty four percent legal foreign immigrants in london, when boris johnson was running it he wanted a amnesty for the estimated one or two million illegal foreigners that are living and working there, some estimates put the figure of illegals at three million,
so if a war broke out now and london was being bombed there would be no need for a blackout to called for,
tom:confused:

Probably illegal to call it a blackout today would have to be called the dousing of all electric and candle light . Or as they used to call out during the war without thinking , put that light out. Don’t you know there’s a war on. It used to save on the electric and gas bills. JS

I will be in London in a few weeks, will report back and let you know.

As to cruise ships, we sail with Princess now, nothing over about 2900 on board.

Stay away from Royal Caribbean, if you do not like crowds, most are in the 6000 region.
Far too big for us.

By the time they had ticked the names off at their boat station the ship Would be on the bottom .JS

I detect ,in some posts,a hint of xenophobia and racism here.
You could really say that many other capital cities in the world,and indeed other big cities in the UK have similar problems with a diverse population and immigration,legal or otherwise.

Our post war baby boom generation will never change their views on racism.OK,but I find that surprising ,amongst we ex Merchant Navy personnel,very many of us having sailed,worked,eaten with,shared ups and downs of life at sea with 'foreigners and other ethnic minorities.We have visited many crowded cities and ports and can compare them with ours,all coming away with mostly indelible impressions of those places,and then go home praising or belittling those places and people as appropriate,often helping to reinforce or fan prejudices .

But it does seem to me-that in general that whilst that is fine on a ship,the attitude,once down the gangplank its "Heck no,I don't mind sailing with Fernando or Rastus,but I don't want to live next door to him and his family or have a drink in the pub with him....




# 25 Happy Daze John in Oz.

John I eagerly await your latest critical (and I'm sure it will be !) report ,as always,on your London visit ,this time of 2022.
Yes,of course I know you still class yourself as British,or indeed still are, but I ,living in London,and I suppose by now having enough of London rubbed off on me would class you as an Aussie,and a Tourist to boot,and as with any Tourist,we get fed up of you clogging up our streets paved with gold and our cafes and tour buses ,demanding and whingeing!. We don't mind you working here,and there are many of you,,all good blokes and girls.
Most of this is tongue-in-cheek,and I do wish you a great cruise and UK visit. I shan't be in London for the next 4 weeks, (Lisbon awaits me ) as I'm forgoing the sunny leafy,cosmopolitan West London,and the trendy pavement cafe culture of the Chiswick High Road,where amongst the barista staff in particular,it feels like I'm truly abroad,listening to accents from exotic places like Poland,Ethiopia,Australia and New Zealand-now there's a peculiar accent,saying ' i' when they mean 'e' -like 'accint' !

Enjoy the summer !Attachment 34818

I can vouch for that last sentence Graham, flying into Auckland one time and having just finished my immigration form , the girl next to me asked do you have a pin, no I said thinking maybe her bra had snapped , so I asked the wife sitting on the other side she also said no, so I said to the girl sorry No! so she turned to someone else and borrowed their pen. JS

Well I am quite surprised to see so many of our members willing to pay to go on a ship, I for one will not be changing my habit's and will not set foot on a gang plank unless someone is paying me.;);):p

It used to be compulsory on the Shields ferry 3d. However I applied for a county grant and finally got it for free . South Shields being a different county though I had to pay 2d on the trolley to Westhoe .Think Cappy had a share in the Trolley company . JS