Different lines

[Robert George Young]

If there were an order of
Good shipping companies in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s
What would they be?

Also bad ones?

I’m sure some were good, some bad
In respect of Pay, conditions and how they treated the crew, etc?

Thank you
Bob

[j.sabourn]

Depended mainly on who they had working for them in a lot of cases. Human nature being what it is , most people in authority tend to treat others how they were treat themselves . Shipowners are businessmen and there to make a profit. Shipping when run privately is there to make a profit by whatever means. In theory the BSF was there to see that fairness ensued . Myself I don’t think their success rate was high enough ,others might differ, but there again you had a work force whose first claim was to ensconce themelves in a secure work position. JS

[cappy]

[QUOTE=Robert George Young;402434]If there were an order of
Good shipping companies in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s
What would they be?

Also bad ones?

ore carriers best jobs ever
In the 50s and to some extent the 60s.....three meals a day were not a regular thing ...but as a seafarer three meals were a great incentive to go to sea for crew in general.....my feelings are it was for crew a way of making a living...... but as a long term future unless you were officers.... not giving much chance of progress.....the chance of seeing the world before package holidays was a great incitement......the comradeship was a great part of being in a team weather you were a ist tripper or not .....as for good or bad companies that was in my view a personal view .....i have had bad food badly cooked good food badly cooked......some food riddled with weevils and maggots ......and a jar of pickled onions in viniger with wee beesties swimming round in it ......bad water and even up the gulf water rationing while lying off kharg island for a month in july with no air con .....wind chutes were a waste of time as there was no wind .....but of course none of the stresses of the war years which merchant seamen suffered.....i have seen fools alkis thieves and psychos ......but the best mates in my life in those years it was a learning curve in life that never left.....men died in accidents and with heatstroke .....men whose children had died while they were thousands of miles from home ....no flying home in them days ....but i would not have changed those years for anything.....i think if i had been an apprentice with a possible future at sea i would no doubt have stayed .....but as a rating i new life would be hard to suport a wife and children....but the insite into mankind was indelibly imprinted in my inner thoughts for life and the imputus it has given me is worth more than gold....some will agree some wont but that is my view R683532

[Louis the fly]

Shipping companies were judged by many criteria. Where their ships traded, good or bad accommodation, reputation or lack of it for providing good food. Length of average trip. After this it was word of mouth among seaman, if someone had a bad experience with a particular shipping company they would advise others not to join, vice versa after a happy enjoyable trip.
Seamen were not all alike, some went where they thought they could earn the most money, some wanted to go to countries they had been before and enjoyed themselves. There were seamen who wanted only short trips, 1 month or six weeks, some who liked the adventure of tramping where they did not know where the ship would be going or how long they would away. Then there were tanker men, cargo, passenger, home trade or deep sea. We were lucky in those days all of the options were open to us.
My views as an AB, for officers their priority's were usually a shipping company with the best chances of advancement and promotion.

[Robert George Young]

That is brilliant

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So grateful for these replies
So descriptive ��

[j.sabourn]

#3 As already stated the ore carriers referred to were a nationalized work force during the time indicated and therefore were amply covered by taxpayers money into their running costs and little complaints made about overtime payments which at the time was the big incentive to most seafarers , in fact the overtime was the only incentive to keep them there , plus the fact they were the easiest worked ships going, no running gear , apart from hatch lids, if the truth was known they would or could be run on a shoe string as regards overtime. Cheers JS.

[Louis the fly]

When I was a 14 year old school boy I went to the local library every Friday afternoon. They kept a copy of Lloyd's List and I would check were my elder brother's ship was. All the names of the foreign ports sounded magical although some of them may have been hell on earth.
When I went to sea at 16 my ambition was to see as much of the world as possible. Listening to stories from the AB's in the messroom about their favourite ports and the things they had been up to I would try to get there next trip. This meant a different ship and company every trip. The only place I didn't manage to get to was Manaus in the Amazon, after a while lost interest because it had been opened up to tourists and lost it's true identity. The best education for a boy and young man.

[J Gowers]

Robert,
I can only talk about the two main companies I sailed with. I went to sea, as an Engineer at 21, with Denholm and later BP both in my opinion were good companies to work for I had no problems with pay ( which was a lot better than I was getting ashore) , food, accommodation, length of trips, (ie getting off when I was supposed to) also got full, paid, study leave to obtain a C/E ticket. Denholms had a big varity of ships which made each trip different and obviously BP was all tankers but I sailed on the British Trent which was a products tankerwhich carried gas oil etc so went into smaller ports and took longer to discharge so we had a few runs up the road, the crude tankers were a bit boring hardly ever getting a run up road from them. I went to sea in 1974 and by that time the Golden age of the Merchant Navy had passed and with containerisation general cargo ships, which spent a lot of time in port, were being consigned to history. Another thing that made Denholms interesting was the different crews on the their ships and I sailed with British, Philapino, Chinese, Indian, Pakistan, Barbadoes. As I said I went to sea in the 70s but there are plenty on this site who can tell you about the earlier days.

[j.sabourn]

I was married in 1962 , and left an allotment for the wife as normal , she had to go up to the shipowners office In Newcastle to collect every month and stand in a queue with the rest of the wives and next of kin . Wasn’t until about 1965 that Runcimans started paying direct salary’s into your bank account. There was still the snobbery there by some and was usually due to different ships different habits , the better educated and more affluent tended to go on the passenger and liner trades who seemed to want to know what your father did for a living rather than what you were capable of, this applies to both mates and engineers. When a mate of mine was sent by the pool to join a well known passenger company in London he had to report to the London office , they asked him the same question , what does your father do for a living , he answered my father is not looking for a job I am. They gave him directions via tubes and buses to the London Docks, he said if you think I’m carting all my luggage across London on buses and tubes you have another think about it and I want a taxi or I’m going home. As I say it was probably the office staff who were tight but the Company got the blame. Sometimes your own cloth can be your worse enemy. The early days you would never hear first names from senior officers it was always Mr. so and so or mister mate. Some of the old timers went to the grave and never used Christian names . As to communal messrooms many took early retirement the writing was on the wall in any case. Then and Now are two totally different spectrums of seagoing life. But as also say there were ships and trades where things were on a more casual basis and everyone mucked in, anyone who had spent all their life on passenger ships would be in a totally different world and vice versa . I speak for what is or was known as the midships crowd.JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

My first two years at sea starting in June 49 was on he same ship, great skipper, food average, wages next to nil. but the most enjoyable two years. time From there it was a coastal tanker British Scout, great little ship and crew. Then it went down hill with a ship with an open forecastle rod and chain steering , and "What's that? Is it food. but all in all life at sea was what it is if you like it you stay; if not you don't, I stayed for 16years in all, six on the NZ coast, enjoyed every year of it, and only packed it in to be with the family.
One thing I will say if these kids that go on drugs over family feuds had gone to sea they would have been better of.
Des