Deck Certification

[happy daze john in oz]

John, being a total abstainer is not easy, but someone has to do it.
Well done to your good lady, she kept her faith, more than many of us did.

Unlike me and others who tried to follow the line it did not work.
Attempted once to give up smokes and drink.
It was the worst four hours of my life.

[j.sabourn]

Wouldn’t really know John never tried that one. Smoking was bad enough took 3 or 4 goes over the years was finally in my fourties when cut back to 1 cigar every 6 months or so if could find a solitary hiding place to smoke, now completely void of such purely because all too expensive especially when someone is hounding you for 3/9d. Cheers , Campi, Salutez , and Bobs your Uncle and Fannys your Aunt. JS

[Tony Taylor]

#29. Tony although I married a Gateshead girl my knowledge of the pubs there is very sparse and besides that her knowledge would be sparse also as she is strictly teetotal and alcohol has never passed her lips unless some leaked from me. Her being a member of the girls brigade and taken the oath has never broken, after 62 years of marriage she has failed in my case however of doing a conversion job on me. However her family moved down to Whitley Bay when she was 17 and I met her in the Empress Ballroom after being chucked out of the Grosvenor pub now long gone opposite Pops Amusement Arcade on the opposite sidewalk. So my knowledge of Gateshead is very limited only what I picked up from her family nearly 70 years ago. Cheers JS ps to put the cat among the pigeons she was also a Sunday School teacher. Who says like poles repel and unlike poles attract. JS

I only became aware of it myself in early eighties when I worked just along the road, i used to go there for lunch on Fridays as it was very cheap and decent chow, very basic, none of the crockery or cutlery matched etc. but decent meal. It was my best mate who had worked for Clarke CHAPMAN, since early sixties who told me the nickname.
It is now very popular and consequently more expensive, virtually impossible to get near the place.

[Noel Kelly]

You lot will find this hard to believe but I have been teetotal my entire life. Must have been 16-17 when I had my first taste of beer in the Honeysuckle pub on Coatsworth road. It tasted awful and I never finished it, and came to find out that all drinks plus wine tasted like nasty medicine. Never drink or drank coffee cos I didn't like the taste of that either.
Mind you, I always went into pubs with me mates, paid me round but only drank lemonade, couldn't even tolerate a shandy. As for Whitley Bay, used o go to the Rex on a weekend when I was young and daft.
Was a smoker but quit about 50 years ago, I found it very easy to quit.

[j.sabourn]

Good on yer Noel should be a good candidate for your 100 year telegram if they are still going then. My son nearly 60 now is the same , asked me what cigarettes were like when he was 10 , out of sight of his mother said here try one and has never smoked since. When he was 14 came on holiday to Yugoslavia with us and went to some wine festival in the mountains there bought him a jug of wine between him and his pal, he has never drank since either. Myself was smoking my Grandfathers clay pipes at 10 and making our homemade whiskey with with my mate at 14 , but didn’t stop me . Must have different taste buds. Maybe the way I peeled the potatoes for the whiskey ? Cheers JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

I was up the club yesterday and this old French bloke I know came up and told me he had another heart attack last week, he is lucky, has a flat across from the hospital. He had just come back from having a smoke in the smoke room, I was loath to tell him why he was having these attacks, at 83 he probably wouldn't have stopped anyway.
Des

[j.sabourn]

Should have called him a young fellah Des , may hurt his feelings if thinks people think of him as old. Wish I was 83 again would at least be able to walk without a stick again , sending both my crutches back to the hospital on Monday , bought my own walking stick , couldn’t find a sword stick which would of been handy today in this present violent world. Have had those crutches now for 14 months and if don’t get rid of them now will be dependent for the rest of my life on them. A much more elegant walking stick unfortuanetley minus the sword bit is more appropriate. Cheers JS.

[happy daze john in oz]

Like many had my first smoke at the tender age of about 8, as was the time for my first drink.
Got to as many as 60 smokes a day on the USA Chesterfields.
Gave it up when I got the only Flu dose in my life at about 27, but was on Uk smokes by then at about 5 a day.

As to the drink, well as a professional drinker I believe it is my duty to ensure the daily average of all here in Oz is maintained.
I does me bit!!!

[Ken Atkinson]

With Reardon Smith we had a 4/E who had previously been a draughtsman and on joining had been allocated five years sea-time instead of the usual eighteen months for cadets or heavy engineering apprentices before taking their second engineer's exam.

[Michael Jobson]

Possibly: Boiler - Steam - Turbine. Same process anywhere, not exclusively on ships E.g. Industrial plants such as paper, chemicals, and food,
Commercial buildings with high thermal loads such as hospitals, District heating sites such as universities, Thermal power plants that use coal, fuel oil or nuclear fuel, Chemical and pharmaceutical industries, Waste plants, etc.