What motivated you all to join the Merchant Navy.

[George Gunn]

I think it would be very interesting to find out some of the reasons that made our members decide to want to go to sea.
My story is very simple; when I was about 14 years old I met a local guy who would have been around 16 or 17 he was in denim, cowboy boots and very unusual for Inverness a suntan !! he said that he was in the Merchant Navy and that he had just returned from a 4 month trip to various countries. I just listened and looked at him and thought ,: That's for me !! Following that and talking to some of my friends we all became fascinated with this idea and discovered a number other local guys who were also at sea and they all looked so confident and cool with a certain swagger that really sold the deal to us in the end there was 5 of us who applied when we were old enough and we all subsequently tripped off to Gravesend or the Vindi then off to sea.

[Doc Vernon]

My reason was that first of all i was Working in the Docks as a Tally Clerk at 17. this of course gave me lots of good time seeing the Ships come and go.
Besides that my late Brother who was three Years my Senior joined up, and off he went, leaving me and my young Sister behind!
So at that point i had then decided to follow my Brother when i could, it took a Year but i got there , and was lucky in that a Ship in Cape Town Port the Dunnottar Castle, was short Crewed , in the Catering Dept.
Having had experience in that field on the Long Distance Trains in South Africa (Silver Service) i was taken on as 1st class asst stwd. Wow! what excitement!
From then that was it, again though having to leave my Young Sister behind. However she understood, and was of course with our Mum, in good hands.
Cheers

[j.sabourn]

My choice was originally think I have said before was to go into the RN as a boy seaman. My heroes at the time were the crew of HMS Amythist and the Yangste incident. At School the headmaster who was a past Hostilities only naval rating called my parents in and told them or advised them not to let me join the armed forces and if still wanted to go to sea then join the MN and said he would find out any schemes for doing so. He did with all the appropriate money aids .My old man wanted me to go as an apprentice in the building trade the way of his life style and said to me I will have you clerk of the works by the time your 26 and was very disappointed when I said no thank you he was very disappointed .After my first 6 months at sea I was extremely fortunate to be let off the ship in Purfleet on the Thames and think the old man made a mistake thinking I was a cadet. Anyhow to cut a long story short I got a telegram to rejoin the ship 2 days later in Cardiff where she was ,loading coal for South America. Anyhow when I did arrive home late in the evening and knocking on the door my father answered it and was surprised to see me, the first thing he said was “ well have you had enough ?” . If he had kept his mouth shut I would probably have said the same thing in the affirmative. Just him saying that I replied
“ no it’s a great life” , I would be a lying basket if I said anything different. Once making a decision I have always made it my aim in life to abide by it. That’s why I stuck it out through all the bad times on rust buckets and lousy jobs to reach 65 and when asked to stay on to 70 said no thank you. The worse of the rot started after 1966 and I blame the government hand in hand with the shipowner at the time. Cheers JS

[Des Jenkins]

When I left school at 14 I went to work like most kids. boys and girls in the area in the Tin Plate works, a boy doing a mans job all for 2 quid a week for six and a half days.
When I was fifteen and a half I applied to the Shipping Federation to go to a sea school, they sent back all the details , but then I had a letter to say that over 16 and to old for the next intake, but someone must have relented and put me in right then I was I think 15 and a quarter years old. Then had to battle my mother to sign the papers, my Dad having lft home, in the end she relented and signed. it was June 1949 and Vindi here I come.
Des

[j.sabourn]

I remember the first words said to me on joining my first ship in Avonmouth Des. Think it was the punch drunk bosun saying who are you , and my reply , I’m the new apprentice, his reply was what we need are ABs and not BAs. I was that innocent then I was chuffed at first to think someone would think I was a Bachelor of Arts, until I found out the real meaning. The ships officers was an oft remark to me “ you’ll never get a ticket as long as you have a hole in your rectum”: so I made the effort and proved them wrong even sailing with some of them in later life me in a more senior role to them , the pleasure I got out of that is indescribable . Life is what you make it on your own efforts. If one likes one’s job one aims for the top and not take orders from people you don’t respect. Cheers JS

[J Gowers]

I was talked in to going to sea by the journeymen I worked with as an apprentice. Many of these guys during the days of National Service did five years in the Merchant Navy rather than doing two years in the forces. They told me stories of the exotic places they had been, Bugis Street in Singapore, Grant Road in Bombay (sorry Mumbai), Australian sheilas and New Zealand nurses who would turn up on the ship, at a click of the fingers, when told a party was on, Brazil where there were all shades of women from blonde Arian goddesses to black afro queens. It did not take me long after this great evaluation of Merchant Navy life to be scrabbling through the phone book to find the phone number of J&J Denholm and get away to these far flung exotic places. You guessed it the first far flung foreign port was Ras Tanura in Saudi, it was so exotic there was not a woman sight and even worse than that no beer in the whole country. I have to say I did get to most of those other places at a later date.

Through Denholms I gained my Chief Engineers ticket and after 15 years in the MN I went over to the dark side, drilling rigs of all types where I worked all over the World for the next 30 years.
I never actually sailed as Chief on merchant vessel. However the ticket was my entrance qualification to go to offshore drilling rigs where I worked mostly as a Maintenance Supervisor, which is a similar job to a Chief Engineer on a ship, then later as shore based maintenance support and Technical Manager but I ended my career back offshore as Chief Engineer on Dynamically Positioned Drill Ships.
I often wonder what would have happened if I had gone back to working ashore after that first trip. I may have ended up working in a factory as mechanical fitter for the rest of my life instead becoming a Chief Engineer and travelling the World for over forty years, visiting more than sixty countries and meeting hundreds of people and having a big adventure. This quote from a ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ by Charles Dickens summed up my time at sea and on rigs, “It was the worst of times, it was the best of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness”, there were a lot more good times than bad and I gained a lot of knowledge although I have got to admit I was a bit foolish at times however I would not have changed a single minute of it.

[Tony Taylor]

I was talked in to going to sea by the journeymen I worked with as an apprentice. Many of these guys during the days of National Service did five years in the Merchant Navy rather than doing two years in the forces. They told me stories of the exotic places they had been, Bugis Street in Singapore, Grant Road in Bombay (sorry Mumbai), Australian sheilas and New Zealand nurses who would turn up on the ship, at a click of the fingers, when told a party was on, Brazil where there were all shades of women from blonde Arian goddesses to black afro queens. It did not take me long after this great evaluation of Merchant Navy life to be scrabbling through the phone book to find the phone number of J&J Denholm and get away to these far flung exotic places. You guessed it the first far flung foreign port was Ras Tanura in Saudi, it was so exotic there was not a woman sight and even worse than that no beer in the whole country. I have to say I did get to most of those other places at a later date.

Through Denholms I gained my Chief Engineers ticket and after 15 years in the MN I went over to the dark side, drilling rigs of all types where I worked all over the World for the next 30 years.
I never actually sailed as Chief on merchant vessel. However the ticket was my entrance qualification to go to offshore drilling rigs where I worked mostly as a Maintenance Supervisor, which is a similar job to a Chief Engineer on a ship, then later as shore based maintenance support and Technical Manager but I ended my career back offshore as Chief Engineer on Dynamically Positioned Drill Ships.
I often wonder what would have happened if I had gone back to working ashore after that first trip. I may have ended up working in a factory as mechanical fitter for the rest of my life instead becoming a Chief Engineer and travelling the World for over forty years, visiting more than sixty countries and meeting hundreds of people and having a big adventure. This quote from a ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ by Charles Dickens summed up my time at sea and on rigs, “It was the worst of times, it was the best of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness”, there were a lot more good times than bad and I gained a lot of knowledge although I have got to admit I was a bit foolish at times however I would not have changed a single minute of it.

Excellent summary, which I think wold apply to most of us!

[Ivan Cloherty]

I was talked in to going to sea by the journeymen I worked with as an apprentice. Many of these guys during the days of National Service did five years in the Merchant Navy rather than doing two years in the forces. .

As Tony says an excellent summary.

However it was more like 10 years at sea than five for some, As could get called up at anytime between 18 and 26 years of age, and if you did serve in the MN at those ages whilst NS was still active you went on the reserve list until you were 36 years old if you came ashore at 27 years of age, and the majority of us went to sea at 16 years old, engineers it was usually 20/22 years old because of serving time ashore, as engineering apprentices were not de rigour until about 1960, then they started at 18.

My own love affair with the MN started during the war, as my father had been away for nearly two years and in that time we had been bombed out three times, for some inexplicable reason the crew were not allowed ashore or leave and had to anchor in the River Humber due to nature of the cargo, my mother had apparently got in touch with the MOWT and somehow got a sympathetic ear and got us permission to visit the ship and the Pilot Boat took us down to Spurn Point, all I remember was seeing this big grey and black castle floating in the water (I was 5 or 6 at the time) with armed guards on the gangway and my older sister and myself being kept entertained whilst mother and father apparently got re-acquainted, resulting in a younger brother who alas died in childbirth later. From that day forward I was smitten and although after the third bombing living in the Yorkshire Dales I never ever forget that huge castle and the smell of the sea, and when we got a house in Hull when I was 12.5 years old, I was on my first trawler at the age of 13 bound for the Arctic Circle. Thank you Adolf and the Luftwaffe .for giving me a taste for travel.

[happy daze john in oz]

Left school at just 16, went to work on a pig farm my step father had a share in, did not get on too well with the partner.
My mate I had known since I was 7 had gone to sea with P&O, home on leave after his first voyage and told me of the wonders he had seen.

Cousin of mum had been a bosun and had often told me of his time at sea, but I was a bit too young to understand.

My step father said it would do me good to go into the army, in your dreams man!!!!

One Saturday morning after about 3 months on the farm I had a heated discussion with the partner and told him where to go.
Ent home and mum said, why you home so early.

Told her the story, she said what will you do next.

Monday i am off to the pool in London, went and before I knew it was off to the Vindi, best thing i ever did for myself.

When he found to the cousin told me about some 'odd 'men who sometimes looked like women, both of us never knew then my first ship would be with UCL

[Mike Hall]

Me,it was suggested i join the Air Force to cover my national service,i had other ideas.
I applied for the Merchant Navy.Had a medical at Gravesend then got the Vindi course.
My first ship the Tyrone,my step dad took me too London docks in the family car (HE WAS A LONG DISTANCE LORRY DRIVER).
We left London and sailed for Cornerbrook,six days into the voyage i had my sixteenth Birthday.
like us all i have lasting memories.MIKE.