crew makeup 50-60s

[Keith Tindell]

I was thinking back 50 years or so, and tied in with todays thoughts of the Europeans working in the Uk at present. I seem to recall in that period ie 50-60s on lots of the ships i served on had real mixes, in fact on the St Merriel, i was the only member of the deck crew that was a Brit. They were mainly German, but on many ships we had Poles Lithuanian Belgium Dutch, Indonesian, Samali etc. I know this was shortly after the war and displaced people of all races, but as i recall we all got on very well. Just dwelling on memories Regards KT

[Stuart Henderson]

I was at sea 1947 to 1977 on a great variety of types of ships & companies all but one of these ships flying the Red Ensign. the exception being a Panamanian Esso tanker to which I was assigned by Dock St Pool but this too had British crew, In later years sailed with an Indian crew Brocklebanks and Chineses crew Panocean but British Officers. Did in 50s have one Polish & one Latvian shipmatel but certainly not like you are describing....
Stuart

[Keith Tindell]

I was from 58-65, and not heavily crewed by europeans, but almost every ship contained a pole, or dutchman , etc, two ships i was the only deck crew English, st merriel, and baltic trader , home port Hamburg, the point i was making was a lot of europeans shipped on british ships. All of my ships were British register, with mainly Brit officers. I was Ab, or in the case of St Merriel , Sos regards KT

[robpage]

Quite a few Poles in UCL in the 1960s - 1970s ex wartime refugees , or pre war evacuees

[Rocky]

Only at sea in the 80s sailed with a few from wherever but 3 i remember most were 3 from Malta on different ships all called George and known as Maltese George

As i only sailed with 3 from Malta its either coincidence or they were extremely short of names

[stewart morrison]

That was my period of service in the merchant navy 58-66 and we never saw a foreigner apart from two yarpies on NZ rangi ships, didnt seem to be many shipping out of Victoria & Albert docks London in those days, cheers..

[len mazza]

Sailed on a couple of Shell Tankersthat had a few Dutchmen on deck,sent from Rotterdam if I remember correctly,no tanker men on the Pool at the time?,

[len mazza]

Maybe we signed them on in Rotterdam,that sounds a bit more likely don't you reckon?.

[j.sabourn]

The only restrictions on the period that is being discussed, was that the Master and Chief Engineer had to be of British Citizenship, Certificates of Competency had to also be British. You will probably find also that those foreigners all had British Discharge books so had been cleared through the British Shipping Federation. Or had exemptions through the BOT. Regards John Sabourn

[Louis the Amigo]

hi shipmates, in my short time at sea , crews were allways mixed !!!! Welsh, scottish, english {from up north}a few arabs in engine room and maybe a few Africans and the odd strange one from places far and near The officers were all perfect gentleman from well to do familys from middle england or scotland engineeers all came from there, no outsiders did I come across in my time it was a long time ago