"Dear John" letters

[John Blaney]

1961 on the cargo ship "Travalgan" (Haines), the galley boy, a lad from Birmingham on his first trip, received a letter
from his girl friend saying she was dumping him, he set fire to the laundry room that night hoping the ship would return
to the UK.
It didn't happen, the alarm was raised in the middle of the night, smoke everywhere, and all assembled out on the hatches,
tea made in the galley, no panic, fire under control, the ship continued to Melbourne, Australia, the midships bulkheads burnt black, where authorities boarded and questioned all the crew.
Nobody pointed a finger, but they had already established who was responsible, I think he admitted it, and was taken ashore
don't know if they were police, never saw that lad again, but it shows how devastating a "Dear John (or Dick, or Harry) could be,
some letters were displayed so we all could read them and maybe offer some sympathy or just talk about it, helped to stop being
too depressed, some of these women probably did the lads a favour by dumping them. Hope they weren't too hard on that galley boy, I only knew him as "Brum".

("Dear John, sorry to have to write to tell you this, but.....") OMG

John B

[Captain Kong]

I used to get them every trip, meet a girl in the Palais or the Locarno, take her out big time for two weeks, then ship out, first port, Dear John
.
It always went onto the Notice board for a good laugh from all hands.
On an Esso Tanker one lad got one off his wife, he hung himself in the cabin,
That cabin was haunted by him when I joined a few months later. The cabin was wrecked by him and he broke my ankle. A story I have wrotten about.
My wife never sent me a Dear John.
I flew home on leave and found an empty house, All the furniture disappeared. The kids said a man turned with a big van up and she and him loaded all the furniture and cleared off the day before I came home. I had to sleep on the floor that night.
Brian

[Ron B Manderson]

I thought we all had one .
Yip up on the board and into the bar.
Plenty of fish in the sea
Ron the batcave

[Bob Cheeseman]

Got mine at the Vindi, a lesson in life that stayed with me till i married, 46 years this time around 20 of them at sea ,just got to get the right one and look after her

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Bob.
Getting one while at the Vindi would have been half Hell, full Hell was being there Ha ha

Got mine at the Vindi, a lesson in life that stayed with me till i married, 46 years this time around 20 of them at sea ,just got to get the right one and look after her

[happy daze john in oz]

Only one I got was when still at high school but did send a few to females who wanted more than I was prepared to give. I had no money then anyway so what to give?

[j.sabourn]

Was even harder for those christened John, every flaming letter you got, even from your parents was a Dear john. JS

[Doc Vernon]

Some of those Dear John letters at times came as a Blessing in disguise for me !
Wonder just how many of those Chicks ever thought why did I break away from him!
I bet many later in life were sorry,and saw the folly in their decisions!
Cheers

[Dennis McGuckin]

Got mine from what turned out to be, years later, my future wife.
Cabin mate stuck the letter on the notice board.
Was told it was a tradition to buy beer for all hands.
Think someone sucked me in.
Good thing I was on a small cargo boat at the time.

[John Blaney]

Back then I didn't get serious enough with women to encourage them to write, mostly met them in bars and dance halls, so no Dear Johns,
untill I met the girl who is now my wife, she wrote me regularly while on the Castle boats, and one time I got her letter in Las Palmas
telling me she would be going to a wedding as Best Maid, I didn't know the Best Man, and for the first time, realized I was jealous.
Not long after that we got engaged and I quit going deep sea but had a helluva time settling down ashore and took a job with Northern Lighthouse Board
on supply ship "Hesperus" and was home most nights except when ship was at sea on reliefs.
We now have 2 boys, 4 granddaughters and 2 great grandchildren, all because I couldn't handle the thought of getting a Dear John from this one,
but I guess we all get stung eventually fellas.