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Thread: The Vindi Bridge

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    Default Re: The Vindi Bridge

    Quote Originally Posted by MAURICE HEATHER View Post
    thanks just trying to figure out how to us the site and find my way round it, just like the first day on the Vindi
    bet your not as hungary as that ist day .......and you aint never going home new boy .....cappy R683532

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    Default Re: The Vindi Bridge

    Not if you try to find the food, there was some somewhere but no one ever found it.

    Then there was the 'very nice' hairdresser who had a bit of a limp wrist.

    And the wonderful lady who could add days to your sentence just by giving you some pills. Oh Annie how could you do it?
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
    World Traveller

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  4. #13
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    Post Re: The Vindi Bridge

    Quote Originally Posted by MAURICE HEATHER View Post
    thanks just trying to figure out how to us the site and find my way round it, just like the first day on the Vindi
    Welcome Aboard Maurice !
    For you (and others of course) I recently commented on April Ashley's 'crossing the bar, and her time on Vindicatrix back in 1951. April was born George Jamieson in Liverpool in 1935,and the extract is from her memoirs 'April's Odyssey'

    Here we are;
    November 1951-Jan 1952

    '
    At fifteen I had no facial or pubic hair, my voice hadn't broken, I was not overwhelmed by sexual desire, and I hadn't shot up. In comparison many of my contemporaries were hulking brutes covered with fluff. Although I neither wanted to play with dolls nor dress up in Mother's clothes, I was constantly taunted for being like a girl and yes, I wanted to be one. Until my loss of faith I would have long conversations with God each night, asking Him to make me wake up normal, wake up a girl, wake up whatever it was proper for me to be. Instinctively, without knowing why, we all knew me to be a misfit. Therefore I decided to take myself in hand. It was no longer any good wanting to be a girl. I wanted to be a man. When nobody was around I croaked away in the lower registers until my voice was forcibly broken or at least roughened up. I couldn't speak for five days and the Indian doctor told Mother I had 'done something mental' to my voice. Far more important, I privately determined to go to sea. All the other men in my family did, even little Ivor in the end. It seemed to be one of the things that made you a man.
    My grocery deliveries took me to the smartest districts of Liverpool. Since these were a long way from the town centre, I would be given cups of tea when I arrived. One of my favourite destinations was the house of Mrs Rossiter. To me she was a creature from outer space, with her hair-dos and long fingernails, her Tradesmen's Entrance and sprinkler on the lawn. Mr Rossiter was an important man with Cunard and when I confided in his wife she arranged for him to interview me in the Cunard Building itself.
    'But you are much too young to go to sea,' he said.
    I was fifteen and looked about eleven years old. 'But I'm not too young to go to training school, am I?'
    He gave me a magnificent letter of introduction on embossed Cunard paper. It cut through all the red tape such as medical tests and parental consent, which was a boon because I had told none of my family or friends about this - not even John and Edna who were more important than anyone - in case they raised obstructions.
    The night before departure I came home from work and said, 'Mum, I'm leaving tomorrow to join a cadet ship.'
    'Well, isn't that somethin',' she said and carried on cooking Bernie's chips.

    On a damp November morning I found myself at Lime Street Station with a small brown cardboard suitcase, waiting for the train to Bristol and the 'cadet ship S.S. Vindicatrix.' (sic) My only personal memento - rosary beads. How superstition sticks!
    The course was very intense - six weeks long.


    'What are these, sir?'
    'Knots!'
    'What the bloody hell,' I thought. Knots. I never could do them. I did bows instead.
    The first three weeks were spent in nissen huts. There were about two dozen of us. We were issued with blue serge trousers and a boiler jacket, thick woolly socks, square-bashing boots and a beret to be worn at a jaunty angle. There were no fittings. Everything simply came at you out of a big cupboard. All mine were far too large. I looked like a vaudeville act.
    Up before dawn, ablutions, tidy the bed and locker, polish buttons and boots, clean the washroom, marching, breakfast, formal classes, lunch, potato-peeling and floor-scrubbing, physical jerks, dinner, lights out at 9p.m. There was no time for conversation.
    The second three weeks were more romantic. We moved on to the S.S. Vindicatrix herself, a three-masted hulk slurping up and down alongside the River Severn, where one was taught the practical skills of seamanship. I dashed up the rigging, out along the yard, and shouted 'Land ahoy!' with both lungs.
    'Come down, Jamieson. We're putting you in charge of the yacht.'
    The 'yacht' was an old cabin-cruiser used for navigation lessons. The Captain shouted 'Nor' Nor' East!' and I - straight as a matchstick behind the wheel - had to reply 'Nor' Nor' East, sir!' and turn the 'yacht' in that direction. Every order on the Bridge had to be repeated to ensure there were no errors of communication. At night we fell asleep exhausted, soothed by the creaking of the ship and the sound of water. I loved it all, especially this new experience 'companionship', even when the others bragged about girls and I went peculiar inside. My only reservation was in having to occupy a bunk when most of the class were swinging glamorously in hammocks.
    Shore leave came at Christmas but those unable to afford the fare home were allowed to stay on board. It promised to be glum until an extravagant food parcel arrived from John and Edna. Included was a huge fruit cake. I cut myself a slice and passed the rest on. In return, back came a hunk of haggis which I tasted for the first time and found not unpalatable. We shared everything, cracked jokes, and in the evening ambled over to the Mission House where the tea ladies in flimsy paper hats made a sense of occasion out of lemonade and buns. On Boxing Day three of us slipped away to the Bristol pubs and got tiddly: strictly against the rules and therefore essential to do. It was the most delightful Christmas I've ever had. By and large I loathe Christmas, bolt the doors, and watch television until it goes away.
    My final report was creditable, apart from knots, which were disastrous. We signed each other's group photograph, pledged eternal friendship, vowed to meet up in Cairo or Rio or Tokyo, and all went home.
    A few months later a young man called Colin Shipley, who was a ship's carpenter and yet another of Theresa's fiancés, said, 'There's a place going on my ship for a deck-boy. If you want it.' The next day I picked up my cardboard suitcase, opened the front door of Teynham Crescent, took a deep breath of air, coughed, and set off on the road to Manchester to join the S.S. Pacific Fortune.

    --------------------------------------

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    Default Re: The Vindi Bridge

    Well the last two weeks I got appointed Head boy on the ship which gave me access to the galley after supper I was able to sneak in and grab a load of bread with jam on and pass them out to the lads I was very popular for this.
    Last edited by Mike Hall; 5th January 2022 at 03:20 PM.

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    Default Re: The Vindi Bridge

    Were such a place be around today the owner would find himself charged with child abuse.

    The food, well the starving in Biafra did better I think.
    The accommodation was something else, prison might look good after that.

    I often wonder how females, had they been allowed, would have managed there?

    But for all the events there, including extra time for being sick, we would I am sure do it all over agaon, well most of us.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
    World Traveller

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    Default Re: The Vindi Bridge

    Chris. I will put up a photo I took with an old Kodak Brownie when I was at the Vindi in 1953.
    David

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    Default Re: The Vindi Bridge

    Graham you are probably right in saying that there could have been a better way to train boys in the art of seamanship, but for the 70.000 boys that passed through the vindie's gates i get the impression that many like myself were grateful for the opportunity to learn a trade and travel the world. Admitted we went through some tough times, sleeping in a hut on steel beds in a freezing cold winter, eating food that was considered by some a bit iffy, and the only fighting we were allowed was in the boxing ring. but then there were kids that come from homes where they had no bed to sleep on or food on the table, and i guarantee that any ship you went on after the Vindi would have to be an improvement. personally .....in my opinion i think the officers and staff at the Vindi did the best they could. I for one count myself fortunate to be a "Vindi Boy" Let us always see the glass half full and not half empty. kind regards Mark.

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    Default Re: The Vindi Bridge

    Mark, for all the negative comments, and I am guilty as much as any, your comments ring so true.

    It is only later in life when you look back and come to understand just how we all benefitted from our time at the Vindi.

    Or as one guy said the Vindi Loo as he always had the back yard trots while there.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
    World Traveller

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    Default Re: The Vindi Bridge

    For all I have read on here and the bloke now in care in the village here , the Vindi did its job of trying to prepare you for what may of been just over the horizon. I have never heard anyone talk bad of it, moan yes everyone at sea moans at one time or other, coming out in one piece at the other end and not referring to ablutions, proves the point. Cheers JS
    R575129

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    Default Re: The Vindi Bridge

    Quote Originally Posted by j.sabourn View Post
    For all I have read on here and the bloke now in care in the village here , the Vindi did its job of trying to prepare you for what may of been just over the horizon. I have never heard anyone talk bad of it, moan yes everyone at sea moans at one time or other, coming out in one piece at the other end and not referring to ablutions, proves the point. Cheers JS
    the two main probs john was the food and cold ......but the food was soon forgotten on your ist vessel ......poridge and egg every morning at sea big duffs on sunday .....i never had such good food at home and guess niether did any other boy from the vindi ...as for the cold there was no hot water in the ablutions and i recall this supposed ship officer shouting wash yor dirty bodies in the outside ablutions it was nov when i was there and no heat in the nissan type hut iether....we had some type of asian flu and had two days in the hospital .....were the nurse stuffed codiene down you ...hence her name codiene annie but all most of us wanted was our discharge book .....quite a few boys shot through at night .....and i do recall one built like the proverbial crying .....i didnt think it would be like this.....but we drew straws in our hut to get out at night and we got a loaf of bread which we ate inchunks .....penalty if court a sending home.....always went to church on sunday in berkely as we could get a sandwich and biscuit provided by the locals......i believe that the major shipping companies with some government help paid for the food rationing .....but it was a disgrace in quallty and cookinghence the food on your ist tramp was like xmas every day ......i can remember a massive tin of fruit only half used working by and the cook saying do you want it ,,,,,i can taste the fruit juice and pineapple now as i guzzled it ...alwas two three eggs for breakfast ...which was a change from home sharing an egg with my brother.....porrage and two meat dinners jeez it was a new world but the vindi was a hard time for many ....most survived....R683532

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