The 4 day week ?

[j.sabourn]

#29 That was married in 1965 then Keith , should have waited until the strike started the following year , then come back after it and earned all this extra massive money expected after it finished to pay for the wedding .? JS
Happy Anniversary in Advance JS

[Keith Tindell]

I think i posted before John, when taking my ABs ticket, had gone to London Fire Brigade as part of the ticket for fire fighting at sea, and the guy taking us matelots said the fire brigade would take the whole course on, and as a job looked good, so that went in to my mental filing cabinet, so by the time of the strike i was employed by Hampshire Fire Brigade. To stay with the subject of a four day week, the Fire Service today still work a 42 hr week, although mostly on shifts.

[Michael Jobson]

You really had it soft Rodney.
You should have been a deck officer on a tanker doing the Gulf-Suez run. 135 degrees F in the shade on the bridge in the Gulf. Sea temperature 90 degrees plus.
For engineers it was even worse, especially on steam turbine ships - 150 degrees in the engine room I was told.
12 hour days in port loading or unloading (6 on 6 off). As often as not straight on watch after stations, then a 9-10 hour day at sea what with meal reliefs, sights and other maintenance (gyro compass etc). I'll leave others to work out how many hours that was. We loved it... that's why we joined up - or was it to escape the wife?
They were talking about remote-controlled ships with no crew on board even then -1960s-70s.

[James Curry]

To be away from home for long periods was the main reason most of us joined the MN.
Being away from the grey humdrum life of a shore worker, to escape for a life of adventure travelling the world.

And sadly Louis that opportunity is no longer there for young people today. It is go back packing if you want to see the world on a tight budget.

[Robert Arlington]

After Covid a lot of workers now work from home. Bit difficult to organise a strike for these!

[Rodney Mills]

Michael #34.

Assume you are 'Toung in cheeking' me Michael. My turn. While you were enjoying your meals dressed in your sailor suite in the officers dining room, what do you think the temperature was on the cook frying your breakfast eggs or broiling you evening fillet mignon, standing over an oil burning stove, in the tropics, that often backfired in the morning and blew soot all over a panful of eggs and you had to dump them and start over again. balancing a tray of eggs between your bellybutton and the lip of the stove and cracking two eggs at a time, one in each hand?

In the tropics, there was no such thing as a cushy job. Though not the tropics. New Orleans is miserable in the summer. The hell ship La Cumbre went to New Orleans and upon leaving and heading down the Mississippi to the gulf a wonderful breeze came up. The Sparks locked the door open and got back on the box. The ship pulled over and anchored. We were adjacent to a swamp, the breeze died, the mosquitoes arrived En-mass, poor old Sparks, got eaten alive as he couldn't leave the radio. Nobody had a soft touch....Except of course, those other guys.

Cheers, Rodney

[George Bis]

I hear what you are saying but with people you can find a case to prove what you wish
I have been retired 8 years but before that I was in the Road Haulage industry and there were plenty who enjoyed 70 weeks.
When the EU brought in the Working Time Directive to limit work to an average of 48 hours you should have heard the moans
One driver told me that if he couldn’t work a 70 hour week it would cost him a fortune buying PlayStations
The other change was that “Smoko” changed from a leisurely 30 min. to an anxious 10 min

[George Bis]

By the time I was 30 I had see the world and been paid for doing it!

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Michael post 34
I was on mainly tankers, I know what you had to put up with, as although I wasn't a mate, running around the deck up the Gulf was no picnic, but I loved it, so much so I did four trips on the same tanker, British Guardian, and two twelve months trips running oil from the Gulf and from the refinery in Aden all over the world, I was on ten different tankers. Untill I got the dream job on the NZ Trans Tasman coasters
Cheers Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Louis, I have to agree with you, life ashore was very boring.
It was my time at sea that gave me the travel bug, it has never left me.
No matter what I may be doing I am always thinking of my next trip no matter if big or small.