French tactics

[Bill Morrison]

I always understood that your Dis.Ch. book was your own personal property. In the advent of not having a passport a British Seaman's Card could be used. It was valid for five years and was supposed to be handed in to a superintendent if you ceased to be sea-going. I never surrendered mine, so I was liable to prosecution!!
Bill.

[j.sabourn]

quite correct Biil think we all thought that as the reason why the red book replaced the green. The green book however had more info.on such as fingerprints etc. so there must have been another reason for , and by the time it did come out seafarers were getting more civilised and procuring passports which enabled them to go to Spain for their holidays. The motive was probably to some parliamentary persons advantage who had shares in some printing business, similar to the enquiry when the new type of lifejackets were brought out by law. The person who proposed them in the House had shares in the company that made them .JS....

[happy daze john in oz]

Still have both books, no one told me to hand the Red one in.

As to Australian Martatime Union, it is now amalgamated with the CFMEU as it had so few members it was at the point of losing Union status I was informed.

[Keith Tindell]

51 Bill, in the 60s i was on a ship, home port Hamburg, mainly German crew, one of them suggested i come with him for the weekend to Berlin. I never had a passport in my time at sea. Using my seaman's ID card i was able to fly to Berlin,no trouble at all. Only when i came to fly back out did it cause trouble, they would not initially accept it, luckily the German guy was able to talk to them, and after a while they let me fly. Remember this was when Berlin was in the Western sector, and before the wall. Later i was told the ID card was only good for so many miles round the port you were in, i think it was 14 miles i was told. Different world then.